...I discovered that a large percentage of my fellow countrymen are ignorant, illogical, paranoid, quasi-literate, parochial, xenophobic, homophobic, sexist, racist, anti-intellectual believers in UFOs.
That does seem to be the picture you get by reading people's opinions online. I find comfort in believing that the sample of opinions posted online isn't representative of the total population since it suffer from a sort of volunteer bias, where the people with the most outrageous opinions have the greater will to express those opinions to a bunch of strangers.
Either that, or we ARE surrounded by ignorant, illogical, paranoid, quasi-literate, parochial, xenophobic, homophobic, sexist, racist, anti-intellectual believers in UFOs and are all screwed.
Major tangent: Economics, capitalism, libertarianism - Adam Smith, the rational economic man, the invisible hand, the free market, the virtue of self-interest - all promise the greater benefit. So why the fuck have we not seen these jokers apologize publicly when it's obvious that the self-interested, rational actions of homeowners and lenders in the US have led to a global bloody recession where people from Stockholm to Brisbane are being laid off?
Well, I don't know about all the other fuckers, but I'm pretty sure that in Adam Smith's case, it's because he's dead.
Two can Live as Cheaply as One for Half as Long. -- Howard Kandel
