Is it just me, or has the world started spinning on a different axis? I mean, I’m aware that the angle of the Earth’s axis can change over time – a long time. And I know that changes to the distribution of the Earth’s mass can also cause the axis to shift a bit. But can the angle of the axis change because of a collective shift in our prefrontal cortices?
Stupidity has a knack of getting its way.
Albert Camus
I’ve never had much of an issue in regard to the classification of cognitive abilities. Like everything else in this world, there will be people who are blessed with a great deal of intelligence, while others may have been somewhat cheated when it was being handed out. My goal as a teacher was to help balance out the differences between the two extremes. In the end, I wanted to make sure that all students had at their disposal the tools they needed to pursue a happy and productive life. I also made it a point to ensure that they learned about fairness and responsibility so they wouldn’t consider using their mental or physical abilities against their peers. Yet nowadays I fear that I may have been in the minority.
In the world today, we find ourselves in the middle of a shift regarding our understanding of and our ability to cope with stupidity. Over the years, things that once aligned with our common sense and our awareness of good and evil are becoming less and less obvious. In some circles, the differences are subtle. The gray area between right and wrong has expanded to apparently include areas of mostly right or mostly wrong; making sense or not making sense at all. In some cases, the alignment between these differences is gone altogether. Yesterday’s wrong is now today’s right; yesterday’s bad ideas are now contenders for today’s policies.
I get it; I can see how things have changed from the wise to the worrisome. A lack of balanced and insightful education; the absence of strong parental guidance or admiration for the wisdom of aging; the arbitrary proliferation of violence; the rise in value of money and prestige over human dignity and even life itself. Any one of these can cause ignorance to flourish and when left unchecked, turn into full blown stupidity. So I wanted to take time to share some thoughts on a few instances where mistakes, misunderstandings, or perhaps simple syntactical changes could help reduce the consequences of a wandering act of idiocy.
In a time of universal deceit – telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
Unknown
With Great Power Comes Great Corruptibility
The will of the American people. This is a quote that has become a mantra of sorts that gets attached to pretty much every statement uttered by the current White House Press Secretary. I realize that she is young, ambitious and certainly busy. Between juggling the mercurial nature of her boss and carving a niche out for herself in American politics, it’s understandable that she is bound to generalize for the sake of time and expediency. But if she’s devoted to being accurate and surgical in her statements or assessments, then perhaps she may want to consider revising that phrase. The apparent dismantling of the American democracy and jurisprudence is not exactly the will of the American people; it’s more like the assumed desire of a portion of the American people.
The implication of her tagline certainly aligns with the general hallucinatory nature of her employer’s messaging in wishing to express that all of the American people voted for her boss. But in keeping with the facts, it’s important that she remember that not all of the American people voted in that manner. And in actuality, a rising number who did are starting to question the tactics being used by her employer to shred the foundations of America’s service institutions. So along the same vein that raising the unemployment rate, cutting taxes for the most wealthy, and sending consumer prices into the stratosphere are not the will of the American people, neither is the wholesale deconstruction of agencies and services tasked with protecting the public trust. It’s my fervent hope that someone from her office will take the time to counsel her on a more effective way of using the lexicon when she unwittingly reiterates her boss’s unrealistic message.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.
Plato
His Word is his Bond(i)
In a previous posting, I wrote about the expression his word was his bond in regard to the value of words and how the syntax surrounding their use has seemingly become more important than their context. Case in point: The utilization of the phrase (or title) Department of Justice, or the DOJ. As the country’s enforcer of federal laws and defender of its interests, the DOJ is also charged with ensuring the public’s safety as well as safeguarding their rights to a fair and impartial treatment under the law. A statue of Lady Justice is usually depicted to represent these ideals. She holds a balanced scale to represent fairness, wears a blindfold to represent impartiality, and carries a sword to represent the notion that justice is both swift and final.
There have been several variations of Lady Justice going back from Greek and Roman times, all the way to the 20th century. Some show her without a blindfold to represent that justice sees everyone equally. In others, she carries books instead of a sword to represent the importance of the law and the constitution it defends.
So I’ve been somewhat perplexed by how the DOJ under its current configuration has chosen to represent its traditional mandates. It’s just a suggestion, but perhaps they may wish to rebrand themselves as the Department of Justification. Given that recent announcements concerning their aggressive agenda seem to revolve around a notion of targeted vindication based on a singular roundabout mandate, the moniker of Department of Justification provides a clearer and more direct meaning to represent their actions. And as a bonus, they wouldn’t have to spend much money for the rebranding. I’m sure that would sit well with the current administration’s goal to eliminate waste and reduce the rate of federal spending.
Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a good carpenter to build one.
Sam Rayburn
The Man of a Thousand Phases
I would venture to say that many people would ascribe the phrase Renaissance Man to Elon Musk. A person imbued with myriad talents and knowledge in numerous areas or subjects. Businessman, computer programmer, tech visionary, entrepreneur, space enthusiast. He has demonstrated that savvy investments, juggling the creation, ownership, and sale of companies for profit, and an overzealous sense of self can get you all the money and notoriety you desire. It seemed like nothing was beyond his reach. And to help solidify that image in the minds of millions, he parlayed his reputation for unlimited success into a spot at the government’s table with an entity called The Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE; an acronym symbolizing efficiency and directness (with just a dash of ambiguity.)
