Pass this on to your liberal friends (?)

Your Sunday meme

VIDEO: "Snowflakes" by Tom MacDonald

You won't be suprised, eh, to learn that Walt is no fan of "rap music" -- an oxymoron if ever there was one. However, every rule has its exception, and in view of what I said eaerlier about sleeping through the suicide of Western Civilization, now seems like a good time to post this "anti-woke rap" by Tom MacDonald. All you snowflakes, listen up!

 

Rapper Tom MacDonald is preaching to spineless Americans who won't stand up and fight to take back their country from the Forces of Wokeness. But he actually grew up in Alberta and British Columbia, and should also direct his message to the sheeple of Canuckistan. I'm sure some apathetic frostbacks may be among the 21 million people who've viewed this. 

Walt sez... wake up America... and Canada... and Britain... and France... and [add your own country here]. The New World Order hasn't yet been established. Walt predicts that the liberal elites who run the USA and Canada -- perhaps even the Vatican -- will be ousted from the halls of power by this day in 2024. (Lifetime pct .989.) Do your part to make it so.

VIDEO: Best Babylon Bee sketches of 2021

About a year ago we did a year-end review, noting the passing of notable people in politics, sports, and so on. Nobody cared, at least not that we noticed. So we're not going there this year, except to say that the passing of Betty White, Archbishop Tutu, and Prince Philip -- all of whom died in their 90s -- makes me think that a certain president and a certain pope may not be on next year's list after all. I'm offering 5:2 on Bergoglio and 5:1 on Brandon. Get your bets down now.

So then... rather than focusing on people, let's just take a look back at the events which drew our attention in the Year of Woke 2021. Here's the Babylon Bee highlight reel.

 

Now for a look forward. As the sun rose today, I saw a robin -- a big fat robin -- sitting in the juniper amongst the pines behind my cabin. A sign of global warming? An early spring? The sight of the robin, in the brilliant sunshine, blue sky, dark green of the tree and gleaming white snow, gladdened my heart. 

After yesterday's divine liturgy, Father said that pretty soon everyone will have Covid, and then we can stop fussing about it. He wasn't being totally facetious. By this spring, I'm guessing, the virus will become endemic and we will be able to go back to something like the old normal. We will get through this winter and the coming year holds promise of real change. Am I right? You know it!

The difference between politicians and people like you and me

A big vote of thanks to Agent 6 for passing along this little gem. Very à propos to Canadians, with polling day just four days off.

When voting remember the difference between the politicians and the general public. 

A cop comes in for a haircut, and when he tries to pay his bill, the barber replies, "I cannot accept money from you, I'm doing community service this week." The cop was happy and left the shop. 

When the barber went to open up the next morning, he found a thank-you card and a dozen Tim Horton donuts waiting for him at his door. Then an MP came in for a haircut, and when he went to pay his bill, the barber again replied, "I cannot accept money from you. I'm doing community service this week." The MP was very happy and left the shop. 

When the barber went to open up the next morning, he found a dozen MP's lined up at the frontdoor, waiting for a free haircut! 

That, my friends, illustrates the fundamental difference between the citizens of our country and the politicians who run it. 

As Ronald Reagan said, "Both politicians and diapers need to be changed often and for the same reason." In Canada, it's waaaaay past time for a change!

"What's a trillion"?

Too much? Let's start with "What's a million?" That's a paraphrase of comments made by C.D. Howe, the Canadian "Minister of Everything" in the post-war Liberal government. During debate over estimates for the War Appropriation Bill in 1945,  Mr Howe told an opposition member, "I daresay my honourable friend could cut a million dollars from that amount, but a million dollars from the War Appropriations Bill (of more than $1.35 billion) would not be a very important matter."

John Diefenbaker, a Conservative MP, quickly rephrased Mr Howe’s words as "What's a million?" It is used even today to portray liberal governments' arrogance and looseness with the public purse.

