"If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders."

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By Paul Richard Harris, Editor

Axis of Logic exclusive

Sunday, Sep 4, 2011

I have lived all my life within a two-hour drive, or less, of the United States. As a kid with my parents, and a couple of times as a young man, I visited it. As a youngster, I couldn’t really have explained why, but I was always glad to leave and get back into Canada. As a young man, I knew exactly why I felt uncomfortable in the US and, since 1983, have made it a point not to go there. In fact, I’ve even refused when employers have wanted to send me there.

So I’ve known for a long time that the US is one of the strangest places in the world – full of smart people, innovative, capable of great kindness; yet generally the world’s premier marketer of murder, mayhem, and almost every other nasty thing one could imagine. It is an inherently racist, elitist, vicious, violent society where normal decent people are considered just a little odd and out of step with reality. For most Americans, nothing and no one in the rest of the world matters – even a little bit – unless they are somehow servicing the wants and desires of the US. Otherwise, their primary role is target practice for the US.

While I’ve personally considered for a long time that the USA is clinically nuts, I’m not asking anyone to take my word for it.

Consider some recent gleanings from the news:

• When the US celebrated its Independence Day this year (on July 4th, for any of you who might be keeping track of these things), a survey conducted by Maris College in New York state found that 26% of Americans didn’t know who they had declared their independence from. That includes 6% who weren’t even sure the US had actually fought a war for independence. So, for benefit of that 26% - it was England.

• It’s a constitutional requirement that, to qualify for the presidency, an individual must have been born in the United States (or some reasonable facsimile). So, when 18% responded to a CBS News poll in August saying they didn’t know where Barack Obama was born, shouldn’t they have been able at least to guess? Fully 25% of Americans believe he wasn’t born in the US. The stupidity, however, appears to fall on party lines – 45% of Republicans and 45% of people who like tea parties believe he was born in some other country.

• Despite the huge economic resources that have been put into education about HIV-AIDS, a quarter of Americans still believe you can catch this from sharing a drinking glass. Another 16% think you can catch it from a toilet seat, and 12% believe they’ll get it if they’re in the same swimming pool as someone who is HIV-positive. This poll, conducted in June 2011, shows that about half of Americans would be uncomfortable around co-workers who were HIV-positive – despite the indisputable fact that it’s the HIV person who is at risk, not the other way round.

• Dead is dead. That’s what Judeo-Christian teachings should tell Americans – most of whom claim to have that background. Sure, the good dudes and dudettes are supposed to go to heaven, or at least some all-inclusive resort with maid service. But nothing in their teachings suggests they are going to come back as someone or something else after they’re dead. Yet, fully 25% of Americans believe in reincarnation. And it’s not because they’re adherents of Eastern philosophies where reincarnation is a central belief. What this suggests is that these folks are increasingly unsatisfied with their own miserable existences so they hope to come back as something better. Not to be too critical here, but many of them couldn’t come back as anything worse.

• A poll conducted by AOL and Associated Press in late 2006 showed that 25% of Americans believed that Jesus was going to return to Earth. In 2007. For those of you who might have had your noses buried in the sports section, he didn’t. And he isn’t coming. Ever. Stop being so bloody stupid.

• As the planets move, and the stars fill the sky, they are apparently busy worrying about the affairs and fortunes of each of us. No explanation is given for how all this is changed since Pluto lost its planetary status. Or whether the fact that many of the stars we see in the sky may actually have burned out thousands of years ago. Even our most easily spotted northern hemisphere friend – the Polestar – might have burned out completely anytime during the past 680 years, because that’s how long it takes for its light to reach us. But still,

Jupiter's gone into Orion,
and come into conjunction with Mars
.
Saturn is wheeling across infinite space
to it's pre-ordained place in the stars
.
And I gaze at the planets in wonder
,
At the trouble and time they spend, 

All to warn me to be careful

In dealings involving a friend.

Michael Flanders & Donald Swann
At the drop of another hat

At least 25% of Americans believe that shit.

• A poll taken just a few days ago as we approach the tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001, shows that 25% of Americans would be prepared to trade their personal freedoms for security. Although that is a substantial drop from similar polls done shortly after 2001, it is still notable that those 25% are completely ignorant of the fact that they have no personal freedoms left to take. Their government already has them.

• And one final poll, published at the end of August 2011, shows that about 30% of the American people have a favourable view of the Tea Party movement. That pretty much says it all – 30% of Americans are clinically insane.

Most Americans probably fit into one or more of the loony categories noted above. It’s comforting to know these people have their fingers on the weapons of worldwide destruction.

And since we are coming up to another tedious year-long cycle of listening to American politicians and hopefuls, and those screaming talking-heads on television blathering on endlessly, it might be helpful to remind Americans of the words of the late George Carlin:

Well, where do people think these politicians come from?

They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens.

It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders.

The public sucks.

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Paul Richard Harris is an Axis of Logic editor and columnist, based in Canada. He can be reached at paul@axisoflogic.com.

Read the Biography and additional articles by Axis Columnist, Paul Richard Harris