The Trouble with PEOPLE

So a few weeks ago, I was chatting with my friend about politics.  While bemoaning the impending doom that was surely facing the Democrats on election day, Silas, ever the optimist, opined that, "People are pretty smart, and on election day, they'll do the right thing."

I snorted derisively, and exclaimed, "No, they're not!  People are sheep!  People are dumb, stupid, easily manipulated, and will do what they're told to do.  They'll believe what they're told to believe, and they will vote the way they're told to vote!  Just you watch!"

Silas, being a great deal nicer than me, seemed hurt by my callous summation of the American condition.  So I felt the need to clarify.


A person is smart enough to look at the facts, and come to a logical decision.  I mean, honestly... anyone who can make it through high school, college, carry on an adult relationship, successfully hold a job, care for a family, and do all the myriad other things millions of people do every day, can surely follow the nuances of something as important as national elections.  If you get two people together, even two people who disagree entirely, then you will likely see an engaging and intellectually stimulating  conversation.  An individual is fine.  Two individuals is still a pair of individuals.

But once that number grows to three...

Three becomes "PEOPLE".  And PEOPLE are terrified.  PEOPLE want leadership.  PEOPLE don't know what to do, and want someone, anyone, to tell them.  It is in the nature of PEOPLE to think the worst.  Everyone is out to get them.  Things will NOT be okay.  If you're not with them, you're against them.  Anybody different can't be trusted. PEOPLE are absolutely certain that the very worst is about to happen, and only by surrendering to the very worst in all of us can certain and total disaster be averted.  PEOPLE are driven by fear, and that fear makes them lose the ability to think for themselves.  And because of all that, they are easily duped into doing things that are absolutely not in their own best interests.

The proof of all that is the fact that, after driving the country off a cliff using unfunded tax cuts for the wealthy over and over, PEOPLE have handed control of the United States House of Representatives back to the very folks that made the mess!  And despite all the things the Obama Administration has accomplished in under two years, PEOPLE think that this presidency has been largely ineffectual.  Why?  Because that's what they're being told by the Republicans and the Tea Partiers.

Why else would anyone who doesn't have health insurance complain about Health Care Reform?  Why would anyone who is unemployed applaud a governor trying to refuse millions of dollars in aid that would directly help the unemployed?!  Why would someone with no wealthy relatives, who will never inherit a dime, scream about ending the inheritance tax??!!

I'll tell you why... because that's what they've been told.  If you ask any one of these PEOPLE about these issues, you'd hear a person speaking common sense:

• Continuing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy will add $700 billion to the deficit, and that strategy has already been declared a proven failure. And tax cuts of any kind generate only about 35 cents of economic stimulus for every dollar it costs.  However, "entitlement benefits" like Unemployment Insurance generate about $1.25 for every dollar they cost. So of course the tax cuts should be allowed to expire. Of course the states should accept money from the Stimulus.
• A civilized society has an obligation to care for the sick, no matter what their economic situation.  It's not right to let people die just because they're poor.  So health care reform is the right thing to do.
• The inheritance tax affects less than 1/2 of  1% of all Americans.  Very few of the PEOPLE screaming for its head are in any position to benefit from its repeal. But they would admit to enjoying the benefits of more revenue to an already cash-strapped government.  You know, cops, teachers, firefighters, nice roads, safe food, and other stuff like that that this ideology will prevent.  Besides, when he died, all my daddy left me was alone.  

But put any one of these people together with any two others, and you get PEOPLE.  And, apparently, at that point, they lose their damned minds.

A person can think for himself.  A person understands the difference between acting in his own best interests and facilitating his own demise.  But PEOPLE... PEOPLE let mob mentality take over.  They get caught up in the sublime pleasure of subjugating their own decision-making to someone else, someone who is certainly smarter, and knows what's best.  They DO know best, don't they?

The Republicans understand this phenomenon all too well.  They wield it like a weapon, swinging it madly over the heads of the PEOPLE, bending and shaping the will of uninformed many to service the needs of the privileged few.  Their method is brilliantly simple.  Just say whatever they want, as loudly as possible, over and over, until it becomes accepted as fact.  By the PEOPLE.