Three-quarters of a century ago, a million dollars was a considerable sum of money. Half a century ago politicians went from talking of "millions" to "billions". Now even 000,000,000 (nine zeros) isn't enough, and another three zeros have been added to appropriations bills in Biden's US of A.

Last month, the Senate passed an infrastructure bill backed by Sleepy Joe, costed at roughly $1,000,000,000,000 -- a million million or trillion dollars. All of the Senate Dumbocrats and 19 Republicans (?) voted for it. It now needs to be approved by the House before being sent to Mr Biden's desk.

But wait... Apparently a trillion dollars isn't enough for the "progressive Democrats" in the House of Representative, who have vowed not to advance it unless and until the Senate passes an accompanying "reconciliation" bill which will cost... wait for it... $3.5 trillion!

The “Squad,” which includes Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), have joined Burnie Sanders (I-VT), the chairman of the Senate budget committee, in refusing to budge on the linking of the two bills, as a package deal. 

They say moderate Democrats, like Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kristen Sinema (D-AZ), are standing in their way by opposing the gargantuan price tag of the social safety net expansion, which includes funding for healthcare, climate change, childcare, affordable housing, and education, all for the benefit of "marginalized communities" suffereing from centuries of "systemic racism" yada yada yada.

Sen. Manchin, along with many Republicans argue that the national debt is too large for this type of spending, and that it could contribute to already higher-than-normal rates of inflation. He told the Clinton News Network today that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer "will not have my vote on $3.5 (trillion) and Chuck knows that, and we’ve talked about this."

All this talk of billions and trillions reminded me of something I read in Bill Bryson's commendable Notes From a Big Country (Doubleday, 1998). The entire national debt, at the time Mr Bryson was writing, stood at $4.5 million, the total of the two bills now proposed by the Democraps. Mr Bryson puts millions, billions and trillions in terms than even I can understand. 

Big numbers are simply beyond what we are capable of grasping.... What does $4.5 trillion actually mean?

Let's just try for a trillion. Imagine that you were in a vault with the whole of America's national debt and you were told you could keep each dollar bill you initialled. Say, too, for the sake of argument, that you could initial one dollar bill each second and that you worked straight through without stopping. How long do you think it would take to count a trillion dollars?...

If you initialled one dollar per second, you would make $1000 every 17 minutes. After twelve days of non-stop effort you would acquire your first $1 million. Thus it would take you 120 days to accumulate $10 million and 1200 days -- something over three years -- to reach $100 million.

After 31.7 years, you would become a billionaire, and after almost a thousand years you would be as wealthy as Bill Gates.... But not until after 31,709.8 years would you count your trillionth dollar, and then you would be less than one-fourth of the way through the pile of money representing America's national debt.

That is what $1 trillion is.

A timely guide for Catholic voters

A Catholic friend has sent a link to a pastoral letter from Most Rev. Socrates B. Villegas, Archbishop of Lingayen Dagupan and President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines. That country, like the USA, has elections in the offing, for the highest offices in the land. In his letter, the prelate offers some guidance to help voters choose "God-fearing leaders who are also bravely and stubbornly loyal to the flag and to the people."

To know which candidates are God-fearing and deserving of our vote, Archbishop Villegas says we should use the age-old standards of our Judeo-Christian tradition, as set out in the Ten Commandments. Here are the questions we need to ask them, and ourselves. (The Commandments, in a modern translation, follow the numbering in the Catholic Bible, as it has been since 382 AD.)

I. I am the Lord your God. You shall not have strange gods before me. Do not vote for an atheist or for someone who makes fun of the name of God. A Catholic cannot support a candidate who vows to wipe out religion from public life, or whose ideology binds him or her to make of the country a secular state that has no tolerance for religion in its public life.

II. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. Do not vote for candidates who have a history of violating oaths they have made. A person commits perjury when he makes a promise under oath with no intention of keeping it, or when after promising on oath he does not keep it. Perjury is a grave lack of respect for the Lord of all speech. Nor should one pledge oneself by oath to commit an evil deed.

