The Laws of Human Stupidity

I promised yesterday that I'd explain what I meant when I called poor whites who vote republican, "stupid." Now, some of you may not think it needs an explanation, LOL, but I can assure you that's not what I'm talking about! "Stupid" often has a very specific meaning when I use it, and this is one of those times.

To understand fully, first you have to read THIS. Don't worry it's only about 3 or 4 pages, with illustrations, and it's a really fun read anyway. If you want to skip to the part that's relevant to this discussion, go to the THIRD (AND GOLDEN) BASIC LAW section. Read at least that, and maybe the FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION part as well.

Now... There are four quadrants: Intelligent, Helpless, Bandit and Stupid. Here's how I see the political spectrum breaking down...

At their best, Liberals are intelligent. They pursue policies that benefit others and do so because they recognize that it will come back to benefit themselves. This is why, for example, they support labor unions and minimum wage increases. Other people benefit will make better wages, which in turn supports consumption, which in turn benefits everyone else. (This is the basic idea behind Keynesian Economics, which I'll have to explain at some point, because it's fascinating stuff, and most 'fiscal conservatives' have absolutely no idea how any of [macroeconomics] works.)

At their worst, one could say that the Liberal might act helplessly. After all, he might accept higher taxes (hurts himself) and the benefit (of increased spending) just might not work it way back to him. While this does not follow the laws of economics, we're assuming the worst case.

Now take the Conservative. The rich conservative clearly belongs in the Bandit quadrant. Between tax cuts for the rich, destroying labor unions, their desire to deregulate industries that act like THIS... it's clear that the rich conservative is in it for himself, and cares little how much others are harmed. The motto of these guys is, "I've got mine, screw the rest of you." Grab the money and run.

So why would I conclude that the working class conservative/Republican would be in the 'stupid' quadrant? (Besides process of elimination! LOL) Well first off, he support polices - the very ones I named above - that screw him over financially. Free trade, no unions, no minimum wage, lax labor laws, lax regulatory policies, no social safety nets... There's really nothing in the conservative agenda that helps the workin' man. So why do all these salty white guys keep voting Republican?! (No, it's not racism!) (Shame on you!) It's for the sake of SOCIAL conservatism. Basically? Religion. No abortions, no gay marriage, and for that matter no right to die, no legalized pot, no porn, no heavy metal/rap/rock-n-roll/dancing/etc, no this, no that... They vote that way because they think Republicans will force everyone to pray and live a good, clean Christian life, and eliminate all manner of harmless vice in the name of family values. (Now excuse me while I go vomit.)

OK... first off, YEAH RIGHT! Secondly, there's that whole 1st amendment, church and state, thing. Thirdly, of course, is their asinine assumption that anyone outside of their particular brand of medieval superstition actually thinks that everyone living that kind of life would even be a good thing; that anyone else would actually want to live in such an uptight, boring world.

But just look at from the standpoint of the stupidity argument laid out in Dr. Cipolla's article: They support economic policies that harms themselves, just so they can take away rights and freedoms from other people, thus harming them.

My friends? That's the DEFINITION of stupid.