Oh, The Ignorance Amongst Us

I was reading a post over on Pundit and Pundette the other day about "Julia" in part she wrote:

 Reality-based arguments can't break through the kind of barriers some people have erected in their minds. Facts, reason, and even one's own deteriorating personal circumstances will barely make a dent.

The day before I read this, I was talking to man who told me that there was no national debt when President Bush took office.  That is not a typo.  No national debt, there was a "surplus".  When he first mentioned the surplus I said it was all smoke and mirrors.  He couldn't understand what I meant.  So I asked him how do you have a surplus when you had a $5T debt?  That is when he told me that there was no debt.  For the record, the day President Bush was sworn into office in 2001 our debt stood at $5.727 Trillion.  You want to toot the horn that President Clinton says he left office with a "surplus"?  Personally I think it is rather immoral that they didn't pay down the debt with "extra money".  I also mentioned to him that the government doesn't produce anything of value, so all the money belongs to the tax payers not the government.  Where's my rebate?  The federal government should never have a surplus.  

  If you want to see the truth about Bush's economic record, go here.  It isn't what President Obama and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz would have you believe that it is.  This man also believes that asking for an ID is racist, and there is no voter fraud.  He happened to be a black man.  We live in a state where they have ID laws for voting.  I asked him if he has problems voting.  Of course he doesn't because he has an ID.  I also told him if there was no voter fraud how come Newt Gingrich wasn't on our primary ballot?

Look, the guy is a Obama fan.  That is fine.  That is his choice as American.  The problem isn't that he likes Obama, the problem is the man is completely ignorant of the facts he spouts off.  It was less than five months ago that the story of ballot fraud was all over the news in Virginia.  The company Gingrich hired to help with signature collection committed fraud.  It happened.  This isn't something being made up.  Does this man think that this same company has never done that before?  Did the white kid getting the ballot for Eric Holder in DC not happen?  Because it is on video.  There was almost $6T in debt when Bush took office.  The surplus that the democrats like to point to is all smoke and mirrors.  That is like me saying I have $10K in my checking account when I owe the credit card company $20K.  What I really have is $10K of debts; in fact more than that once you figure in compounding interest that I will be paying until the additional $10K is paid off.

We have so many people in this country that are so ignorant of the facts.  I am not saying this only happens to people on the left.  We see it on the right as well.  Virtually every major news source in this country has some sort of bias.  They report the news with a slant.  It is up to the individual to go out and do independent research on the facts that they hear on TV or read in the newspapers.  Fox News does the same thing.  Do I think that they lie as much as the left says they do?  No.  But they report news without giving context to things.  One example being is the lawsuit that was filed against Catholic University about there not being places to pray for Muslim students that didn't have a crucifix in the room.  The way Fox reported this story led you to believe that people responsible for the lawsuit were the Muslim students, when in fact it was some idiot guy who files lawsuits about religion all the time.  The very few Muslim students who attend this school thought the lawsuit was ridiculous.

I see things in my travels around the net that just make me shake my head.  I can't believe how dishonest some of the things are that are out there.   We will never fix things in this country if don't understand the problems.  How can we understand the problems when we have so much ignorance?

We still have not gotten to the point in this country that we can have an honest debate about which things we are going to cut from the national budget.  We still have people out there that don't understand that we are quickly reaching the tipping point.  We cannot keep spending our money in the same fashion that we have been.  I am sick to death of hearing "what about your two wars".  I didn't start any war.  Congress voted and gave authorization.  73 senators approved the use of force in Iraq.  This was a bi-partisan decision.  I have always been on the fence about Iraq.  Am I sorry that a sociopath is no longer a head of state?  No, I am not. Call me crazy, but I think being a sociopath is a sure tell-tale sign that someone shouldn't be leading a country.  But the other side to that is that Saddam was a counterweight to Iran, which has grown stronger and more menacing since our entrance into Iraq.  That shouldn't have been too hard to see and it certainly doesn't seem that was thought out in any way that makes sense.

Instead of talking about the real issues we are discussing imaginary wars on women, color form depictions of a life dependent on government, throwing granny off the cliff, and other such nonsense.  Some of which can very entertaining at moments, but it doesn't address our real issues.  There is no problem to access of birth control in this country; especially at Georgetown University.  There are four, count them four, planned parenthoods within 10 miles of campus, which gives you pills based on your income.  There are stores that you can purchase your pills within 3 blocks of campus for under $10.  Those are facts.

I am sick to death of hearing, well Bush spent a great deal of money.  Yes he did.  More than half of which was done under a democratically controlled congress.  We have people who don't even understand that President has very little power to spend money on his own.  Spending is a function of congress.  If anyone thinks that I was happy about TARP, No Child Left Behind, and many other debacles of the Bush administration, then they don't know me very well.  I didn't like the spending then, nor do I like it today.

We need remedial training on how the government is supposed to function and how it is functioning today.  We need people to understand that if you want to truly understand an issue, you need to do a little digging on your own.  Read accounts from several different sources.  Listen to opposing points of view.  No one is right or wrong 100% of the time.

But what really scared me about this man is that he votes.  People with his level of ignorance help decide who run this country.  No wonder we are in such a mess.  I really would like it if someone would track down Miss. Peggy and let me know how that Obama Cash is working out for her.  With gas heading up and up she is going to need someone to pay for it.