Morons on Parade
For more in the “people can be idiots” vein:
It was pointed out recently that the men who decided to ban abortion in South Dakota had overlooked something: the last time abortion was illegal they didn’t have DNA testing. Which means that preventing abortions, if it works, will create a lot more court orders for child support. Oops. So to compensate, the same self-righteous dicks who want to control women’s reproductive choices are now whining they they don’t have as many choices or as many rights as women do–so men should have the choice to “opt out” of paying child support. But it’s not so bad for the mother, they say–after all, if she can’t afford the baby, she can always give it up for adoption. What generous and fair-minded sweethearts those guys are.
On a different front: fully half of Americans reject evolution, even as a tool used by God to develop life. They say it happened just like it says in the Bible. Which also means that pi equals three and if you eat shellfish then you’re going straight to hell. Not to mention that the universe, which is constructed to appear as if it has existed for billions of years, and the Earth, complete with billions of years of physical evidence of increasingly-complex life forms including dinosaurs and so forth–it’s all a big hoax perpetrated by God to test our faith. That’s right, the known universe of countless trillions of trillions of stars and planets is nothing more than a massive lie for the benefit of us on Earth, a trick invented by our Creator to see whether you will believe in (a) the infinite, magnificent grandeur of God’s own creation, or (b) a bunch of religious fanatics’ narrow interpretation of a book of legends and parable. Easy choice for the person lacking the reason God gave cement, but who has gobs of blind faith.
Three college “pranksters” have been arrested for burning nine (possibly ten) churches in Alabama. Apparently, the first few church burnings were “just a joke,” and the others were the joke “getting out of hand.” After the first arsons, the three men lit the other churches on fire to throw investigators off the track. Good thinking.
What report on morons would be complete without the ones populating our nation’s capital? The House just passed a bill that would strip warning labels off of food. Labels that tell consumers about minor, unimportant stuff, like “this water contains dangerous levels of arsenic,” “the candy you’re about to feed your kid is laden with lead,” or “if you eat this food you could die from an allergic reaction.” That’s right, the tired old bureaucratic minutiae that no one needs, and just breaks up the nice, smooth brand-name art that is packaging design.
The rationale? These warnings are required in some states and not others, which means that corporations which produce toxic products have to go to extra expense to make two versions–one that warns consumers of the dangers, and one that hides these facts from the people who live in states that don’t protect their citizens. Oh, the hardships the corporations must endure!
So to relieve the poor megacorps from such bothersome burdens, your Representatives want to just do away with state-by-state warning labels altogether. Of course, the products in question are, by definition, sold in many states and often nationwide–but your politicians apparently feel that protections some states have had the brains to put into place are not required at the national level. Yet another case of the Congress showing who they serve: no, not you, you idiot. They serve the people who pay them, not the ones who vote for them. Just like when they passed a bankruptcy bill that favored the credit and banking industry and shafted you. Or when they passed legislation that prevented the government from negotiating down prices of medicine, favoring big pharmaceuticals and costing you billions.
But they’re not the dumb ones. The people who vote for them are. The people who have plain evidence of a corrupt government right in front of them, evidence as plain as day that Bush, Cheney, and the GOP are screwing them blind, and yet still vote for them. But then again, this is the age of a faith-based America, an America that believes evolution is a myth, an America that believes the word instead of the world.
I hate to say that Americans who voted for Bush or didn’t vote at all deserve what they’re getting, because all the ones who voted against Bush don’t deserve this, and it’s painful to see any American suffer because too many are just too dumb to pound sand. But taken collectively, the American people are reaping what they have sown.