Debate Right to be stupid?

[HDRKID]

Kerry says we have a right to be stupid.

TAKEN FROM: Kerry: 'In America you have a right to be stupid'

While speaking to the students and earlier to U.S. diplomats, Kerry reminisced about the time he spent in Berlin in the 1950s as the intrepid son of an American diplomat and retold a story of sneaking across to East Berlin with his bike.

"I used to have great adventures. My bicycle and I were best friends. And I biked all around this city. I remember biking down Kurfuerstendamm and seeing nothing but rubble. This was in 1954 ... the war was very much still on people's minds," he told the diplomats, referring to West Berlin's main shopping avenue.

"One day, using my diplomatic passport, I biked through the checkpoint right into the east sector and noticed very quickly how dark and unpopulated (it was) and sort of unhappy people looked," he added, saying it left an impression "that hit this 12-year-old kid."

"I kind of felt a foreboding about it and I didn't spend much time. I kind of skedaddled and got back out of there and went home and proudly announced to my parents what I had done and was promptly grounded and had my passport pulled," he added.

 

[Samstwitch]

Unfortunately and sadly, there's an overwhelming amount of stupidity in America.

I believe that is part of the dumbing-down plan for America.

 

[Justinian]

This was just a ranting point of mine in another forum I frequent. Not so much in the dumbing down of intelligence like this.. but same end result. There is a common trend that people are made to feel okay about being average. And if you try to succeed, you are told it is wrong and told how you are hurting your family. It's like the few extremely rich in this country is saying.. "Don't overachieve. Be happy with being poor or else your children will hate you for it." And also... take notice of something maybe not in your neighborhood, but in larger cities you see this.. People sit around and complain that new immigrants(legals) are making a killing because of some sort of government subsidy. This isn't always true. BUT, the thing is this.. In other countries, they understand that to get something you need to work hard. In America, people are taught that if you want something, that you are owed it for some unknown reason and that if the person won't give it to you, that you should sue them for it.

I'll give this example I know of personally. A good guy I used to work with told me that his family was rich. So I'm curious and I like to know how people get rich. I ask. And his answer is that his mother and father immigrated from Italy. And when they immigrated here back in the 40's or 50's that the US government gave them a lump sum of cash(not sure why). And with that cash they invested in real estate setting up rentals all over the Boston area. Now here's the thing. Regardless of the money given to his family, what would your average American family do if given that money? The average family would go out, buy a car, get some nice furniture for their apartment and call it a day. Then wonder in 10 years where all the stuff is that they bought with their money.

It all comes down to what I consider stupidity. But I guess in all fairness it may be a lack of education rather than flat out stupidity.

 

[BlastTyrant]

The right to be stupid is far to overly abused in this country, well and in the past Generations. Coming from IT Service Desk i see it far to often, i mean even in daily events you see it. Just driving down the road to get crickets i had a Colored Gentleman walk right in front of my Pickup, i honk he gives me the finger and swears at me till i drive off, Couple more minutes down the road i get cut off by some old guy talking on his phone with no blinker and no regard to anyone around him. Now we could argue it to be ignorance or stupidity but i call it both lol

Problem is Natural Selection isn't allowed to do it's job anymore.