On my trip I had the privilege to delve into a lot of fascinating minds from a variety of Midwesterners. I had one ultra-Conservative confide in me that it was to his great displeasure that the four Liberal, Supreme Court Justices were not murdered. Another crew member from Huntington told me (and this is an exact quote), "All gays should be shot." A different member of the youth would complain about how much he hated people, camping, and scouting in general to anyone who would listen. He professed incessantly that he only went, because his mom made him. He won the trip from a needs-based lottery, and told everyone he wished he could have just taken the money and spent it on something that he considered "worthwhile." This guy totally redefined "ingrate" if you can imagine.
Then my disgust had its limits pushed even further this morning as I read this month's Mensa Bulletin. A seventeen-year-old Mensan (Mensan) started an article with "Down here in South Florida..." Maybe he's originally from the Midwest, too, but that's beside the point really. What especially got my attention was an answer a reader sent to the magazine when it posed the question, "Is the information gap today growing, shrinking, or holding steady, and why?" I was pretty suspect of the review from its start considering that reader Mr. John Bute began it with "I don't know if the gap between the educated and the masses is getting wider..." Why the heck would you write an answer to the question if your topic has nothing to do with it? (And even more importantly, why would Mensa Bulletin choose to publish the answer?) Here are a few of my favorite quotes from Bute's response:
~ "...the last U.S. president who was clearly not a demagogue was Eisenhower."
~ "Demagogues enjoy this widespread success because the ignorant masses poison the democratic process with their mercurial, perverse personalities that are easily bent to the will of the demagogue."
<FONTCOLOR=#FF0000>~ "...innumeracy is the greatest single problem [among the masses]."
~ "P.T. Barnum said that it is immoral to let a fool keep his money."
~ "...it is social suicide to let fools have a say in government."
~ "Americans' liberties and prosperity are in danger from the political participation of the ignorant masses."
Did anyone but me notice the lack of anything that has to do with the status of the modern information gap? Pretty crazy... Mensa should be ashamed for posting that in their publication.
No comments:
Post a Comment