Dumb or Stupid?

Dumb and Dumber?    Maybe Just Stupid?

by 1Tea-edTexan

In late September, investigative journalist and  talk show host, John Stossel, made an appearance on the Fox News program, The O'reilly Factor. Stossel was there to speak out about how Americans, particularly young Americans, are ill-prepared to vote.
Host of the Factor, Bill O'Reilly, who is not one to let his personal ratings go unnoticed, gave Stossel free rein to expound  his proposition that young people are too dumb to vote. Stossel came prepared to support his notion that young people are stupid with prerecorded videos of  random,"on the street" interviews with young people who were asked to identify the images of notable political and entertainment personalities who are in the news of late.
As to be expected, the clips clearly demonstrated that the particular set of people questioned could not readily identify the Vice President of the United States, The Speaker of the House, or the House Minority  Leader, but they quickly and easily identified a celebrity from the Situation Room.
While Stossel presented the snippets as prima facie evidence that "young people are just too dumb to vote",  he neglected to include other data or documentation to support his assertion. There are innumerable variables in facial recognition that render his presentation seriously flawed and  besides, it was likely edited and weighed to support his claim.
That was not the first time Stossel has taken a swipe at America's youth. In January, 2006, while anchorman at ABC 20/20, he featured a program, "Stupid in America" which was more of a frontal assault on schools, educators and administrators than an examination of the intelligence or learning abilities of children. To his credit, the program did focus national attention, for a time, on our failing educational system.
In the same week that Stossel appeared on The Factor, Senator John (swift boat) Kerry (D. Ma.) told reporters that "We have an electorate that doesn't always pay that much attention to what's going on so people are influenced by simple slogans instead of facts or truth or what's going on". That was Kerry's opinion but he offered no supporting data.
Is there a parallel here?  Is this conservative talk show host and this liberal Democratic senator,  on opposite ends of the political spectrum,  saying the same thing?  This appears to be the case!

But, WHY?

Arrogance, Pals, Arrogance. There may be other more subjective and  less conspicuous reasons for their demeaning charges against young people but I cannot come up with a single objective reason.
For the most part, I avoid using the words "stupid" or "dumb".  Both are perfectly good words and may sometimes find valid application to some persons, acts or situations, but to say that anyone  is too stupid to vote, too stupid to participate in government at the lowest level,  is the highest degree of self-serving  arrogance,
That being said, there is always an exception and sometimes arrogant people do stupid and arrogant things and the act of voting or even calling for a vote becomes a grave mistake and a  colossal act of stupidity.  The case in point would be the Affordable Health Care Act in which 435 "uninformed" members  of The United States House of Representatives met on a Sunday to vote on legislation that no one had bothered to read, that would cost untold millions and affect the lives of every living American and all future generations.  The bill passed by a vote of 219-212.  Yes, there are times when some people are too stupid to vote but stupidity knows no boundaries and it is not limited to the young.  Need I say more?

Dumb or Stupid?

by Freedom Fighter
The complexity placed on young and old alike has changed drastically over the years. When we make a distinction between dumb and stupid many factors have to be considered Our great grandparents, although unschooled had the knowledge to build a house or cabin. They grew their own crops and hunted or raised their own meat. They could carve out a life for their family while standing against all elements placed before them.
In the eyes of many today they could be considered dumb but far from stupid.
Einstein would forget to put his pants or shoes on if an idea hit him. Was he dumb or stupid?
Many of our young people and middle age know nothing about politics. They may be dumb on one  subject, but genius on another.
On the other hand many might be like myself when I was young. I was more interested in the opposite sex than who was being elected to office.
I saw the same show on O'Reilly with John Stossel that 1Tea-ed Texan did. I agree with Texan there are no boundaries to stupidity. I think John displayed that very well. Children today are not taught history or politics as we were. This makes it hard to choose between dumb and stupid. Today's youth are taught to praise the stupidity of Obama. There are a lot of young people I respect because they do want to know what is going on in government.
I guess what I would have to call stupid are the people who voted on a health care bill we didn't want or a President they knew nothing about.
Dumb would be when you don't understand a subject. I fall into this category on many subjects. I say stand up for our youth, we could be all they have left.

You have heard our opinion, now let us hear yours.

Take our 15 question quiz at RednecksForAmericans go to Radical Richard's Corner and show Stossel he was wrong.