On 4/14/2011 1:40, Invisible wrote:
> When I read stuff like this, I find myself wondering: Are all American
> people actually stupid? Or is it merely a very vocal minority?

First, I think this is a relatively recent phenomenon. I don't remember 
anything beyond arguing over abortion and making fun of TV megachurch 
preachers until maybe 20 years ago. Nobody argued over evolution or kicked 
people out of school for saying "One Nation Under God" or whatever. Religion 
was just a non-subject for the most part.

I think what happened is (a) the USSR collapsed so there was nobody outside 
to hate mindlessly other than the Chinese who refused to invade anyone but 
other orientals, (b) politicians realized they could polarize the voters on 
abortion issues with the help of the churches, (c) talk radio hosts realized 
they could raise a bunch of listeners by telling stupid gullible people what 
they wanted to hear, which eventually turned into politicians listening to 
the now-vocal stupid gullible people.

The TV church people are a good example. You often see tapes of them in 
private saying how easy it is to bilk the people stupid enough to believe 
they know what they're talking about, etc. So a lot of it is just loud rich 
people taking advantage of stupid gullibility, and that sadly includes the 
politicians, who will go along with the stupid gullible stuff to get into 
and stay in office while they also do the selfish evil crap everyone hates.

I mean, there were always stupid gullible people. But until you gave them 
something like the internet, where everyone in the country could hear them 
and find other stupid gullible people, the few rational people around them 
could keep them in check by saying "No, sorry, that's stupid and gullible, 
please keep that to yourself."

But now you can get on the internet and get all the reinforcement of stupid 
ideas you need and ignore all the objections thereto by simply not looking 
at them.

> Of course, America has a reputation for being crazy. I even saw an advert
> for Californian peanuts which proclaimed "California has the best nuts". But
> is it actually true? Or is it just a few loonies who make it look like it's
> true?

I personally think it was basically harmless until you gave the loonies a 
platform where they could reach other loonies without the rational people 
hearing them.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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