Americans Are Stupid

This is not a topic up for debate, but rather a scientifically proven fact.

(The reason for this post can be read here, at the wonderfully entertaining Fox News.)

To me, this article represents so much that is wrong with America, and here's why.

The title, which is "Al Qaeda Leader Dined at the Pentagon Just Months After 9/11" is a classic example of one of the media's most famous tools: misdirection.

If you read the article, and odds are you won't because I don't think anybody actually reads this blog, it will slowly be revealed to you (through the writer's unimaginative use of prose and even more dreadful ability to make this man sound threatening) that at the time of the luncheon, he was not a leader in Al-Qaeda nor was he important in any notable fashion except for having been questioned in the week after 9/11 due to a KNOWN connection to three of the hijackers. Although found innocent at the time, it still boggles my mind that he was invited to the luncheon. I can understand the White House, I suppose.

1. He is a Muslim, one of many invited to the White House as part of an Islamic Outreach Program.
2. He was an up-and-coming member of the Islamic community, cited to be the next great Imam.
3. Who wouldn't want to eat with someone who had a sweet beard like that?

But where the boggling comes in is when you compare that list of undeniably cool facts to the list of undeniably true facts.

1. He is a Muslim, which at the time was the equivalent of being a Japanese-American circa Pearl Harbor.
2. He was an up-and-coming member of the Islamic community, a militant faction of which had just perpetrated one of the deadliest terrorist attacks on American soil ever.
3. He was INTEROGATED by the GOVERNMENT due to his connection to not one or two, BUT THREE of the hijackers involved with 9/11.

I can understand that outreach is important, but surely there are enough Muslims in America that we don't need to invite the most explicitly terroristic ones to our national capital.

So, in retrospect, it was stupid, but what makes these even dumber is the fact that now, almost ten years later, Fox News is reporting on the event as though the White House was aware of who they were hosting at the time. To me, the best equivalent is like if you had O.J. Simpson over to your house around the same time as "The Towering Inferno" blazed its way from the silver screen and into the hearts of all Americans. Years later, somebody might point out that you hosted a murderous slow-driving lunatic, but at the time he was nothing other than an outstanding citizen!

News, reported in retrospect as in this dumb article, is never interesting. It is meant to be explosive, inflammatory, and thought-provoking and, at times, the news can be. It can topple dynasties and ruin presidencies and absolutely destroy a person's life, but the times that it has done this has either been the result of A) a reporter genuinely feeling there's a need for the people to act or B) a reporter noticing a situation that they can easily profit off of.

This article, which is currently the headlining piece on Fox News (notably beating out flimsy contender stories involving one where Oklahomans are attempting to change CONSTITUTIONAL LAW) preys upon the fact that Americans are stupid. Not only does it prey, it DEPENDS. It is not an opportunistic predator, seeing the occasional stupid person and swooping down to make them read whatever stupid story is printed on its leathery underbelly, but rather a predator which has adapted to hunt a specific mindset because there's so many of them!

If you were a lion, would you spend all day hunting down that damned gazelle who was captain of the long distance running team or would you learn how to hunt its much slower, less chewy, and far more succulent cousin who not only possesses no legs, but also will gladly pay you to kill it?

Media in America has adapted to this exact situation.

They don't need to snag Americans' attention via actual solid reporting on topics relevent to our interests both at home and abroad, they just need to flash a big headline across the screen that presents itself as irrefutable truth and Americans will sink their big dumb teeth right in.

If this article was attempting to be truthful, it would say... nothing at all. This isn't news. This isn't anything close to news. This might have been news if, during his stay at the White House while still an upstanding member of the United States, he had broken into several government computers (most likely while a nearby tour guide laughed and asked him to stop playing) and stolen national secrets.

As it is, he didn't. He went, ate lunch, was apparently heckled, and then left.

What makes this a 'news' story is that among the large number of Muslims who were invited the White House for foods and lulz, this braniac was the only one smart enough to later come out and reveal the fact that he isn't all for America.

Which is fine, really. 1st Amendment and all that. But this guy went ahead and told America, a country which thinks that the simulated drowning of its prisoners is super-dooper, that he was a member of Al-Qaeda, a group which had just catapaulted itself to the top of America's hit list (notable former members can be read about here, here, and here).

This guy is CLASSIC Dumb American. The kind of Dumb American who thinks that being American is a protect-all for some of the dumb things we say and do.

Let me clarify: As an American, you are allowed to say whatever you want. The right to do so is protected by the 1st Amendment, however it should be noted that when you SAY what you want to SAY it's probably best to not SAY that you are a member of a group which currently wants the government protecting your right to say what you want DEAD.

Don't bite the hand that feeds you, man, and certainly don't bite the hand that feeds you when the other hand has a gun pressed to your temple.

So this guy is stupid, his story is stupid, and the media is doubly stupid for reporting on this almost a decade after it would have been relevent if it was at all relevent.

But this is a problem that is seeping everywhere throughout America. Organizations are taking ADVANTAGE of the fact that Americans are stupid, lazy, and ignorant of the world with the media being one of the most noticable and blatant (while still managing to do it).

So here's a challenge for you; go onto a news site, any news site, and click on all the headlines that leap out at you. After you've gathered three or four, read the articles themselves and see whether or not the title of the article was in any way misleading or untrue. Odds are, they were.

This is happening everywhere, all the time, and we will never be able to stop it until we rise above it.

So to you Americans who aren't dumb, maybe it's best to stop watching the news at all, because it's only going to get worse.