III. Remember to keep holy the Lord’s Day. If the candidate professes to be a Christian, how does he or she look at Sunday worship, Sunday rest especially for the poor, Sunday time with the family? Has the candidate fallen to the pursuit of some sort of "ideology of performance" introducing a harsh, impersonal and self-centered attitude, contributing to the culture of heightened anxiety, hyper-activism and success orientation, without God in public policies?

Archbishop Villegas spoke of the trend to "dynastic politics", which is even more apparent in the Philippines than in the USA, when he wrote:

IV. Honor your father and your mother. Do not vote for family members running for the same positions as family members before them to perpetrate the family's hold on public office. Christian voters should prudently choose others who may have equal if not superior abilities and competencies for the position.

V. You shall not kill. A Catholic voter commits a grave sin in voting for candidates who oppose the Lord's teachings on the sacredness of human life from conception to natural death. Please demand that the candidates state in clear terms their position on issues such as abortion, the return of the death penalty, euthanasia and extra-judicial killings.

VI. You shall not commit adultery. The Church’s position on marriage and human sexuality is positive and uplifting. The Christian view of sexuality and marriage presents the dignity and authentic freedom of single and married life that is truly fulfilling, desirable, and fruitful. How does this candidate view marriage and sexuality? How does this candidate live the marriage commitment? What is his position on divorce? Does he mock the institution of marriage?

VII. You shall not steal. Is the candidate committed to the common good? Has this candidate stolen public money and remains obstinate and stubborn in making the required restitution of stolen goods?

VIII. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. Lying is the intentional misrepresentation of the truth by word, gesture, or even silence. To deliberately intend to mislead other persons who have the right to know the truth can do real violence to them. For it denies them the knowledge they need to make their judgments and decisions. Beware of liars. Lying is a devil with many faces. Be wise. Watch out. Do not vote for liars.

IX. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. Does the candidate treat women with respect? In providing sex education for children, does the candidate promote healthy interpersonal relationships and proper bodily expressions? Does the candidate promote an adulterous lifestyle by his life example? Does the candidate support or promote the ideology of a homosexual lifestyle without respect for modesty and right conduct?

X. You shall not covet your neighbor’s goods. What has the candidate done for the poor? Have his programs for the poor led to the liberation of the poor from the shackles of poverty or has this candidate promoted a culture of patronage so that the poor may be perennially dependent and hence easier to manipulate? Do we see signs of unjust craving for victory in elections, envy at the success of others? A candidate who spends his time demolishing the reputation and tarnishing the good name of fellow candidates may have nothing positive to offer, and he debases the level of political discourse by calling attention to the shortcomings of his rivals and competitors.

Archbishop Villegas concludes his exhortation thus: You are called to be authentic Catholic voters who decide from prayer and conscience. You are called to take courage and make moral decisions. Your vote can make heaven come down and make our country beautiful and good as God desires it. Be free from the tyranny and pressure of trends and herds. Do it right! Choose what is right according to the Ten Commandments. Lord guide us with your grace. Amen.

Test your knowledge of antiques

Here's an interesting old tool box from the 18th (?) century. Can you figure out what it is, and what it would be used for?



Here's a clue. It was used for a medical purpose.

Still stumped? Read and learn.

Yes, Virginia*, it's a tobacco enema kit.

The tobacco enema was used to infuse tobacco smoke into a patient’s rectum for various medical purposes, primarily the resuscitation of drowning victims. A rectal tube inserted into the anus was connected to a fumigator and bellows that forced the smoke into the rectum. The warmth of the smoke was thought to promote respiration, but doubts about the credibility of tobacco enemas led to the popular phrase "blow smoke up one’s ass".

In the late 20th and early 21st century, this technique has been reintroduced, with great success, in the world of politics and government.

PS * Geddit?
PPS - Thanks to Agent 6 for sharing this. Agent 6 is a non-smoker.

