When did it become socially acceptable to be hideously stupid in public?

Is there no longer any shame to making your ignorant hatred public? And if there isn't, why not? It seems to me that much of this started in the '90s with the likes of Newt Gingrich, but he couldn't possibly make such a sweeping societal change alone.

Does anyone want to discuss what happened? Maybe the solution is found in such a discussion.

This is inspired by the thread linked below. I read just into the first paragraph before :banghead: and clicking out of it because it made me so angry:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8542092

... then Quayle made it fun. And it took off!

:hi:

about rights and the environment, social responsibility and caring for your fellows, just go back to sleep and we'll take care of you". We did and they did.

Then AM hate radio hosts made it OK to be stupid as long as you were on the right side. Joesef Stalin was right - you repeat the lie enough times it eventually becomes fact.

stupid and racist.

Welcome to America. We used to hate the Catholics and the Jews. Then it was Chinese and the Irish, later the Italians and Greeks and don't forget the Japanese. Now it seems to be Muslims.

And the neopagans.... In Minnesota I hear they tell Iowan jokes, at least Garrison Keillor says so.

We have a long, entrenched history of hating who is different, who we don't understand, who we are afraid of. It's a human trait we should have outgrown long ago. It's a shame. The prejudice mongers pander to our fears. And we encourage them.

I posted this on the other thread, but it fits really well here, too.

However, the very best sweet corn I ever ate I bought in Iowa.

WHO are these horrible people and WHY are they allowed to BREED? :banghead:

If you step back, it's pretty obvious that there's a global plague of them right now. Here, Canada, England, France, Italy, Israel, the Netherlands, who am I leaving out? Is this part of climate disruption? :banghead:

:sarcasm:

I'm sure some of them will take up your suggestion. :hi:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8540324

(It must really hurt to be that stupid.)


Aren't 'stupid' and 'republican' synonymous? :shrug:

Why force people to go figure out what you're talking about before replying to your post? I mean, I did it, but I'm more moved to post in the linked post than this one. They're discussing that over there.

Here in PA we received a lot of coverage concerning the Flight 93 Memorial and the anger that the initial design generated due to the shape. Ooooohhhh... crescent shaped, can't have that.

I saw that Fox and Michelle Malkin were egging on the xenophobic anti-Islam crowd.

Do these same people run outside and scream at the moon when it looks like this?


Why do so many people resist the idea of meeting their fellow humans half-way and at least giving understanding and compassion a chance before they turn to hatred, anger and stupidity?

So much hatred and so little time left if we continue on this path to oblivion.

there are 'way more stupid ugly people in the world than I had imagined.

Your statement hits it squarely on the head.

DU is without a doubt one of (if not THE best) sources of what is happening in the world. The bad part about that is that we are able to see so many examples of just what you described.

Sadly, there is a lot of evil happening. At times it just gets to be too much and I have to go listen to music, do some work in the garden, go for a walk or a ride and shut out the world for a time.

A few people filled with hate, stupidity or ignorance can cause so much harm that it just destroys the balance of nature it seems.

If you disagree, fine. But the outraged and outrageous personal attacks--among fellow progressives--is not to be believed and totally unwarranted.

Lots of unhappy people . . . venting, apparently.

I wasn't referring to the DU populace as being the problem.

I just meant that because this is such an International and diverse site that we see horror stories from around the globe. I only get (very) basic cable TV so I have to depend on the net to obtain ALL of the worldwide happenings. I was just commenting on the state of the planet in general in this thread.

Now, having said that, you are 100% correct in your statement also. I agree with what you're saying but I wasn't directing my remarks to anyone on this thread.

Remember the good old days when this was a fairly unified place due to the common thread of bashing the shrub and Cheney?

:hi:

There, the ugly is available to see everywhere you turn. I guarantee if you stopped to chit-chat, you'd find the stupid as well.

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." -- Abraham Lincoln

I'd rather be stoned to death or listen to the BeeGees.

Please see #35 for what I was actually trying to say.

I was a little obtuse but I wasn't aiming my thoughts at anyone on this particular thread.



:hi:

who came up out of McCarthyism, and before that there was the KKK and before that there was outright slavery...

