House of Eratosthenes

One good thing that has come from Gov. Palin’s resignation, is I’ve been able to beef up my inventory of opinions it seems find support from a clear majority, even though they’re just plain dumbass opinions. They come to be because a lot of everyday folks feel socially obliged to feel opinionated about things, but haven’t had the time, energy, inclination or incentive to form opinions the way we all know opinions should be formed. So a lot of them take the easy-out. They say whatever sounds good, and from then on they get an ego-investment in this arbitrarily-selected opinion, that ends up being a dumbass opinion much more often than not.

It is how we use the democratic process to make our worst decisions.

It is the best evidence we have that we need to make the voting process more difficult, and not easier.

These are opinions that derogate the person who gives them ink, a voice, or an otherwise good name. There is a lot more going on with these opinions than just me disagreeing with them. For example — I don’t think we should legalize prostitution or drugs; I don’t think we should even be seriously discussing it. But I understand why well-informed, intelligent, good people think we should. I understand why people think women should be allowed to abort, and even have their abortions publicly funded, although I disagree with that too. These opinions go well beyond those. These opinions, and their popularity, are ugly remnants of this mindset we’ve been nurturing that all passionate things must be respected. It isn’t so. If you hold these opinions, you are a problem. You are uninformed. They are cries for help. They are shorthand notation for “I desperately require some way of forming an inflamed opinion but I don’t know how to get ahold of the information I need to form it responsibly.”

They are the opinion equivalent of driving several miles down the highway with your blinker on.

30. Together, we can take on global warming and we can win. Save the planet. Together we can do this.
29. We’ve got to get some more money into the education system, because our children are worth it.
28. Seventy languages in use in a school district is a sign that it is a rich tapestry of diversity, and that is good for everybody.
27. Any statement that qualifies “tax cuts” as an expenditure, such as comparing the “Bush tax cuts” with real spending plans.
26. We’re going to need a bigger stimulus.
25. The trouble with our justice system is that the people who decide the cases don’t have enough empathy.
24. We’ve got to do something to help the unemployed, like taxing the snot out of the businesses that just might hire them.
23. It’s going to take Barack Obama a long, long time to fix all this stuff, and He is trying His best.
22. If women were in charge of the world there wouldn’t be any wars.
21. FOX News tells lots of lies, but I can’t come up with any examples.
20. You know what we really need to change? If a guy has lots of sex he’s a stud, if a woman does the same thing she’s a slut. SO unfair!
19. Everything that needs inventing has been invented. Men, drop out of school, learn to rap and do your crunches.
18. We’ve got to change our policies because our (unnamed) allies in Europe don’t like us.
17. I can’t approve of Barack Obama’s policies. But I still like Him personally, and that’s what really matters.
16. We must all be forced to call gay people “married.” It’s a civil rights issue. For them. Not for anyone else. Just for them.
Culottes - Who Decides This Stuff? 15. We have to raise the tax rate on the rich, because that makes us all a better people.
14. The Earth is sure to be doomed if I use traditional sandwich baggies. But it’s got a fighting chance if I use these ones that are 25% lighter.
13. Sarah Palin isn’t a real woman; she’s a Republican.
12. I know exactly what my thousand dollar car needs: Three thousand dollar rims.
11. If we drill, we won’t see a single drop of oil for x years. Besides, adorable polar bears, penguins, pristine environment blah blah blah.
10. We should not have attacked Iraq because Iraq didn’t attack us.
9. I wanna watch American Idol!
8. Hooters? Isn’t that a strip bar or something?
7. The second amendment is out of date because all them founders couldn’t have envisioned nukular weapons and what-not
6. Those illegal aliens are just trying to make a better life for their kids so we should coddle them all and make them citizens.
5. Vote for Obama! Hope! Change!
4. If your kid doesn’t feel like paying attention it’s a learning disability. Medicate him.
3. No one’s going to be safe until we get rid of all these guns we have lying around.
2. Culottes and clamdiggers. That’s what hip fashionable hot looking women should wear this summer. Who wants to see a gorgeous woman’s bare thigh anyway.
1. Palin quit because of a scandal. Yup. After all that digging, months and months, the entire Fourth Estate…they left one hidden. Boy, do they feel foolish.

“I desperately require some way of forming an inflamed opinion but I don’t know how to get ahold of the information I need to form it responsibly.”

That’s about the size of it, right there.
- philmon | 07/06/2009 @ 15:06
Are you ever going to join Facebook? I keep linking your stuff there, and you’re not there to defend yourself. I can’t do everything…
- sanskara | 07/06/2009 @ 17:28
3. No one’s going to be safe until we get rid of all these guns we have lying around.

Hmm. How ironic you should mention that today.

“…we should be doing whatever we can to take each and every one of these guns off our streets.” — state Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, on SB 585, which he authored…which would ban gun shows at the Cow Palace.

http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/Bill-to-ban-gun-shows-at-the-Cow-Palace-moves-forward-49890632.html

Just goes to show that the dumbasses aren’t always the chuckleheads you’re forced to work with at the office, or the moron in the next seat on the bus. Sometimes they’re the people who’ve somehow gotten themselves elected to the state government…at which point they proceed to write some dumb law which further restricts your freedom.

The comments on the article are heartening. Mr Leno seems to have upset a few people, in San Francisco no less.
- cylarz | 07/07/2009 @ 01:03
[…] found this over at House of Eratosthenes, with the full title “Thirty Ignorant Opinions That Are Nevertheless Somewhat Popular.” As Morgan is moving soon, making the preceding link dead, I’ve reproduced the list […]
- 30 Ignorant Opinions « Blog Entry « Daniel J. Summers | 07/09/2009 @ 20:40

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Thirty Ignorant Opinions That Are Nevertheless Somehow PopularMonday, July 6th, 2009

Thirty Ignorant Opinions That Are Nevertheless Somehow Popular
Monday, July 6th, 2009