You Guys Are Dumber Than You Look The above paragraph, from a recent piece in the Wall Street Journal, perfectly sums up the way the vast majority of politicians who now control the United States of America, particularly in the upper echelons of Congress, perceive you, me, the average citizen. We are dumb; incapable of making sound decisions, choosing the best path or the best candidate, the best book or movie or t-shirt. We can’t be trusted to live in peace with each other, let alone our fellow citizens; we would all be better off if left to ourselves, without any intervention from the State. And when that intervention does occur, it doesn’t need to be a carefully crafted, well-reasoned plan. The best way to save our children from harm is not to provide them with knowledge about sex or science or history or medicine, but to just take away their freedoms. If a child shows an interest in those subjects, you don’t need to educate her in a measured, thoughtful, fact-based way. You don’t need to give her the tools to come to an independent opinion about sex or vaccines or the age of consent or capital punishment. Instead, you need to take those freedoms away so that you don’t have to hear her questions. You should just lock her in a closet for as long as you can. Let her know that you are there for her and that you’re going to protect her from all harm and all knowledge that she could possibly acquire. In fact, why don’t you hold your own children hostage to show her what a mistake she’s making and how much you love her and care for her. Yes, it’s that simple. You’re a better parent than she is, so you know what’s right and best for your children. The average citizen of course knows none of this. They just want to go about their business and maybe look at a funny picture or share a good thought on a meme that someone posted. They certainly wouldn’t think that an entire book could be banned, not even that one. It’s a book. A book about science and history and medicine. A book written with passion and knowledge and experience. It’s the bible of science. It’s a book that some children might decide they might want to read, just like one of the thousands of books on the subject. But for some reason, if a child stumbles upon an interesting section or quote, we mustn’t expose her to it, lest she learn something and grow as a person. Not only will she begin to question the world around her, she will likely eventually question the words in the book we told her not to read. And it’s so very hard to control people who are so easily controlled. So yes, what’s needed here is a law to ban said book. Because books that teach history or science might, just might, actually make one question their worldview and the society in which they were raised. And that’s a bad thing. The problem is that people forget the difference between a book, a piece of knowledge, and a person. If the government wants to have any real control over its citizens, that is the point at which they must start treating people as intelligent beings, capable of making their own decisions. A book is one thing. A person is another. If we can trust people to make decisions for themselves, why shouldn’t we trust them to read any old book? If people can decide for themselves whether to watch a film or listen to a song or if they want to spend any money, why can’t we trust them to decide for themselves what to read? Of course, there are some who really would prefer to keep all of their citizens, especially the children, dumb. They view all knowledge as dangerous and that people should never try to control their own lives. They should always be led by those who know better. So that’s why our government, our politicians, our leaders, our bureaucrats, the establishment, would rather tell us to shut the fuck up and watch some shitty reality show and not believe in some conspiracy theories that might make us think for ourselves and doubt their worldview. But those of us who are adults can decide for ourselves what we’re going to read and listen to and watch. That’s why we can watch all the shitty reality shows that no one is interested in. The internet is truly one of the biggest things to happen in the last few hundred years, because it provides us with access to every kind of media. Every opinion, fact, and conspiracy theory in the world is right there, available, for anyone who wants it. We have thousands of channels from which to choose, with literally hundreds of new channels being created every day. We can choose whether or not to click on a link, watch a clip, or read an article. Yes, there are those who would want to tell us what we can and can’t see. But that doesn’t mean they can. They are no more powerful than you or me. And I suppose it’s nice that the majority of the people who now dominate the US political system see you and me and everyone else as nothing but childish, stupid, and easily manipulated. After all, in a world where we can’t control anything, we are free to just do whatever we want, right? To listen to music we like, and read any books we choose, and watch any shows we want, and buy any clothes we want, and just generally be as stupid as we want. Of course, those of us in the US who believe in freedom of choice are usually the ones with the least free time, so I doubt we’re in a hurry to start reading the kind of books that our ruling class doesn’t want us to. I mean, think about it. How do you think people would react if it were discovered that a former president, one who had spent the last few decades lecturing you and me on how to live our lives, had in fact published dozens of books and spent millions of dollars to influence the education of young children, so that they would continue his legacy. Would you trust someone like that? Would you believe a word they said? Of course not. Of course there would be a movement to ban the book that contains those thoughts from further distribution. Of course they would be so easily convinced that it was the greatest threat the world has ever known. The reason the US is a shitty place to live, to say the least, is because it was founded by a bunch of people who were tired of being told what to do and how to think. If our founding fathers really had known how the average American would treat a book that was critical of their religious and social ideologies, they probably would have chosen to stay colonists instead of defecting to the New World. And if there’s anything the US has taught me over the past few hundred years, it’s that it can’t possibly survive the next couple hundred without learning from its past. It’s not like we’re ever going to change our minds and decide we’re too smart for our own good. If anything, the more time goes by, the less sense that argument makes. If there’s anything that characterizes our age, it’s our refusal to listen to anyone who disagrees with us, or our unwillingness to take anyone seriously who doesn’t have a huge platform on which they can shout and scream and demand attention and power from everyone else. The world is a big place with billions of people and countless opinions and possibilities. Why would anyone want to try to control the tiny percentage of the world that happens to reside in a single country, just because a bunch of people with a lot of money and an even bigger platform tell them that they have a reason to do so? I say it’s time to take back our lives from them, and to let all of us — women, men, trans, otherkin, goths, whoever — choose how to live our lives. I say it’s time to leave the bullshit back in the 1800s and learn from our mistakes. I say we should all grow up and start behaving like adults.