“I don’t have time for their judgement and their stupidity; and you know, they lay down with their ugly wives in front of their ugly children and look at their loser lives and then they look at me and they say, ‘I can’t process it’, well, no you never will, stop trying, just sit back and enjoy the show… you know?”
Charlie Sheen
I begin with the above quote from actor Charlie Sheen to remind myself and my readers that no, Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber is probably actually not the most arrogant boor that ever existed. Like Mr. Sheen though, Gruber is clearly suffering from a severe case of unmerited elitism… “Winning!”
Jonathan Gruber is enjoying his fifteen minutes of fame for a viral video in which he explains the necessity of having designed the language of Obamacare to be obscure and tortured to provide a political advantage by taking advantage of the “stupidity of the American voter” in order to pass legislation which could not be passed on its own merits. It’s not an explanation which comes by way of confession to something he is ashamed of or embarrassed by, but rather almost as a trumpeting of a strategy he takes some pride in having pursued. The end justifies the means in Mr. Gruber’s world, and that includes ends that voters need to be deceived into approving; because after all, they’re too stupid to know what’s good for them.
In this and other videos where Gruber implicates President Obama in this grand scheme, the arrogance smacks of the philanderer who marvels at how gullible his spouse is for not discovering his infidelity. Wickedness cannot comprehend trust. The adulterer cannot see goodness for anything but naiveté. The scheming progressive cannot see the trust of the electorate as anything but stupidity. Good hearts believe in goodness, and are often surprised by its absence; evil cannot fathom goodness, and sees only weakness.
The label of stupidity is not one proffered by progressives alone. Conservatives are guilty as well for labeling those who disagree with us as idiots. More so, we often see the target of the Obamacare lie, the young, as fools who are easily led astray. True, their short lives have left them less jaded than we high mileage models; but while the years have given wisdom, they have worn thin the precious things like trust and hope that we see in the young. He is no fool who believes what the liar tells him; an honest man expects honesty… and has the right to. If our young have been fooled by the wolves we ought not blame the lambs; we are the shepherds, and it is our charge to stop the wolves like Gruber.
IMHO: Stupidity is a harsh word to describe what is happening to the American voter, and not entirely accurate. Oh, certainly there are stupid voters, but many of the most stupid are highly active on both sides of the aisle, and not a few of them are our elected representatives! There is also as the result of our failing education system and our flailing society, a quantity of base thinkers, lost children in adult bodies who seem incapable of higher thought beyond an adolescent fixation on vulgarity, sex and violence. But most are not lost, unless they are lost in a dream, the American Dream. We approach the place in our society that the Roman satirist Juvenal termed “bread and circuses”:
“…Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions– everything, restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses”
When people need not concern themselves with food or diversion, it’s easy for them to devote themselves to their social lives and networks, their homes, careers, fancy cars, expensive toys, sports, movies, and television. Leave the ordering of society to the powers that be, just send the bill on April 15th. People aren’t stupid; they’re busy, they’re distracted… they’re asleep. It is my earnest hope and guarded belief that the sleep of America is not a fatal one as it was with the Romans. We could use the strategy of Gruber and the progressives to force ourselves on the sleeping electorate by abusing the vulnerability of their dream and their distraction; or we can strike the bell from Independence Hall and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof, using the trappings of the dream to awaken the sleeper. Jefferson contended that the cornerstone of democracy rests on the foundation of an educated and informed electorate. If you think the electorate is stupid, then our democracy has no foundation. In such a case perhaps the elitism of Jonathan Gruber is the logical road to take. As for me, I am not so old to have lost all hope. I believe in the sleeping goodness of America. I am for the millions of brilliant, intelligent Americans, fully qualified to determine our future, and fully entitled to the truth. I stand with the busy, the distracted, the weary, the trusting, the hoping, the young, the old. No Mr. Gruber I am not with you in you subterfuge and dishonesty. I’m with “stupid”.