From 1999 thru 2008, it became admirable to be a total moron, unable to speak coherently. To be widely known as someone, who if they ever had an original thought, it would die of loneliness, was anm asset. To be able to put two ideas together into a sentence that made sense was "elitest". And .. GAWD FORBID..you were able to quote a classic or historical figure who actually is respected around the world.Then you were truly an enemy of the US!!!

They made stupid American!

allowed various media moguls to own everything in sight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News_Channel
The channel was created by Australian-American media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who hired Roger Ailes as its founding CEO. The channel was launched on October 7, 1996<1> to 17 million cable subscribers. The channel slowly rose to prominence in the late 1990s.
...
In February 1996, after former US Republican Party political strategist and NBC executive<17> Roger Ailes left America's Talking (now MSNBC), Murdoch called him to start the Fox News Channel. Ailes worked individuals through five months of 14-hour workdays and several weeks of rehearsal shows before launch, on October 7, 1996.<18>
...

It should have been strangled in its crib, but noooooooooooo. The precious Free Market HAD to be allowed to replace the Fairness Doctrine because it was the WILL of GAWD-uh.

From about the second day that Rust Limpballs opened his allegedly golden mike in the studios of EIB (Excrement In Broadcasting), the brainwashing began in earnest. Listeners fell all over themselves to mega-ditto that swine of the airwaves who preached on the sins of Librulism. Never fucking MIND that the US has had exactly zero Libruls in power.

This was further compounded by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which allowed Klear Channel (called the Evil Empire with VERY good reason) to buy up all the audio real estate they could get their slimy hands on.

I railed against both of these mutations to no avail a few decades ago, and I will say this again: If Hitler had had Talk Radio, we'd all be building Volkswagens by now--and the radio pigs would be using Telefunken microphones.

:freak:

It is an entire personality type that is wildly confident while fucking stupid where sheer arrogance compensates for knowledge or skill and while an individual like Sarah Palin might be most representative of this phenomenon it is everywhere in all walks of life.

If someone can spout ignorance on the radio, then it might be OK in public.

This borough gave you three kids who beat a young black man so badly he wound up in the hospital. Why, you ask? Because Barack Obama was voted in as president.

Both my DH and I grew up there, before they built the Verrazano - and it was a quiet backwater. We visited about a decade ago and it's turned into a toilet. Midland Beach was heavily catholic in the past, so they probably hate the thought of anyone other than catholics moving in.

...

I look back to the "olden days" of TV, when "Queen For a Day" was on the air.. For the young ones, it was the first "reality" show. Poor women went on the air and boo-hooed as their tragic poverty-story as told in gory detail. These were usually frumpy, dowdy poor women who obviously had very little education. The live audience was filled with others just like them (who probably secretly wished THEY were onstage)..

What did they get for telling their "story"? a washing machine or maybe a tv..

Fast forward to Jerry Springer...ruder-cruder, but the same premise.. air your dirty laundry for cash & prizes

Oprah?..kinder-gentler, but the same idea, with a self-improvement bent

Survivor?..a Darwinian version of the same thing

Cops?..Under-class Gone Wild..in living color

Once people feel free (compelled?) to air their innermost "selves" on-tv-for-money, it's not surprising that the ugly parts peek out too..

Everything is a "competition" too..

cooking? It's no longer good enough to just have a pleasant person showing people how to cook..they have to be edgy/mean-spirited, and in competition with other cooks

singing/dancing? not good enough to just tune in & watch..we have to be "drawn-in" and then VOTE (by phone of course, so the mega-big-jumbo phone company execs get theirs)

unhappy overweight people? gotta show their struggles on tv, and humiliate them while the ads running on the show promote gluttony & excess.

Facebook/twitter, etc?..gotta tell every detail of one's life to strangers..what you ate, where you ate it, with whom, how much you paid, how it tasted, and probably when you "eliminated" it..

Life is no longer private..it's all public/all the time. You cannot buy a package of flashlight batteries without being "on camera".. You cannot park your car without being on camera, or go to the bank, or to the grocery store..or anywhere.. Even new computers come with cameras built in to watch you while you are at home online ( I taped a sticky note over the damned camera, since I cannot figure out how to UNinstall the damned thing)..


Are we better off?

The War on Brains has been a smashing success.

It's an old American tradition.