The mission for DOGE seemed simple: Seek out waste and fraud throughout the federal government. To trim the fat from bloated government contracts and reduce spending to a lean, organized, and essential process that would revert millions – even billions of dollars back into the federal budget to benefit the American public. I guess we could add Robin Hood to Musk’s list of accomplishments. But, as the dust settled on the 2024 election and the confetti was swept up, so was Elon. It now seems that perhaps Robin Hood’s other moniker might be more apropos – outlaw; this way no one would have to picture him wearing tights.
Five plus weeks and countless unsavory and insensitive acts later, DOGE has upturned the federal government in ways never seen before. Musk and his band of Gen-Z technocrats have dismantled organizations with impunity, divested thousands of public servants of their career and livelihood, crippled essential services related to health, security and travel (so far), placed in jeopardy the health and welfare of untold millions of people around the planet, and dragged the country’s global reputation through the mud like a bully kicking an asthmatic kid to the ground. All that and more.
But at least DOGE has so far recovered hundreds of billions of dollars in government waste. No, wait; tens of billions of dollars. Wait; what? Oh. As much as two billion dollars recovered. I suppose it’s tough to count all that federal cheddar while you’re busy burning the midnight oil planning the next governmental raid. And now, they’re setting their sights on Fort Knox to see just how much gold bullion we do have in the federal coffers. It’s as if DOGE is creating a whole new variant within the financial sector – Urinomics. It deals with the creation of inflated economic forecasts by pissing on the careers of dedicated public servants and the institutions they swore to uphold. Like the DOJ, perhaps DOGE could use an updated name to best represent their invasive and audacious methodologies. I give you DODGE: The Department of Designated Government Excuses.
Nothing defines humans better than their willingness to do irrational things in the pursuit of phenomenally unlikely payoffs. This is the principle behind lotteries, dating, and religion.
Scott Adams
Final Thoughts
What is there to say of the landscape before us? For some, it’s seen as a temporary period of adjustment; a passage between the old and the new; the inefficient to the responsible. To others, it’s a violation of both our sacred institution and a revered way of life; a fundamental shift in our perception of ourselves as a nation and a society. Both assessments carry with them a certain degree of embellishment and starkness; a refusal to look back and a denial to look ahead.
But the fact of the matter is that our future is being built upon a foundation of lies. We have allowed ourselves to be comforted by the promises of swift, positive changes hidden within a vision of restricted liberties. We have been made to believe that the ideals of freedom, fairness, and collaboration are somehow a breeding ground for excess, waste, and the desecration of family values, instead of the positive bedrock we need to build for the survival of our children and their future. We are being told to be patient while the fundamental principles of what truly makes America great are torn apart. Our security is being weakened, and our national identity abducted by prejudiced extremists with an agenda of exclusion, misogyny, and servitude. We are being asked to believe that falsehoods reside in the realm of normalcy. That our strength lies exclusively in the spirit of a thoughtless directive, instead of the resolute actions of the everyday hero, the power of the communal benefactor, and the courage and wisdom bequeathed to us by our parents and their parents before them. People – immigrants – who came to a new land conceived in liberty wrapped in a promise of prosperity for those willing to work hard for both their family and the common good. The ability to seek out opportunities to amass wealth as a legacy for the future of their children, and not for the subjugation of the masses. We all live today, thanks to everything that was placed before us; opportunities for education, work, community, advancement, innovation, and the freedom to practice a religion of choice, not of designation.
Look; there‘s no denying that the government has its fair share of waste, mismanagement, and inefficiencies. As the nation’s largest employer with over 3 million people (or 1.87% of the country’s total civilian workforce), such problems are bound to occur and need to be brought to bear but in a fair, organized, prudent and thorough manner. But in this moment in time, there is much to think about and much more that we may be expected to witness in the name of progress. And if that progress is defined as a means to improve the lives and welfare of everyone in this country in every sense of that phrase, then we may excuse the momentary lapse of vision or an errant trip into stupidity.
But we cannot indulge or excuse the people entrusted with the management, health, and security of our nation when they decide to do things – not the right way or even the wrong way, but in a devious way under the pretense of a new norm. It’s not; it’s deceitful, reckless, and defiantly unethical. Moreover, we should not and cannot endure the apathetic nature of our political landscape. Each of our appointed public servants are mandated by their constituents and the Constitution to uphold the rule of law and protect the rights of the individual. So, a quick word of advice to all those elected officials out there, regardless of party or platform: If your needs are greater than those of your constituents? Please quit. If your sense of political survival is greater than your sense of justice? Please, quit. If your fear of reprisal from within your own party is greater than the fear your constituents now have for the potential loss of their very safety or livelihood? Please quit. Do the right thing and let your last great act of public service be to yield the power of your office – of your constituents – to someone else whose love of country and its people hasn’t been tarnished or traded in for the fevered dream of a counterfeit legacy.
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