Seriously. Can it be done?

If not, what does that say about the future of our country? (I'm speaking of the U.S., but this applies to any nation).


My sister forwarded an email to me yesterday that begins by showing pictures of Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the a-bomb and then today. The idea is that these cities that were destroyed are now beautiful and productive. Then they show pictures of Detroit today - pictures that only show it as run down and in decay.

The email ends with the following...

Which system is working better???



As I wrote back to my sister, Japan does indeed have a welfare system. They have had it since the 1920's. And I bet you can make any city look bad by carefully selecting pictures to show the worst side of it.

Then this morning I sign onto CEII and find this article posted;

‘Islamist Firster' president not what he claimed

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jan/31/hurt-islamist-firster-president-not-what-he-claime/


It was the comments on the article, not as much the article itself, that annoyed me.

So here's the thing; You could say that I've spent time trying educate people. Not that this is necessarily a goal of mine, but I mean that I don't simply write opinions and views, I try to give people facts.  It does seem pointless, as I'm sure others have found. I could respond to comments that Obama is a Marxist with a long list of things he has said and done. Or I could simply say, "No he isn't". The end result is the same. People believe what they want to believe.

Are we stuck with living among ignorant citizens? Remember that these people vote and there seems to be an awful lot of them out there. They can influence the course of a nation.

Is this something we must accept or can we actually make some progress?

"Are we stuck with living among ignorant citizens?"

The ignorance has always been around us - the playing field has just been leveled with the advent of the internet. So... yeah... unless you want to shut down the internet - we're stuck with it. We as individuals can make progress and impart what we have accomplished or learned to others with no expectation - - except one - - "blowback". Someone somewhere is going to explode regardless of what you say or how you say it. You can spend hours parsing your words, writing what you think is the clearest position or description on an issue that you can possibly muster... then pat yourself on the back and hit "Reply" - - - and seconds later read a string of angry, vitriolic "blowback".

We're stuck with it except in these little islands of respite - VoC.

Ignorance by choice is pretty tough to overcome. It always has been.
Then there are those who are pathologically obsessed with self and will spout any type of nonsense to garner attention.

"But if I had a magic wand and could "zap!" these folks, I'd zap them right into the situations they look down on others for..."

Maybe you won't have to... maybe they'll get there themselves as the water they've been hauling for the past few decades finally drowns them. As for us folks who are struggling... we're already there so what's a little more water?

I think, in the case of one particular person, it is willful and/or feigned ignorance. Nothing better to garner attention than to take the opposite side of most other people. Then the crap hits the fan. Another of the same ilk posts, they high five or commiserate with each other in a pity party of 2. The thread spirals to a thread about the two of them and nothing more. That's why I usually don't bother. It's not worth the grief.

If I met someone like that ignorant in real life, I would avoid them.

*edited to fix my ignorant mistake in grammar.

It's why I'm a hermit.

Lol!  a few trite sayings come to mind:  "ignorance is bliss", "stupid is as stupid does", etc.. Even in the Bible it speaks of too much knowledge as being "hurtful"{or something like that!)  I think people sometimes choose to be ignorant for a number of reasons--laziness (too lazy to spend the time learning), their own comfort zone (bliss): its easier to enjoy those shoes if you are unaware they were made in a sweatshop somewhere around the globe or it's easier to enjoy that steak if a starving child from Somalia is not staring you in the face, etc...And it takes moral courage to look in the mirror and admit "OMG have I been ignorant!" and then do something about it....As long as people have the choice to be ignorant, the world is gonna be stuck with dumbunnies!  And the political impact?  Aw, my fav story about the doctor who tried to close the contamimated public baths:  the ignorance of the majority did a number on his minority of one....