Tag Archives: stupid people

Four Minutes of Infamy

In 1968 Andy Warhol said, "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes." In 2012 a North Carolina preacher gave a Mother's Day sermon that was recorded and posted on YouTube and pretty much guaranteed that he'll be famous for more than 15 minutes. In that sermon the pastor said some pretty outrageous things as related by the Los Angeles Times:

In the video, Worley says to the sounds of laughter from the congregation that he's figured "a way out." He suggests building a large fence — 150 or 100 miles long — and putting all the gays and lesbians inside it.

"And have that fence electrified 'til they can't get out," he says. "Feed 'em. And you know what, in a few years, they'll die out. Do you know why? They can't reproduce."

Later, he bellows, referring to President Obama's positions on abortion and same-sex marriage: "I'll tell you right now. Somebody says, 'Who you gonna vote for?' I ain't gonna vote for a baby killer and a homosexual lover!" He added that he understood the shocking nature of his language, and would stand by it. "You said, 'Did you mean to say that?' You'd better believe I did!"

Also during the sermon, Worley says he was "disappointed, bad" by Obama's recent announcement that he supports same-sex marriage, and he went on to suggest that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney would get his vote in November.

As bad as that was, it kind of got worse when one of the members of his congregation agreed to appear on Anderson Cooper's show and engaged in an exchange that caused the website DangerousMinds to label her the Dumbest American (Ever?) Found. She may not get 15 minutes of fame, but it's certainly four minutes of infamy:

I'm not sure Warhol could have ever envisioned this.

If Stupid People Organized

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Scott Adams (the Dilbert dude) has a blog post where he asks a simple question – "What would happen if stupid people figured out how to organize their vast numbers into a cohesive political force?" – and then provides an example of people organizing around a stupid idea via change.org and points out that the organization is a tool for both good and bad:

I don't know if the good work that comes out of Change.org offsets the bad. In any case, I don't think free speech should be curtailed. My point is that Change.org is a tool that can empower both smart people and stupid people, and that only one of those situations is good.

In my mind a big group of stupid people isn't all that scary because, well, they're stupid and as a result Darwin's Law will kick in sooner rather than later. At the other extreme an organized group of nutjobs, zealots and evil people scares the crap out of me for obvious reasons. But what really scares me are the kinda smart people in the middle – the folks who are smart enough to get things done, but not smart enough to realize they're tools – who enable one really talented nutjob to do bad things on a massive scale.

When Morons Are in Charge

I'm thinking there's a new reality series to be had here – When Morons Are In Charge:

At Wolcott High School one morning this week, an urgent announcement crackled over the intercom: a threatening intruder was in the building and students were told to immediately take refuge in classrooms.

Doors were locked and police, with dogs, moved in. Students stayed huddled in classrooms where they were told to stay away from the windows.

But what sounded like a frightening situation was just a search for narcotics. Drug-sniffing dogs combed the school while students stayed in locked classrooms, believing that an attacker was roaming the halls.

As the columist points out in the rest of the piece there are all kinds of problems with this operation, but I'd like to point out the most obvious – if there's ever a real intruder in the school in the future the kids are now more likely to not take it seriously and to think it's some kind of drill or just another drug sweep. Have the administrators never heard of Chicken Little?