An Angry Man's Lament

 

I hate people.

It’s true. We’re talking intense loathing and dislike here. Not all people, of course, but a huge percentage of them. Lately, though, it feels like my utter contempt for them is on the verge of boiling over, and I feel the need to vent my frustration.

My problem is that I have very little patience for stupid people. As comedian George Carlin once quipped, “Just think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize that half of them are even stupider.” For example, I despise every person who claims with absolute certainty that the Earth is flat, or that chocolate milk comes exclusively from brown cows, or that the Titanic was just a movie and not a real event. They are an insult to humanity and a waste of oxygen.

And I’m not just being critical because I’m rapidly turning into a grumpy old man, either. The truth is, as someone who has always strived to be an intelligent, courteous, and responsible person, I’ve always struggled with idiots and jerks that make bold, moronic claims with the utmost confidence, as when they say that solar panels are going to “suck up all the energy from the Sun.”

Probably the most egregious of these stupid people is Donald “They’re eating the dogs…they’re eating the cats” Trump. If idiocy was a sandwich, then Trump would be a buffet.  Everyday it’s a new ridiculous claim. Anyone that thinks that injecting yourself with disinfectants is a good idea to stop Covid should never hold political office.  Calling climate change a “Chinese hoax” should be similarly disqualifying. But seriously, how dumb do you have to be to believe that elementary schools are performing sex-change operations on children?

Whether you are religious or not, people do make some outlandish claims to try and convince others that their faith is indisputable, such as “If God isn’t real, then why do meteors always land in craters?” Many Catholics are saying that a stone statue of the Virgin Mary that “miraculously survived” a fire, is a sign from God. Really?  A Christian TV Host recently claimed vegetarian hamburgers alter a person’s DNA, causing them to no longer be able to be classified as human.  He claims it is a “Luciferian plot” to prevent them from being saved by Christ.

For me, the latest assault on intelligence concerns the catastrophic, deadly wildfires currently plaguing the Los Angeles area. The internet is now abuzz with ridiculous, blatantly false reports and harmful conspiracy theories.  This, during a particularly heartbreaking time when the fires have taken dozens of lives, thousands of structures have burnt to the ground, mass evacuations are in place, and tens of thousands of homes are without power.

In the wake of these fires breaking out, there has been a steady stream of moronic claims peppering social media.  As a resident of Southern California, I take offense at the ridiculous nonsense spread by these people. Aside from the flurry of political jabs by the right wing to create even more unrest and division during this tragedy, one of the most popular memes going around on the internet blames the fires on “God’s wrath” for mocking him at the Golden Globe Awards. Others say that the fires were started by Satanic rituals that went awry. Rumors spread about state-controlled directed energy weapons from the sky being a culprit in the fire. 

Finally, Alex Jones, that renowned conspiracy theorist, just had to weigh in, saying that the fires were planned by political operatives to wreak havoc on the United States. He posted on X, that the “Los Angeles fires are part of a larger globalist plot to wage economic warfare and deindustrialize the U.S. before triggering total collapse” and calling the L.A. officials response “administrative terrorism.”

I may not be the smartest guy in the room, but even I know a load of bull crap when I hear it.  It’s such a pity that so many millions of Americans are completely unable to tell the difference.  I feel that nonsense such as this should be at least as painful to those that utter it as it is to those that are forced to hear it.  I guess ignorance truly is bliss. Perhaps this is what Ernest Hemingway meant when he said that “Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.”