Before you come at me with all the "how dare you" and "love it or leave it," remember, these are the words of a crusty curmudgeon who harbors many opinions and changes his mind frequently. Call it Elderly Privilege.
There are other countries in North America. If you don't believe me, look at a map (flat) or globe (round), and you will notice it shows Canada to our north and Mexico to our south. I'm pointing this out, so there is no confusion when I refer to Americans. When I say Americans, I am referring to the citizenry of The United States of America.
Much of the world views us as foolish people. They watch in stunned amazement as the dumbfuckery unfolds daily. They realize we are far from exceptional, which runs contrary to what we have told them. Who, you may ask, views us in such a way? Only the entire rest of the world is the answer. They see us as rednecks, hopelessly stuck in the past, living like it is the 1800s, and we're shooting our way out of the wild west.
Look at our stubborn refusal to accept and adopt the metric system, or Celsius over Fahrenheit. Why should we? If it is good enough for us, then let the entirety of the modern world change to match our way, am I right? I believe this highlights our intellectual laziness. We boast about our smartness, while our collective beliefs demonstrate otherwise. Here's an example; Look at our political landscape today. It is rife with denialism, clinging to ideas even when presented with irrefutable facts proving them wrong. That is called confirmation bias or denialism and is a real thing often studied by experts. Do you think I'm wrong?
How about this example? Some people today, our fellow citizens, think the Nazi Holocaust in World War II, one of the most heinous, evil acts ever perpetrated, never happened. Despite all the evidence, they refuse to accept it as fact.
Here are some additional interesting factoids showcasing our intellectual prowess; A survey found that 37% of us can not name anything from the Bill of Rights. Do you think that's bad? 74% can not name the three branches of government. It gets worse...25% of us think the sun orbits the earth. Hello, Flat Earth Society...yes, it exists, and they have members. Many folks believe that, opposite to all the scientific evidence, dinosaurs and humans roamed the earth together simultaneously. It ignores the evidence, but I saw the Jurassic Park movies, and all I can say is it must have been fun times.
Then we have our climate-change deniers and our anti-vaxxers. Never mind covid or the flu, I'm talking about measles, mumps, and rubella, the MMR shot. Even though the autism bullshit gets debunked repeatedly, they cling to their confirmation bias. Even though storm intensity is getting worse and scientists issue dire warnings, climate-change deniers laugh it off. That's denialism.
Many hold onto misconceptions about sexual activity that are hilariously sad. Have sex standing up, or load up on salty food, and most importantly, only during a quarter moon. And one of my personal favorites is; Eat a sweet dessert and do the deed only during a full moon. What's with all the food items? Aren't we already eating enough?
A prevailing joke suggests we fight wars to teach geography. The truth is that over one-half of us could not locate it on a map during the Iraq war. The same for Iran and Israel, but it gets worse, as the survey indicated the same participants could not find New York.
Carl Sagan's book, The Demon-Haunted World, discusses the scientific illiteracy of our country. He wrote about it years ago; unfortunately, we have not improved. Yes, some of us are dumb. Do you need more proof? Ok, the USA is the only first-world country (becoming questionable) without universal healthcare. Spare me the "we're the best" argument. We're also fat, but that's another topic.
Need another reason? Ok, in a word...Trump. No, wait...another word...oligarchy. And one more...gerontocracy. Look them up in a dictionary...sigh, or Google.
You can't fix stupid.
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