Most often attributed to H.L. Mencken, we often hear something like, no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the public. And so it goes.
The world appears panic stricken out of fear of a man-created virus that is less deadly than the “common” flu virus. I was told the real difference (enough to cause panic in the streets and supermarkets?) is that if you are appointed to die from COVID-19, it happens quickly. Isn’t that a good thing. I mean, none of us have any control over when our appointments to death will be. When that time comes, most people wish that it happens quickly…don’t they?
This morning I was reading a stuffy-shirt article in a British tabloid about how it isn’t the commonly-called Coronavirus that is threatening the world’s population. It’s stupidity. I can’t argue the point. However……there’s always a however. I’ll get to the however in a moment.
Tops on the list to prop up stupidity is the fact that officials list the symptoms of COVID-19. The Centers for Disease Control lists the following: Fever; Cough; Shortness of Breath. I’ve yet to find listed on any roll, diarrhea, and yet millions of people worldwide are panic-buying rolls and rolls of toilet paper.
I didn’t actually see the meme, but was told that one stated that we consider ourselves participants in an intelligently advanced society and yet we need government officials to teach us how to wash our hands. And, by the way, SOAP is just as effective as hand sanitizer and probably safer to use.
We have rightly been accused of having become a “wussified” society. We have created the biggest coagulation of sissies and pansies, incapable of doing the things that once made a society great. I made the comment yesterday to members of my family that, as children, we used to go to school when it snowed. It mostly fell on uncomprehending ears.
Millions of us children survived quite well without wearing a helmet when we rode our bikes. We climbed trees. We didn’t wash our hands every time we took a pee. We were taught not to piss on ourselves. Hell, I remember playing pick-up baseball (yes, we used HARD balls) in the neighborhood and we didn’t wear a helmet. We played outside in the winter during temperatures that today, would shut everything down. And, we didn’t run to the doctors for every little sniffle.
So has our society “progressed” into one that a normal person would consider better? I suppose that depends on how big of a sissy you were to begin with or what degree of it you were reared to believe was normal.
Once, statements like, “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me,” held truth. Not so anymore. Words seemingly hurt far more than being clubbed over the head with a baseball bat.
I’ve always joked that my parents walked to school everyday regardless of the weather. Incidentally, the trip to and from school was uphill…both ways. But seriously, it has become so bad that school is canceled days in advance when bad weather is predicted.
It’s pointless to attempt to expose something nobody is interested in seeing or hearing. So, I’ll dispense with any further proofs of how our world is comprised of a bunch of oversensitive, emotional, scared, cry babies.
So, does it make our masses of automatonic, pantywaist, jellyfish stupid because they rush out and buy truck loads of toilet paper for a virus that doesn’t cause extra trips to the bathroom? Yes, it does. What a bunch of dummies!
But, this stupidity exists at many levels. Because someone doesn’t see themselves as being stupid because they filled their garage with shit paper, doesn’t mean they are not. As the saying goes, there are none so blind as he who will not see…or can’t see.
In the article that I linked to, the author is chastising the public for being stupid: “Never have so many brain cells been sacrificed on the altar of toilet paper fever.” And yet, from my perspective, the author reveals their own stupidity by saying: “A vaccine for Covid-19 is already being tested and, like every other flu before it, we will soon have this particular lurgy under control.”
Is running out and getting every vaccine going a stupid thing to do? By today’s standards not only is in not considered stupid, you are heavily chastised for not getting them especially if you dare show others the dangers from the vaccine that are greater than the disease itself.
If people are kept scared long enough, panic-buying of anything and everything will become the new normal, just as getting shot full of all kinds of “inert” ingredients and nanoparticles regardless of the end results. God-governments pretend to have cures and we trust them. HOW STUPID IS THAT?
If, somehow, people could understand COVID-19 for what it really is, they wouldn’t be stockpiling toilet paper. They would be stockpiling ammunition to use against those that created the virus and deliberately released it into the public.
BUT, DON’T GO LOOK!
Opening One’s Mouth and Removing All Doubt
But alas, where doth the blame lie and to which action should one point a finger?
Recently in a Bangor, Maine newspaper, a person had published his “opinion” and comment about the recent bear hunting referendum, sponsored by the Humane Society of the United States, to effectively end bear hunting. While some are licking their wounds and others beating their chests in triumph, some just don’t get it.
I think it was humorist/comedian Tim Sample who got a laugh when he said that some people not only don’t have a clue, they don’t even suspect.
This man with an opinion had a complaint that the referendum was worded wrong and suggested, “Was it malice aforethought or just stupidity?” At issue was that he believed the use of the word “or” in the referendum was in error. In part the referendum read, “An Act To Prohibit the Use of Dogs, Bait or Traps When Hunting Bears Except….”(emphasis added) The writer wanted to know if the referendum had passed, who would have had the authority to decide which method of bear hunting would be banned.
I seldom would come to the support of any government official, however, I have my doubts that the person(s) who drafted the wording acted with “malice aforethought.” And I know it wasn’t stupidity but it might have been ignorance.
I’m no English writing expert, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express once. But it appears to me that the use of the word “or” in the context of this referendum is used in the collective sense. In other words, had the item been written something like this: To Prohibit Fred Brown the use of Dogs, Bait OR Traps…. then his assumption that somebody would have to decide which method would be banned. In the case of the actual referendum, the use of nouns and pronouns are in the collective sense, whether directly stated or inferred and thus the use of the word “or” then “collects” all three items, i.e. dogs, bait and traps, and then effectively becomes one item.
It is often said that stupidity can’t be corrected but ignorance can. Ignorance is the lack of knowledge. Stupidity is seeing no need to have knowledge. Or better yet, they don’t even suspect.
In this case, the writer was ignorant of the proper uses of nouns, pronouns and verbs, but was really stupid to write a letter to the editor of a newspaper in order to “open your mouth and remove all doubt.”