Wildrose wilts: a cautionary tale for conservatives - Part I

The Canadian province of North Texas [Alberta, surely! Ed.] elected a new legislature on Monday. The result contains a lesson for American Republicans and Canadian Conservatives (big-C and small-c alike), the lesson being: don't go to extremes.

All you need to know about AB is that it's about as conservative a place as you can find north of the 49th parallel. Like TX, it's cattle country, and under the cattle is oil -- lots of it -- when enterprising multinational oilcos will sell to China if Obama holds up construction of the pipeline which should be shipping it south. The province is awash in oil money which it shares only reluctantly with poorer places like Ontario.

As Walt explained in "Campaign bust raises eyebrows in Alberta", Alberta is staunchly conservative, politically and socially. As of this spring, it had been ruled for 41 years, by a centre-right party oxymoronically called the Progressive Conservatives. This time they chose a new leader, Allison Redford, to front for the usual gang of old white men in conservative suits and white stetsons.

But the PCs were a tired lot, bereft of any ideas except to keep the oil flowing out (see above) and never ever have a provincial sales tax. There was a perceived need for change. Unfortunately the other two traditional parties, the Somewhat Liberal Party and the Not-so-new Democrats, didn't have a Chinaman's chance of electing a handful of MLA's, let alone forming a government.

So was born the Wildrose Party, a gang of even older white men in even more conservative suits and white stetsons -- cowboy boots too. They chose as their frontperson a slightly younger and more attractive white woman, Danielle Smith, whose campaign bus wrap drew attention to her assets until lamestream media cries of sexism forced a redesign.

The Wildrose Party's policies were a mixture of populism and conservatism, well to the right of the governing PCs. They promised to share the oil wealth, at least with the common people of Alberta. ("Prosperity certificates" had been tried during the Great Depression by the Social Government -- read "conservative" -- government of Bible Bill Aberhart, and found unconstitutional, but never mind.) There were also hints of a social conservative agenda on such matters as health care, abortion, "gay rights" etc etc.

In the run-up to the election, the pollsters, pundits and national media were loud in their predictions of a Wildrose landslide, followed by the return of Alberta to the dark ages of Social Credit and the Ku Klux Klan. The liberal Globe and Mail went so far as to endorse the PCs, which should have been the kiss of death since no one outside of Toronto and Ottawa pays any attention to the Glob.

True conservatives and libertarians in Alberta and the rest of Canada were peeing in their pants with excitement at the prospect of being freed from the tyranny of "red Tories" -- liberals in conservative suits. The Wildrosers themselves were starting to plan the "On to Ottawa!" campaign to get rid of the faux conservative Steve Harper and put a real right-winger in 24 Sussex Drive.

But... surprise, surprise... the pollsters and other "experts" got it wrong! The Regressive Convertibles (thank you, Allan Fotheringham) won, in a veritable landslide. Later today Walt will tell you why, and what this means for politics in Canada and the USA.

Canadian government could fall over election dirty tricks

The lesson of Watergate was (supposedly) that in an election in a democractic (note small "d") country, the contesting parties are supposed to play fair. Rigged elections are for places like Russia, Egypt and Zimbabwe. But in the democractic west, dirty tricks are to be punished in the courts and at the polls. Anyway, that's the theory.

Canada -- a democractic and fair-minded country if ever there was one -- had a general election* last spring. On only the third try, "Call me Steve" Harper's Conservatives finally got the majority of seats in the House of Commons, something they'd been lusting for since Walt's little boy was a little boy.

Mind you, the result was pretty close, with the Tories winning 165 of the 308 Commons seats. 11 seats fewer, and they might be sitting on the Speaker's left. And of the Cons' 165 seats, at least 11 were won by narrow margins, often in tight three-way contests against the Liberals and NDP.

Suddenly all this matters, because the validity of the results in 34 ridings has now been called into question because of -- you guessed it -- dirty tricks.

The Mounties and Elections Canada, the government agency in charge of rigging elections ["running", surely! Ed.] are looking into reports that "robocalls" -- automated telephone calls -- falsely advised voters that the location of their polling stations had changed. In other instances, voters received harassing late-night or early-morning calls that purported to be from an opposition campaign office.

