Where is America Heading?

I’m not the sharpest pencil in the box, of that I am sure, but that on-line IQ test I just took said my IQ is 152!  I am a bit skeptical, though, because the last question only asked for my bank routing number.

"The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson.  He offered that observation in 1837 but, unfortunately, his words are even more fitting today.  We live in an America that seems to be in a race with itself to the bottom.  To aim higher only results in being called an “Elitist”.

As evidence of that, there has been a lot of stuff in the blogosphere and print media lately speaking directly to the dumbing down of America.  Here are a few items that jumped right out at me:

• The United States ranks 49th in the world in literacy (The New York Times, Dec. 12, 2004).
• The United States ranks 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).
• Twenty percent of Americans think the sun orbits the Earth.  Seventeen percent believe the Earth revolves around the sun once a day (The Week, Jan. 7, 2005).
• The International Adult Literacy Survey found that Americans with less than nine years of education 'score worse than virtually all of the other countries’. (Jeremy Rifkin's book The European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream, p.78).

I also found these gems in two polls (Research 2000 & “Public Policy Polling”).

In the Research 2000 poll:

• 93 percent of Democrats say Obama was born in the country
• 83 percent of Independents say Obama was born in the country
• 42 percent for Republicans say Obama was born in the country
• A majority of Republicans either believe he was born abroad (28 percent) or don’t know (30 percent)
• A majority of Southerners either believe that Obama was not born in the United States (23 percent) or are not sure (30 percent). Only 47 percent of Southern respondents believe Obama was born in the USA.
• By contrast, 93 percent of Northeasterns said he was born here, as did 90 percent of Midwesterners, and 87 percent of Westerners.

In the Public Policy Polling:

• 62% of Americans think Obama was born here, while 24% think he was not and 14% are unsure
• 10% of the country thinks that he was born in Indonesia, 7% think he was born in Kenya, and 1% think he was born in the Philippines.
• That leaves 20%, which includes at least some people who correctly believe that Obama was born in Hawaii, but who don’t consider Hawaii to be part of the United States. You read that right- 6% of poll respondents think that Hawaii is not part of the country and 4% are unsure.

So, who are these Birthers?

• 62% are Republicans, 20% are Democrats, and 18% are independents 
• 57% are conservatives, 33% are moderates, and 9% are progressives 
• 56% are men, 44% are women 
• 86% are white, 7% are Hispanic, 4% are black, and 3% are other races

I find that last statistic strangely intriguing.

Robert Applebaum writes in his blog:

 “Those who simply parrot Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh don’t stop for even a moment to consider the veracity of the statements or the context in which they’re made.  Rather, what Beck and Limbaugh, among many others in the right wing echo chamber, have to say on any issue is accepted as absolute, indisputable fact and then simply repeated in the course of a debate on that topic.  Just as Beck and Limbaugh do with such expertise, the rank and file of the religious and regressive right seem to believe that repeating something over and over, regardless of truth, somehow lends credence to the assertion being made.  In any other context, it would be absurd – I could claim the sky is green ad naseum, it would never make it true.  Nevertheless, repeating the verifiably false assertions over and over that President Obama wasn’t born in America or that he is a secret Muslim, to name but two examples, to the regressives, somehow makes those assertions true.”

Susan Jacoby, in her piece “Bristol and Levi: Poster children for the dumbing down of America”, wrote:

“Whenever I hear liberal-to-centrist pundits saying that even if Sarah gets the Republican nomination, she will only ensure Obama's re-election, I shudder. That this representative of pure ignorance, retrograde religion, and class envy is being taken seriously at all speaks volumes about the dumbing down of America.”

And, in another piece, "The Dumbing Of America", she wrote:

“Dumbness, to paraphrase the late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, has been steadily defined downward for several decades, by a combination of heretofore irresistible forces. These include the triumph of video culture over print culture (and by video, I mean every form of digital media, as well as older electronic ones); a disjunction between Americans' rising level of formal education and their shaky grasp of basic geography, science and history; and the fusion of anti-rationalism with anti-intellectualism."

So then, it seems perfectly alright to this dull pencil that as long as we will be happy being a Third World country we should just continue along our current trajectory, mindlessly following the nuggets of wisdom we receive daily from those whose only true desire is to regain power.  It’s okay to ignore the fact that the previous administration brought us to the brink of depression, then simply restore them to office, as long as no one tells us we shouldn’t consume too many Big Macs or that we need to finish high school.  We are in control of our lives, aren’t we? We can think for ourselves can’t we?  I mean, Rush said so didn’t he?