Don's Tuesday Column

        THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson  Red Bluff Daily News   10/19/2021

Ideas so stupid only intellectuals…

The full, pithy quote, by “1984” author George Orwell: “Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.” The first objectors to the thought that their ideas are “stupid” would be the very intellectuals whose trained minds induced acceptance of said stupid ideas as delivered wisdom.

The universe of “intellectuals” believing stupid ideas includes rarified classes of academics, think tanks, policy-advocating foundations and activist organizations. 

Likewise, media figures in editorial rooms and the on-screen “talent” using their modest intellects to “retail” those stupid ideas into sound bites, 3-10 minute “persuasion” segments; and somber-music, sober-faced infomercials for another “be afraid, very afraid” catastrophe. Government is the usual prescribed palliative. Nancy Pelosi (to news media): “Well, I think you all could do a better job of selling it (Biden/Pelosi/Schumer/Sanders/AOC multi-trillion “transformational” bill)…”

What separates the advocates of “stupid” from those offering common sense, practical ideas? The “stupid” intellectual industry differentiates itself by their knee-jerk adherence to left-of-center, or progressive (current preferred term) thoughts and policies—ideas that always “sound good,” but are actually “too good to be true.”

Defenders and advocates of “progressivism”—rightfully seen as “American Marxism” by radio host, author, lawyer and Reagan administration veteran Mark Levin—might say it’s just ideological “tribalism,” as in “ours good, theirs bad.” In the 80s, renowned conservative Thomas Sowell spared with the “serpentine intellect” of PBS host Charlie Rose. You may recall Mr. Rose (with NBC’s Tom Brokaw) fawning over Barack Obama’s election victory—admitting that they knew so little about him. Really?

Rose insisted that Sowell, saying liberal academics all thought alike, was almost conspiratorial, or blindly supporting those with whom Sowell agreed. Sowell replied that the difference between left- and right-leaning academics was simply that the right tends to rely on actual, not theoretical, results. Leftist academics, having little or no organizational, practical or business experience, do think alike—they lack the tempering, balancing “real world” that proves the ineffectiveness of high-sounding ideas.

The last few weeks have shown objective observers an abundance of stupidity, if not downright diabolical deviousness. It is stupid beyond words to think: 1) that obsessing and stigmatizing over race is the way to a thriving, harmonious “colorblind” society; 2) that minutes and hours—spent by a child or school-age teen on “social justice,” gender fluidity and reinvention, or climate-fear programming—don’t deteriorate the learning of reading, writing and arithmetic. Tested 8^th graders are often deficient in all.

It's also diabolically devious for the National School Boards Association (NSBA) to coordinate with Biden’s DOJ by providing a thinly-veiled letter expressing disingenuous “fear” of irate, angry parents voicing their righteous consternation over “Critical Race Theory” (i.e. “ethnic studies) and “gender” garbage.

The NSBA (nsba.org) cleverly avoided calling parents “domestic terrorists”—"As these acts of malice, violence, and threats against public school officials have increased, the classification of these heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes” (their grammar, not mine). The NSBA demanded that every federal agency, and regulatory “Act,” bring force and federally-empowered litigation, to bear for…what?

Will they send DOJ lawyers backed up by armed FBI and Homeland Security, at the beck and call of any school board expecting angry parents to show up? Take over local law enforcement to pressure D.A.s to manufacture criminal acts where none have been reported? Combine the legal threat of campaign finance rules, with teachers’ unions deep-pocketed election machines, to keep anti-CRT, and “gender” opponents (anyone questioning multiple “genders,” and that boys can be girls and vice versa), off school boards?

Good news: The America First Legal Foundation sent a letter to Inspector General Horowitz requesting an investigation into Attorney General Merrick Garland. The letter questions whether Garland's responsive memo may be preventing parents from practicing their constitutional right to protect their children and protest their government.

Stupid easily morphs into dangerous, usually when said stupidity becomes a pretext for the “gov’mint” to “help.” Dave Ramsey observed (in an interview), “When the White House says it’s doing something, it means ‘my house’ has to do something.”

Stupid, deceptive policies abound in Biden’s “Build Back Better (Broker, actually)” bill:

How stupid is it to think, and worse to lie, that taxes will only be raised on “the wealthy,” and corporations, to pay for $3-5 trillion of new spending? The entire wealth of the “rich” could be seized and it wouldn’t fund one year of our federal budget. Of course, there’d be nothing left for the next year.

Corporations don’t pay taxes, they just raise their prices. Nearly three-quarters of all taxpayers earning between $30,000 and $100,000 will see an increase in taxes or will lose some benefits (Joint Committee on Taxation). Small businesses, employing almost 50% of private sector employees, will lose deductions and pay higher taxes—their choices are raising prices for (non-wealthy) buyers, firing employees, or going broke.

Biden’s bill demands 40% of America’s energy come from solar and wind. How stupid is that? It’s not technologically possible.

How stupid is setting aside $100 billion for benefits for illegal aliens who violate our borders and laws?

The stupidity creating the supply chain problems starts and ends in California: State laws, agencies and unions have created idiotic limitations on trucking—no trucks or engines older than 2010, no owner-operators allowed (AB-5), union work rules slowing work in ports; no drivers under 21 (fed rule).

“Shipping experts: Biden 24/7 order for supply chains ‘will accomplish zero’” (hotair.com10/13). Trending: #emptyshelvesjoe; so are photos of empty shelves with a printed “Let’s Go Brandon” sign. That’s the G-rated version, courtesy NBC, for the popular “F*** Joe Biden” meme.