Are We Really All That Stupid?

It is fashionable in left wing circles to depict their fellow Americans as stupid ... Too dumb to know what is good for them. Given that assumption, it is only obvious that the small number of leftist elites are obliged to do our thinking for us.

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Not obvious, however, is where the elites plan to lead those of us among the intellectually challenged. They don't think it's necessary to tell us that since we're too dumb to know what's good for us. They do. Moreover, whether we like it or not, they will take us by the ears and lead us to the promised land, a journey paid for by our tax dollars. Getting there, however, costs money, lots of it. So they go where the money is - in the pockets of all us dunderheads who, while we may be stupid, seem to have sufficient brainpower to earn it. The problem is, we don't know how it should be spent. We waste it on such needless luxuries such as food and housing and other wasteful items as automobiles and child care, tuition, and, of course, fat-filled foods. That being the case it is the bound and beholden duty of our intellectual superiors to relieve us of a substantial portion of our income since when left to our own devices we're too stupid to spend it wisely. Once they've got hold of a large chuck of our income, they spend it on programs which the government, in its wisdom deems essential to our well-being – many programs we are too dumb to pay for on our own. Years ago, when I working for the National Enquirer, my main editorial assignment was rooting out the more outrageous examples of government waste, paid for in part with the money Uncle Sam grabbed out of my salary before I got my hands on what was left. After a while on the job, my eyes began to glaze over as I chronicled some of the idiocies your taxes and mine were paying for - programs that transferred my money and yours into the pockets of so-called researchers who spent their time - and our money - trying to find answers to questions nobody had bothered to ask, often for good reason. One of my favorites was an academic who managed to find some obscure research subject - I can't recall what it was - that required him to make frequent visits to Paris and London, accompanied by his research assistant, who happened to be his wife. He did not take kindly to my inquiries about his line of work. It was none of my business he told me on one of those rare times when he was not traveling abroad on my money and yours, and therefore available to get one of those phone calls that caused the recipients to gulp when told it was the Enquirer on the line. The researcher was but one of a horde of scientists and other researchers living grandly off research grants from generous old Uncle Sam (it's easy to be generous when you are spending other peoples' money). I haven't looked lately, but I'm sure they are still on the take, doing their thing on our money. But what they get is a mere trifle - Uncle Sam's generosity with our money seems limitless. With the help of the members of Congress he can find all sorts of ways to spend our tax dollars on things we'd never think of paying for out of our pockets because we are too greedy to recognize the nation's crying needs. It is perhaps unkind to our elected legislators to suggest that it might be a good time to be a bit more miserly when appropriating our tax dollars to finance a host of programs we can really do without, especially since the United States is not only flat broke, but a few trillion dollars in debt we are leaving to be dealt with by some number of generations hence.