February 24, 2003: Wouldn't it be nice if people not only engaged their brains prior to speaking, but knew what they were talking about when they actually spoke?
Hollywood celebrities, hippy-dippy ice cream moguls, and "activists" from all over the world constantly remind us that they are against the removal by force of a ruthless dictator. They say it's because war is bad. How many neurons do you think it took to come up with that bit of wisdom?
There is also the brilliant, though some might say a bit naïve, assertion that if we don't have enemies, we...er... won't have enemies. Another gem from the celebrity folks that we have all grown to love and admire (with special thanks to Sheryl Crow).
J.R., (Larry Hagman) from the TV show Dallas, has -- after apparently absolutely no thought whatsoever -- determined that his character on Dallas was able to take over Texas by not using violence, so why can't President Bush do the same with Iraq? Speaking from Germany, Larry brilliantly observed: "J.R. was so smart he always found a way to win without violence ... he ruined his enemies financially or socially." So, by implication, why can't George W. Bush just ruin Saddam Hussein socially and avoid war?
And these are the people we watch on TV and sometimes pay money to see on the big screen.
Larry Hagman says President Bush is a "sad figure: not too well educated, who doesn't get out of America much. He's leading the country towards fascism." For Larry, George Bush graduating from Yale and receiving an MBA from Harvard is "not well educated."
It was all Larry could do in his TV sitcom, "I Dream of Jeanie," to keep an all-powerful Genie from actually doing something to improve the lot of anyone or any people on earth. Seems if you don't think, that makes sense.
If we are to judge by the remarks of the celebrity anti-war crowd, not being bright seems to be a prerequisite for making it in Hollywood. However, this problem is, of course, not just confined to Hollywood types and left-leaning ice cream barons. In fact, the problem is far more ominous and widespread.
Whether you believe in Creationism or Darwinism, it's disconcerting to view a huge segment of society that doesn't know enough, or care enough, to take action to save not only an oppressed people geographically distant from them, but to actually save their own skins.
How then can we explain how the same people who profess a revulsion for the vagaries of war close their eyes to the plight of the Iraqi people? How can people who proclaim they are "true patriots" and are exercising their right to freedom of speech not see the threat to freedom posed by dictators like Saddam?
More to the point, how can people who seem to have a desperate need to exercise their freedom of speech, use that right to protect someone who kills, tortures and imprisons people to deny them that right?
Actually, the answer is simple; they are just not very bright. They are lucky, but just not too sharp.
Socrates, about 3000 years ago said: "Well I am certainly wiser than this man. It is only too likely that neither of us has any knowledge to boast of; but he thinks that he knows something which he does not know, whereas I am quite conscious of my ignorance. At any rate it seems that I am wiser than he is to this small extent, that I do not think that I know what I do not know."
Of course, there is the problem of accountability. American celebrities can always fall back on the canard of innocence and idealism. Sadly, many in America will buy into that Tinseltown nonsense and give the benefit of the doubt to these spoiled stars who at the same time denounce their own nation, seek to prevent the liberation of an oppressed people, and demand that a ruthless tyrant remain in power to menace the world.............
