Big Dummies Getting Bigger

Stupidity reaches critical mass

Probably the overwhelming part of public monies in the Western world are spent on stupidity. It's possible that my definition of stupidity may vary from yours, so we should define our terms before we come to blows over this:
Both Dictionary.com and American Heritage Dictionary waffle on their definitions. Dictionary.com terms the condition "the state, quality, or fact of being stupid." American Heritage says, "the quality or condition of being stupid." In today's parlance, "well, duh!"
Wordnet gets it right. This dictionary defines stupidity as "a poor ability to understand or to profit from experience."
Think about it (if you dare). Much of what's in the news each and every day is simply the result of stupidity. Perhaps a few specifics will help.
How about the relationship between working and eating? The Bible, a great resource for any student of human nature, observes in both the old and new testaments that "if you don't work, you don't eat" (check Proverbs and 2 Thessalonians).
What about the wisdom of single-parent households? Much effort has gone into removing the social stigma of out-of-wedlock births. Will one parent be able to provide the same opportunities in life as two?
In the physical realm, what about Southern California's latest and greatest wildfires? As part of my earliest chemistry lessons I learned that fire requires fuel, heat and oxygen. Remove one, and fire cannot start. At this writing, 1 million people in Southern California are being evacuated from their homes. Why?
And isn't human development clearly the enemy of nature? Academia, the media and politicians now use any natural event from volcanoes to cow farts as a way to remind us of the perils of "global warming."
The public tax burden for just these few examples is mind-boggling. Once government took over the burden of private charity, it quickly became impossible to distinguish between those who can't work – and those who won't work. The result? Taxes were raised to pay for the government's "charity" and soon the only people having trouble paying for their food were those working in low paying jobs.
The educational, criminal and health costs (not to mention the lost productivity) of the illegitimate children fathered by today's welfare mentality is beyond computation. Then add in the lowered academic and professional standards and the reverse discrimination of affirmative action – the remedy that was supposed to make it all somehow "fair." How many trillions of dollars has it been since LBJ?
There was a time when we sold the timber on public lands, cleared out the underbrush and planted new trees as part of the harvest process. The money went to schools. Today we put much of the public land "off limits" to the public, let lightening strikes take their course, and pay firefighters to protect us when the underbrush catches fire and burns those unharvested trees. In a very real sense, the money comes out of the school budget.
The same uncritical acceptance we gave to "environmentally friendly" wildfire efforts is now being repeated in "global warming." Politicians, who never miss the smell of more public tax money, are salivating over themselves in their rush to climb on the bandwagon.
By now it should be clear that stupidity on a scale as massive as we see today would be impossible without the concerted efforts of society's most powerful institutions. That's because – by its very definition and nature – stupidity is a self-correcting condition. Put another way, the lifelong headmaster of experience (assigned to each of us at birth) stands ready to rap us sharply across the knuckles the moment we act without regard for what experience has previously taught humanity to be true. Yet government, schools, churches – all seem to view stupidity as a God-given human right!
Protecting people from the results of stupidity is very expensive. It requires bureaucracy and regulation, the creation, enforcement and perpetuation of which must be paid for out of tax monies. It requires that those who are not stupid have the good effect of their behavior taken from them – and given to the stupid. This shields the stupid from the (often repeated) results of their behavior, thus dooming them to lives mired in stupidity. (They never learn from their mistakes, since you and I are taxed to shield them from the effects of their behavior.)
Once the number of people being protected from their stupidity reaches critical mass, there is no stopping the trend. Today's politicians are fully given over to encouraging stupidity in all its possible permutations. There is, after all, no penalty inflicted upon them for their behavior. The only penalty box in this game seems to have been reserved for the productive.