Indeed there are stupid people in both the Democrat and Republican Parties. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has more than once demonstrated her lack of intelligence, most famously when she, with a degree in International Relations and Economics, argued that the unemployment rate was so low because many people were working two and three jobs. Anyone with a modicum of sense and a degree in Economics should know that the unemployment rate is based upon the number of individuals hunting for jobs, not the number of jobs that have been filled. Likewise, the mob who attacked the Capitol during the “insurrection” on January 6 were also stupid. There was absolutely nothing that they were going to accomplish by standing on the House floor and arguing that the election had been stolen, even if, as evidence suggests, it had been. And, had they really intended the “insurrection” that the Democrats are accusing them of, why didn’t they bring their guns? Rest assured they all had them!
Thankfully, unlike my examples, many Americans are intelligent. But what are the characteristics of an intelligent person? One who is intelligent can understand principles, truths, and facts, can learn and comprehend, has the ability to reason and to apply logic. A college professor once explained to our class that the ability to postpone instant gratification and instead work towards it in the future was an indication of maturity. That might also be called an indication of intelligence; the ability to see the inherent dangers in instant gratification as opposed to a long term plan to achieve a goal. For example, suppose two men are walking near each other down the sidewalk. Both of them notice a sale sign on a store opposite them and both are eager to examine the items on sale. One of them wisely proceeds to the corner at the end of the block, waits for the light to change, crosses the street and goes back to the store. The other man, wishing to hurry to the sale, darts across the street, dodging cars and is hit by a motorcycle, breaking his leg. The second man did not reason out the possible consequences of attempting to reach his goal immediately. The first man, however, did and arrived at his goal with no unintended consequences. He was smart.
These two men represent the two major political movements in America today: the Republicans (the first man) and the Democrats (the second man) or if you wish, conservatives and liberals. Many of their stated goals are the same, but the conservative considers the unintended consequences before he acts and tries to mitigate any problems his action might cause. The liberal has a “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!” mentality that more often than not causes more problems than the solution he is implementing.
Examples of this folly can be seen in the insistence of many Democrats that it would be a good thing to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Indeed, the teenager flipping hamburgers at McDonalds would love to make $15 an hour, but if the manager has to pay someone $15, why not hire an adult, who would be far less likely (as one of my students who worked at McDonalds once told me) to play catch with another employee using the hamburger patties, and just pick them up from the floor when they dropped them and flip them onto the grill. There are unintended consequences to this proposal that the Democrats ignore. The Democrats pride themselves on being the “Party of Science” and often make comments as did Biden’s nominee for Interior secretary, Rep.Debbie Haaland, who tweeted only last October that “Republicans don’t believe in science.”
Yet it is the Democrats who don’t believe in science and the Republicans who do, since scientific studies have repeatedly shown that raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour not only causes businesses to raise prices, but also to cut hours and fire workers. It is great to make $15 an hour, but only if you still have a job! Republicans look at the studies and determine that increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour has proven to harm more workers than it has helped. They have shown their intelligence by considering the unintended consequences.
It is also intelligent to believe the science. Republicans have long believed the science that shows that a man cannot become a woman simply because he wants to. We are what we are born. Our skeleton , our muscles, our ability to create sperm or to conceive and carry a child are determined by our DNA, not by our wishes. Democrats, who also see themselves as the great supporters of women’s rights, have just taken away women’s rights by allowing men who have transgendered to “women” to compete in sports with biological women. The slowest man, the weakest man, is faster and stronger than any woman. It is simply the way their bodies are made and no hormones can change that. Thus no woman will ever win a competition in which a transgender “woman” participates. Republicans are intelligent enough to understand that because they understand science.
It is also intelligent to believe that there are not multiple genders, but Democrats cannot seem to grasp this concept. All of the animal kingdom comes in male and female, and only male and female. Why should humanity be any different? As a Christian, I believe that God created man and woman, male and female and no other genders. But if instead, I believed, as Darwin theorized, that we are all descended from apes, then we might look at apes to determine what gender our ape-ancestors come in. Male and female. Nothing else. Is this so difficult a concept to understand? It is for Democrats, but Republicans have it down pat. Male and female. The end!
Was it intelligent for President Asterisk on his first day in office to sign an executive order stopping the Keystone Pipeline, thereby putting thousands of people out of work and, along with his subsequent orders on fracking and on drilling in the arctic, imperiling the energy independence that we had just achieved under President Trump’s administration? No, it was not an intelligent move, nor was refusing to take calls from Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau for several days.
Intelligent people follow the science and the science tells us that states and countries which didn’t lock down during the pandemic did not have more cases of COVID than those who closed everything. Nor have areas with mask mandates had fewer COVID cases than areas with no mask mandates. Reason and logic, which come with intelligence, would tell us then that it is an unnecessary burden on the populace and the economy to shutdown businesses and schools and demand that everyone wear a mask, or even two. But Democrats simply ignore the science if it does not suit their purposes. That is not smart.
I could discuss many more areas in which Democrats ignore the science or plunge ahead foolishly without considering what the unintended consequences might be – – – climate change and open borders, for example — but let me end instead with this quote from Albert Einstein. He said “The difference between genius and stupidity is: genius has its limits.” There is no limit to the Democrats’ stupidity.
So, if you want to prove you are intelligent, be a Republican!