Another lesson learned from Watergate (and recent US elections) is that dirty tricks work only if you don't get caught. Unfortunately for whoever was making the robocalls, many people now have "caller ID" on their phones. And some had the wit to write down the number from which the robocalls originated.

It has now been revealed that the calls were made by a company based in Edmonton, Alberta -- Canada's version of Texas and, like Texas, a hotbed of conservatism. And sure enough, the company, RackNine Inc., frequently works on Tory campaigns. But who was their client, and who actually ordered the calls to be made?

So far no-one has stepped forward to say "I am the one." Just by coincidence, though, a Conservative staffer named Michael Sona resigned from his junior position in the office of a Conservative MP. Neither his reported departure nor whether there was a connection to the robocall controversy could be confirmed, owing to Sona's virtual disappearance. What is known is that during the election campaign, he was working for the Conservative candidate in Guelph -- one of the targetted ridings.

Kneedipper MP "Pusillanimous Pat", speaking in the Commons on Friday, said it would be unacceptable for the Conservatives to scapegoat a junior staffer for the matter. He called for a public enquiry to get to the bottom of the affair, because "the facts as we know them to date would indicate a well-orchestrated, widespread conspiracy from the top, not some rogue punk out in the boondocks."

Liberal MP John McCallum said he hopes the investigation by Elections Canada will be a deterrent against the proliferation of "US-style political tactics". "Even if it’s just one seat, it’s important," he said. "I’m not saying this would make a difference in terms of a Liberal majority government, but in a democracy those who practise dirty tricks to subvert democracy should be caught and punished."

And it was McCallum's fearless (but "interim") leader, Bob "Ray" Rae, who brought Watergate into it. "We are entering into a kind of Nixonian moment in our political culture, where all kinds of dirty tricks seem to be possible, all kinds of dirty tricks seem to be encouraged," said the white-haired boy.

Who, then, was the mastermind of the robocall disinformation campaign? Here's all you need to know. The Conservative Party of Canada is led by the aforementioned Stephen Harper -- the Prime Minister -- who under that bland exterior is the meanest, surliest, dirtiest Canadian politician of the last half-century.

Harpoon's mentor (and former Tory PM) Brian Mulroney was described as a street fighter. Harper, by comparison, is an alley fighter. And he is the ultimate control freak. Not one freakin' thing goes on in his party or his government that he doesn't know about and approve.

The Liberals are demanding an emergency debate on the issue in the House of Commons on Monday. Will it do any good? Will Elections Canada or a public enquiry succeed in pinning anything on Harper? Walt's prediction: no. Lifetime pct .985.

* From Ed.: Do you know when the Chinese have their best elections? Just before bleakfast.

The colours of politics - blue rising, red falling, except in the USA

Walt's morning was brightened by a headline this headline in the Globe and Mail: Blue tide of conservatism washing away last of Europe's leftists. If it were only true.

The article is illustrated by a Reuters photo of two Spanish election billboards, a blue one for the "centre-right" People's Party, and one for the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party -- naturally and obviously red.

Electoral maps of Formerly Great Britain are divided between the red Labour Party and the blue Conservatives. (The leftish Liberal Democrats are shown as yellow, and not without reason, but if I use yellow type you won't be able to read it.)

It's the same in Canada. You've got red Liberals (formerly known as the Natural Governing Party) and the blue Conservatives. (They're blue because they're usually out of power.) And it's the same in Formerly Great Britain.

Canada has a number of other parties, so uses a rainbow of other colours for the Green Party, the Bloc Québecois, and the New Democratic Party, although that last one should really be pink. And there are always a few independents.

And so it is throughout the word. Red = left/liberal. Blue = right/conservative. Except, of course, in the Excited States of America, where the Republicans are the Reds and the Democrats sing the Blues. How so? Are Americans dyslexic or is this just another example of American exceptionalism?

