“If someone can prove me wrong and show me my mistake in any thought or action, I shall gladly change. I seek the truth, which never harmed anyone: the harm is to persist in one’s own self-deception and ignorance.”
Marcus Aurelius
If they are ignorant, then they can be enlightened; no light can shine within the stupid. Stupidity is a permanent condition; it is not something that can be fixed for the truly stupid have no capacity to learn. There is nothing wrong with being stupid; there are just those who lack the mental capacity to gain and retain knowledge and use that knowledge to form intelligent thought. These are the mindless that follow every fad whether it be consumer, cultural, or political. They are permanently in a state of ambivalence and are easily persuaded by current trends. The Left broadcasts daily propaganda (or mis/disinformation) to these low information voters and it has earned dividends.
Stupidity, however, can be a choice.
It is the ignorant that can provide the greatest triumph but also the greatest defeat. Ignorance is the lack of knowledge. Once one is given knowledge the hope is that logic and common sense can provide a path toward a greater understanding of the world.
But the willfully ignorant provide the greatest danger to tranquility. These are people who should know better—and they do know better—but they would rather bathe in their obliviousness so as to soak in irrational belief.
There is also the type of ignorance that is born from a traumatic past that so blinds as to shield the obvious truth standing before them. The pain from past distress causes real anger, real outrage and, as any compassionate human would sympathize, a complete distrust of those who most emulate the source of that trauma. This always ends in hate and only forgiveness of the source can bring this pain closure.
And this is where I found myself after a long conversation with a very beloved member of my family.
She’s not stupid in the least. She’s extremely intelligent and very capable. I respect her for her strong opinions regardless of her political tilt and know she does everything from the goodness of her heart. She chooses what she wants to learn but there is also an oppressive past that fuels her level of anger and outrage.
As a progressive, her beliefs are boilerplate. It was, however, the vitriol with which she attacked people on the Right that caught me off guard. Can I admit to that same level of animosity toward the other side? Honestly, yes. Usually, I anger quickly when faced with an absolutely illogical argument or action of another, but I do calm and try to realize that regardless the person, they are a person and no less—or more—equal to me.
She never attacked me for my beliefs, just the beliefs themselves. I never attacked her personally, either. Mostly I listened. I have given up long ago any attempt through conversation to change a person’s stance on an issue, unless of course, it’s a varying degree of my own convictions.
As a Yankee—said to her in jest—her view on Trump is supposedly fueled by a general hatred of him that “everyone” in the northeast shares. She claimed that he shorted workers their fair wages and didn’t earn his millions but inherited them. She spat out these claims as one would a vile tasting surströmming (“fermented Baltic herring… so pungent it should be opened outdoors. Three days after you’ve opened a can of surströmming, the smell will hang in the air”).
Of course she threw out others: He’s a liar; he’s a philanderer; he’s a cheat; and he smells bad, too!
Another attack was on the Little Sisters of the Poor, the Catholic charity that refused to add birth control under their employee health insurance plan. I specified, rightfully, that the state cannot compel people to act against their religious beliefs. She brushed that off by intimating that no one had the right to deny a progressive their myopic desire. She countered that health insurance policies cover erectile dysfunction medication for men so to be fair, birth control and day-after abortion pills must be included.
Her abortion stance was also boilerplate. Abortion is an issue I try to avoid, especially with women. Again, this is an issue that is baked into the progressive cake. She aggressively asked, who will support all of the unwanted children that were “forced” to be born? I’ve heard this argument before and it is rather sickening. I didn’t bring up personal responsibility nor the fact that extreme abortion demands by the progressives has amounted to nothing less than eugenics.
She checked the boxes on “trans rights”, “gay rights”, and “women’s rights”. I am for all rights, not specified identity “rights”. I almost queried her about how she can back the war on women that the transgender man-to-woman movement has spawned but I was losing steam.
After about an hour of hearing her grievances, I finally told her debating these issues was exhausting. She wasn’t going to change my mind just as I wasn’t changing hers. Instead, I tried to explain my solution to what truly ails our constitutional republic and the steps that it would take to release the pressure that has been building between the two sides since FDR was president.
My interpretation of history is that progressivism began as a knee-jerk reaction—with socialist injections—to the incredible pace at which technological advancements were changing everyday lives at the turn of the last century. The socioeconomic and political reforms created a “professional” class within the bureaucratic state that is self-serving; the same can be said about elected politicians. It spawned corruption throughout our system and created what is now termed the Deep State. We can also include the fascistic partnership of government with big business and non-governmental organizations, a truly diabolical trinity of tyranny that is savaging our freedoms.
