Idiot America

dori · **Posted:** Wed Mar 10, 2010 5:31 am

Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free by Charles P. Pierce

Quote:

Idiot America is not the place where people say silly things. It is not the place where people believe in silly things. it is not the place where people go to profit from the fact that people believe in silly things.
~~~~~
The rise of Idiot America today reflects--for profit, mainly, but also and more cynically, for political advantage and in the pursuit of power--the breakdown of the consensus that the pursuit of knowledge is a good. It also represents the ascendancy of the notion that the people we should trust the least are the people who know best what they're talking about. In the new media age, everybody is a historian, or a scientist, or a preacher, or a sage. And if everyone is an expert, then nobody is, and the worst thing you can be in a society where everybody is an expert is, well, an actual expert.

If you can find it, it is worth the laughs. We all deal with Idiot America, it is good to see someone else's view of it too.

Good book.

Catherine · **Posted:** Sun Mar 14, 2010 5:20 pm

Good post, dori!

I wish the Texas State Board of Education each had a copy and was forced to read it!

dori · **Posted:** Tue Mar 16, 2010 12:39 am

When I read will's post, the first thing I thought of is, I wish the people responsible for this would be forced to read this book.

They wouldn't like it. But then, they don't care how many people don't like having their religion forced on children.

It is a recommended book, but the local library doesn't carry 'those kinds of books'. This area could be whisked off to Texas and the people would be perfectly comfortable.

So much for the 'good' country people.

Catherine · **Posted:** Tue Mar 16, 2010 10:17 am

Quote:

but the local library doesn't carry 'those kinds of books'.

Dori, the library should be required to get a requested book from another library if they don't have the book you want. Where I live, it's called an "interlibrary loan system." Ask the librarian about it. My local library didn't want to carry The Da Vanci Code when it first came out, but there were so many requests for the book, they had to. THEN, my sister bought an additional copy and donated it to the library in memory of our parents. :mrgreen:

They had to catalogue it and put it on the shelf. :twisted:

dori · **Posted:** Wed Mar 17, 2010 2:06 am

Yes, we do have the NIOGA system. Books can be borrowed from many counties.

Actually, my ex is the one who borrowed the book this way. He is reading it and said he would let me read it before taking it back.

I can't believe this is the same man who was super up tight religiously and used me for a punching bag day in and day out because the church 'said it is okay to do anything you want to to people who are not going to heaven'.

He is now agnostic, although his disposition hasn't improved. If I weren't stuck here, I wouldn't see so darn much of him.

But he did borrow that book!

Catherine · **Posted:** Wed Mar 17, 2010 10:25 am

Quote:

He is reading it and said he would let me read it before taking it back

Well, if he takes it back before you get to read it, you can always just go to the library and do what he did...request it. :twisted:

dori · **Posted:** Thu Mar 18, 2010 12:32 am

Except, I don't have transportation. I am living the life of a recluse because I can't afford a car and there is no public transportation out here in the country.

I am reading the book now.

Quote:

The national hangover seems to be moving into that moment when the light feels less like daggers in your eyes, and regret and guilt start flooding in to replace the hammers that have ceased to pound inside the head. This is that moment in the hangover in which you discover that your keys are in your hat, the cat is in the sink, and you attempted late the previous night to make stew out of a pot holder. Things are in the wrong place. Religion is in the box where science used to be. Politics is on the shelf where you thought you left science the previous afternoon. Entertainment seems to have been knocked over and spilled on everything. We have rummaged ourselves into disorder. And we have misplaced nothing so much as we have misplaced the concept of the American crank, with dire consequences for us all.

Idiot America

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