No matter. Walt has a red tie and a blue tie, so I'll choose whichever one is appropriate to my political mood and the country I happen to be in. I also have a club tie with alternating red and blue stripes, for the odd occasion when I can't make up my mind. [That would indeed be an odd occasion. Ed.]

The new oppressed minority

Rednecks. Trailer trash. White trash. Or...a little more gently...poor whites. There's millions of these "ordinary people" out there. I shop with them at Walmart. And I listen to the stories of their pathetic lives every day on Judge Judy. (Yes, yes. I know a lot of the "litigants" on Judge Judy represent the black underclass, but those aren't the ones we're talking about.)

In Britain they have another word for the young, "disadvantaged" louts you see hanging out at the malls and the welfare office. The word is "chav". Here's a picture of the female of the species.

A chav is a stereotype of certain people -- aggressive teenagers, of working class background -- who repeatedly engage in anti-social behaviour such as street drinking, drug abuse, rowdiness and other forms of juvenile delinquency. Although the term is most often used to describe teenagers, today's teen chavs are tomorrow's adult chavs. "Chavhood" is forever, it seems, and represents a huge social problem in today's Britain... and America... and Canada.

What do we do for... or with... the chavs? That's the theme of a new book by Owen Jones: Chavs: the Demonization of the Working Class. Jones says that looking down on, and putting down poor whites has now become completely acceptable to urban liberals. On the other hand, the poor from other ethnic groups are trated with respect, assumed to be the victims of racism, and showered with welfare and special programs to help them become, errr, not chavs.

This phenomenon has interesting political ramifications. The "elite" view of poor whites is one of the reasons for the populist backlash against the liberal parties of the USA, UK and Canada. These parties used to be the champions of the common man, the defenders of the poor, of families, of "ordinary people". Now the liberals have abadoned the white lower classes in favour of hipper minorities. (Hello refugees!)

Will the liberals get away with neglecting the man and woman on the 113 bus? Probably, because no matter how much the Tea Partiers might wish otherwise, the poor white minority doesn't vote.

A child explains Politics

A little boy goes to his dad and asks, "What is Politics?"

Dad says, "Well son, let me try to explain it this way. I am the head of the family, so call me The President. But really it's your mother who makes the decisions and handles the money, so we call her the Government.

"We are here to take care of your needs, so we will call you the People.
The nanny, let's consider her the Working Class.
And your baby brother, we will call him the Future.
Now think about that and see if it makes sense."

So the little boy goes off to bed thinking about what Dad has said. Later that night, he hears his baby brother crying, so he gets up to check on him. He finds that the baby has severely soiled his diaper.

So the little boy goes to his parents' room and finds his mother asleep. Not wanting to wake her, he goes to the nanny's room. Finding the door locked, he peeks in the keyhole and sees his father in bed with the nanny. He gives up and goes back to bed.

The next morning, the little boy says to his father, "Dad, I think I understand the concept of politics now."
Says the father, "Good, son. Tell me in your own words what you think politics is all about."

The little boy replies, "The President is screwing the Working Class while the Government is sound asleep. The People are being ignored and the Future is in deep shit!"

Out of the mouths of babes... Thanks and a touch of the ole chapeau to Agent 6.

Don't vote, stupid!

Jason Brennan is an assistant professor of philosophy at Brown University. He has a theory about the ethics and morality of voting which is breathtaking in its political incorrectness. He says if you don't know who and what you're voting for, you shouldn't "pollute" the polls by voting

Here's the abstract of his article, whose final and definitive form was published in Vol. 88 of the Australasian Journal of Philosophy.

"Just because one has the right to vote does not mean just any vote is right. Citizens should not vote badly. This duty to avoid voting badly is grounded in a general duty not to engage in collectively harmful activities when the personal cost of restraint is low. Good governance is a public good. Bad governance is a public bad. We should not be contributing to public bads when the benefit to ourselves is low. Many democratic theorists agree that we shouldn't vote badly, but that's because they think we should vote well. This demands too much of citizens."