I truly believe there is but one way to salvage the United States government, otherwise we’re sinking faster than the Titanic. It involves term limits on House members that changes how they are elected while greatly reducing campaign finances. The least controversial change, I believe, is returning the selection of senators to the individual state legislatures. It’s explained in more detail in the following article:
But there was a problem and thus the discovery of the ignorance. One believes that the vast majority of Americans understand civics and the institutions that govern our nation and the states and at least has a rudimentary understanding of the Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights. Nothing can be further from the truth.
I stated that until Congress can become a place where true national debate on the plethora of divisive political issues can flourish, the political parties and bureaucratic authoritarians will continue to stir the pot to ensure chaos and further American’s dependence upon the political class and government. I began talking about repealing the 17th Amendment—the amendment that changed the appointment of senators by the state legislatures to a popular vote—and the wheels came off the buggy.
The House of Representatives would pick the senators? No, I said, the state legislatures would pick the senators, just like it was originally enshrined. Okay, she didn’t understand the mechanics of the Constitution, I thought. I reiterated that the states would pick the senators. You mean the governor? No, the state legislatures would. Who are these people? They are like the U.S. Congress but for the states: deer caught in the headlights.
Each state, I explained, has two houses which comprise their state legislature. In Texas, I explained, we have state representatives and senators. In some states the elected officials might be called something different but they are all the same, two houses that comprise the legislative branch of the state government. But I only saw one senator I voted for, she countered. Who are these other people?
We were sitting in a restaurant during this discussion so I used plates and cocktail napkins to lay out the three branches of government defined in the U.S. Constitution and demonstrated that each state has a similar governmental structure.
Mind blown.
After about ten minutes I realized this wasn’t going anywhere fast. The political conversation needed to end but I decided to end on a note of what I thought would be an issue of mutual agreement.
The mistake many of us make is to assume that the leftists of today are related to the leftists of the hippie generation. Maybe this is only a mistake made for those of us born in the 1950s and 60s but there are some issues that the Left held in the last half of the past century with which many of us probably agree.
For instance, I was once a war hawk. I believed to ensure America’s dominance in the world after the fall of the Soviet Union, we needed to keep the world balanced—and by force if necessary—so as not to fall back into a bipolar geopolitical structure that had nuclear war constantly hanging over our heads. After we invaded Iraq and the war dragged out beyond what it should have, I realized that we completely destroyed the strategic balance between Iraq and Iran which kept each one in check. Then I realized it was criminal to subject America’s young men and women to the horrors of a war that did nothing to ensure our national security. We have been locked into post-World War II policies that are not sustainable.
And so, I stated that we need to stop interfering with other nations’ sovereignty unless it had a direct impact on our national security.
Well, she said, not really…
The neocons have found a new home. May they scurry on over as soon as possible.
It was then, I realized, that the ignorance of the Left comes from a lack of knowledge of everything other than the shiny objects the propagandists dangle in front of them. They will change “long held” beliefs for the glory of the party and the banishment of those opposed to their attained power.
Is this a blanket indictment of ignorance for the entire Left? No, not completely. I cannot take one conversation and extrapolate across the entire leftosphere as fact. It is anecdotal at best but I can form an opinion based upon this and other conversations and observed actions from the Left. As I said in a previous piece in American Thinker:
[The Left] define the ills of society so that governments can unilaterally impose restitutive “justice”: defunding law enforcement and prosecution, promoting violence and riots, and forcing curricula indoctrination throughout the educational system. They seek power through chaos.
The conversation with my relative left me haggard. I knew she was progressive but, until the words were spoken, politeness had found a home in ignorance. I was ignorant about how deep-seated her beliefs were and that the beliefs are bred from a painful past and an ignorant present.
She admitted she was not versed in civics and wanted to learn more but it’s not going to happen: She won’t listen to alternative sources that might give her a better understanding of the world unless those sources are from the Left.
Issues can be agreed or disagreed upon based on personal knowledge and bias. The ignorance at this level troubles me because without a basic knowledge of a system, there is no hope that a mutual respect can be established to trust each other’s suggested solutions. If you refuse to know how something works, you can’t fix it.
The Dali Lama said, “Where ignorance is our master, there is no possibility of real peace.”
Tongue sucking aside, these words foreshadow a time when peace might not be achievable because the ignorant have abdicated to stupidity.