{"id":94415,"date":"2025-02-17T21:55:02","date_gmt":"2025-02-17T21:55:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/alabama\/the-aspirations-of-stupidity-are-killing-us\/"},"modified":"2025-02-17T21:55:02","modified_gmt":"2025-02-17T21:55:02","slug":"the-aspirations-of-stupidity-are-killing-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=94415","title":{"rendered":"The aspirations of stupidity are killing us"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Not too terribly long ago, there was an attitude of statesmanship that went along with public service.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

No matter whether you agreed with a politician\u2019s votes and biases, you could be relatively assured that, a handful of exceptions aside, that they believed and behaved as if that they were serving a higher purpose \u2013 a duty to country, the constitution and law. Seriously, go back and watch old video of debates \u2013 on the presidential stage and on the floors of the U.S. House, U.S. Senate and various state house chambers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Those people aspired to intelligence and were embarrassed by failures and erroneous statements.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not talking about ages ago, in some black-and-white-TV world. In 2000, for example, during one of the presidential debates between Al Gore and George W. Bush, Gore apologized at one point for getting a couple of facts wrong in the previous debate, and Bush apologized for briefly interrupting Gore. During a town hall in 2008, late-Sen. John McCain defended his opponent, Barack Obama, when a voter attacked Obama. Later during that campaign, Obama publicly praised McCain for his service and decency.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Compare that to recent debates and interactions between our lawmakers at every level. It\u2019s like another world.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A world in which those involved aspire to stupidity.<\/span><\/p>\n

Because attention from stupidity is still attention. And in today\u2019s social media-driven world, attention is all that seems to matter.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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The past couple of weeks have been a complete and utter inundation of ignorance \u2013 performative ignorance \u2013 on every level of government. It started, and has been most recognizable, at the presidential level, where the guy currently occupying the White House literally stated that he has the power to break the law if he thinks he\u2019s \u201csaving the country.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That came after he sat quietly as the co-president gave a press conference, in one of the most surreal and frightening scenes in American history. Seriously, apocalyptic films have started less ominously than with an egomaniacal bill<\/span> ionaire holding court in the Oval Office to explain his sometimes-illegal, sometimes-illogical, almost always-ridiculous work dismantling every portion of American governance. (Well, not all of it \u2013 not the parts that still pay the billionaires their government contracts.)<\/span><\/p>\n

But make no mistake about it, as bad as the Musk-Trump presidency and illegal actions \u2013 including stating out loud that they don\u2019t have to follow laws or the directives of judges \u2013 those actions have not stood alone. Instead, the idiocy and lunacy and corruption at the top of the political food chain has seemed to aspire those down it to aspire to even dumber heights.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And they have answered the call.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

From a bill to buy and rename Greenland as \u201cRed, White and Blueland,\u201d to a bill to make Trump\u2019s birthday a federal holiday to a bill to rename a West Virginia mountain for Trump, we\u2019re dead in the center of LOOK AT ME season in Congress.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Well, except over in the Senate, where the Republicans would really, really like for you not to look at who they\u2019re approving for various important government positions. Like a tv host who\u2019s never led an agency being approved to lead the entire Department of Defense. Or the guy with brain worms who did some really weird stuff with a dead bear being in charge of our Department of Health. Or the guy with a \u201chit list\u201d still being pushed to lead the FBI.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But it goes well beyond the federal level.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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At the state level, as Louisiana was vying for the dumbest, with its surgeon general announcing that the state would no longer promote mass vaccinations, Alabama was determined not to play second fiddle to anyone.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Things started with Alabama AG Steve Marshall declining to join a multi-state lawsuit over Trump-Musk\u2019s cuts to NIH funding \u2013 a decision that will cost Alabama institutions billions and hamper research of, among other things, childhood cancer \u2013 and deciding to instead join a lawsuit that seeks to end protections of students with special needs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Then there was the anti-trans bill claiming to define \u201cwhat is a woman\u201d \u2013 a bill that was so incredibly stupid that the person sponsoring it and the governor signing it couldn\u2019t answer basic questions about the facts it sought to address. That led to a very telling exchange in a committee hearing on the bill, when a Democratic representative asked bill sponsor Susan Dubose how children born with both sets of sex organs should be defined. Dubose\u2019s response: \u201cThey would make that choice.\u201d What a novel concept.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Then there\u2019s the bill mandating that we call the Gulf of Mexico the \u201cGulf of America,\u201d because one day a month ago Trump thought it would be a clever line during a meeting and now we all have to convince the naked emperor that his new clothes are awesome. Such a change is going to cost us millions in taxpayer dollars over the coming years. But who cares if it appeases the cult leader?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And yet, somehow, all of that is still not the dumbest, most aspirationally stupid legislative act this week. That honor goes to Alabama House members Mack Butler, Chris Sells, Scott Stadthagen, Ernie Yarbrough, Mark Gidley and Ben Harrison. These astute gentlemen have sponsored and co-sponsored HB 248, which prevents the \u201cdispersion of items into the atmosphere with the intention of affecting the weather.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s an honest-to-God \u201cDems are controlling the weather\u201d bill.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This nonsense has to stop. It has to. Because it\u2019s literally killing us. This performative stupidity in the interest of getting attention is destroying the respect that people should have for the very important, very impactful jobs that lawmakers do.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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It is wiping away decades of men and women striving to be honorable public servants and bring dignity and honor to the job. And it is replacing it with clowns in suits who bop themselves on the head repeatedly for attention \u2013 only with somehow less dignity than that.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

These jobs matter. It\u2019s time all of us started acting like it. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not too terribly long ago, there was an attitude of statesmanship that went along with public service.\u00a0 No matter whether you agreed with a politician\u2019s votes and biases, you could be relatively assured that, a handful of exceptions aside, that they believed and behaved as if that they were serving a higher purpose \u2013 a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":94416,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11763],"tags":[44935,5089,10917,16677,44934],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-94415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alabama","tag-aspirations","tag-killing","tag-politicians","tag-stupidity","tag-weather-machine"],"yoast_head":"\nThe aspirations of stupidity are killing us - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=94415\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The aspirations of stupidity are killing us - 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