The Journal is not accessible online. However, you can find the "preprint" version by clicking here, then going to the second link under "Peer-Reviewed Articles".

Prof. Brennan first published his ideas in 2008, prior to the US presidential election, but the Journal version appeared in June 2009 ... too late. Walt hopes the article will be widely circulated in time to diminish the influence of the ignorant in future elections. But...

By definition, the uninformed people who "vote badly" will not read the article. Prof. Brown said in an interview today that he explained the concept to the most ignorant person he could find who admitted to having voted in the recent election. Sure enough, that person agreed that stupid people shouldn't vote.

What is to be done? Should those of us who know what's going on attempt to educate those who don't? Or should we just shoot them?

"Ornery voters" full of "elite-phobia"

Walt still has his umbrella up to deflect the fallout from Monday's municipal elections in Toronto. An interesting column appears in today's Globe and Mail in which pollster Frank Graves (the one who said it was the vizmins wot won it for Ford) is quoted thus: "The electorate is 'newly elite-phobic' [but] it’s not clear whether the 'ornery-voter landscape' will be sustained."

Mr. Graves gets Walt's Master of Fuzzispeak prize for this week for creating not one but two pieces of jargon, which will probably be repeated ad nauseam by other pundits, and of course mangled and chewed to death by TV's talking heads.

Still, Walt likes the sound of those words, especially "ornery voters". Some will see a similarity between "ornery" and "ordinary". And that's the whole political story, in Canada and the USA, at this moment in time. [No more jargon, please. Ed.] The ordinary people have gotten ornery. Good on `em.

As for "elite-phobia", I think what this means is that the ordinary people have grown tired of being told by the chattering classes not just what to do (and not do), but what to think. So we -- I'm including myself -- have risen up on our hind feet to say "Piss on you! I'm going to do what I think is right!" Good on us!

Stupid Americans

Do you watch CNN? Or the liberals' nemesis, Fox News? If you stay tuned after these "news" outlets have finished talking about the adventures of Balloon Boy, you will occasionally hear Rick Shenkman talk about hard news and, especially, politics.

Over the weekend, Walt has been reading Mr. Shenkman's latest book, Just How Stupid Are We? (Basic Books, 2008). It's probably going to be the most depressing book I'll read all year, and I commend it to you highly.

In a word, Mr. Shenkman thinks the public -- "the people of America", as politicians love to say -- is abysmally dumb, and getting dumber. Yet although "the masses are grossly ill-informed and irrational, and our politics driven by myths, the political system [has been] reconfigured in such a way as to give the masses more direct control than ever before".

If that doesn't scare you, I don't know what would. To make matters worse, only some thousands, out of millions of American voters, will read Mr. Shenkman's book. Only these few will read his diagnosis of what ails American politics or his prescription for a cure.

Only these few will read such gems as:
"Americans are vastly inferior in their knowledge of world geography compared with Europeans. (The old joke is that 'war is God's way of teaching Americans geography.')" or

"In 2003 the Strategic Task Force on Educatin Abroad investigated Americans' knowledge of world affairs. [They] concluded: 'America's ignorance of the outside world' is so great as to constitute a threat to national security."

Walt's Canadian followers needn't sit back and feel smug either. Similar studies in Canada -- English Canada at least -- have concluded that Canadians' knowledge of what's going on in the world, or right around home, is not much better.

Don't believe me? Show your neighbours an outline map of the world and ask them to locate Afghanistan. Or ask them who the head of state of Canada is. (Hint: It's not Call Me Steve Harper.) Ask them who they'd call if they wanted a pothole in their street fixed. (Hint: It's not the local M.P. or M.L.A.)

Just How Stupid Are We? provides concrete proposals for reforming our institutions -- government, the media, civic organizations and political parties -- to make them work better for the people. But first, Mr. Shenkman argues, the people must reform themselves!

Footnote: George Mason University's History News Network features Rick Shenkman's blog on its website. You can buy the paperback there, and read the latest stupid news and stupid comments.