By Nathan Barton

Good morning!  Sometimes the sheer stupidity of government and its actions hits me right between the eyes: this weekend is a great example.  Ignoring impacts on me, my family, my clients, and friends and associates, we see a bunch of absolutely stupid examples in the news.  Here are a few:

STUPID Government-run, Tax-funded schools: In the Bronx, it is so politically incorrect to teach Spanish correctly that a single student’s complaint can get you fired.  The offense?  The Spanish word “negro” (masculine form of an adjective, female form “negra”).  Now, the LAST TIME I checked, “negro” is NOT the “N-word” (for which stoning is too good, these days), and is a perfectly good word even used by some black folks (“Afro-American?”) to describe themselves.  What does it mean in English? Shocker: “black.”  But for some liberal kid and administrators, the use of the word is so scary that we will punish the person who dares to teach it.

This stupidity is not limited to New York schools, of course.  We have another case in Texas, where a principal has been fired for trying to teach Spanish-speaking students how to read, write, and speak English: still spoken by a majority of Texans AND Americans.  There have been Spanish-speaking Texans (more properly Texians) since before Texas gained its independence. These “Spanish Texans” have virtually ALL learned English so that they can (very successfully) work in business, agriculture, politics, education, and every other part of Texan culture and society.  For ANY school to do this is incredibly stupid because they are failing the students they are supposedly sworn to teach to be good citizens and people.

STUPID media, not just schools.  A lot of us were distressed by the news last week that a gang of Russian hackers had gained a billion passwords, triggering a lot of changes in data for on-line use.  Now, it is CLAIMED that the entire story was fabricated by the New York Times for greed: the paper must be trying to make a profit this year.  Since this claim comes from the Russian Federal Security Service, there is obviously some doubt in many people minds about the accuracy of the challenge to the Times, but frankly these days I’d trust the old Pravda or Isvestia more than I would the NYT.  Is it any wonder that the government can be so stupid, when the Mainstream Media is even MORE stupid?

Mama’s Note: The key here is for individuals to take personal responsibility for themselves, not find someone else to blame. A good place to start is to change your passwords frequently, everywhere you use one. A lot of work, yes, but that way no compromise by an outside hacker can do a lot of damage, or at least not for long. The folks who use their birth date or garage opener code, then cry about being hacked… well, what did they expect?

Of course, too many people act just as stupidly.  Consider basic economics.  Can ANYone over about age 6 not understand the law of supply and demand?  I do believe that it is not just that people will not understand basics of economics, but that the goal is to teach and persuade people that black is white.  Why else would we see this sort of stupidity?  While various groups are demanding that McDonalds raise the salaries of fast-food workers to almost double the current federal wage, once more McD’s sales have dropped (as has their share price) because people are rejecting the gradual inflated prices (and actually, like many other companies, McD’s is getting sneaky: reducing portion sizes even on DRINKS for crying out loud, to squeeze a few more tenths of a cent out of each sale).  If a McDouble goes from the current $1.29 to $2.50 to pay double wages, what then?  But government is increasingly treating fast-food like liquor and tobacco: a goose laying a golden egg, an infinite source of taxes.  Stupid!

More stupidity.  A North Carolina diner used to give a 15% discount for people who publicly offered a prayer of thanksgiving or requested a blessing on their meal — and some people were outraged. It seems that the government has decided that the owner may have broken the law, and unable to afford to fight it, they ended the practice.  It is “religious discrimination” to offer a discount for such a flimsy excuse.  Many small restaurants and cafes in rural towns used to offer a discount on Sunday afternoons to people who had a church bulletin with them, showing that they had worshipped publicly that day: such practices today are considered evil… It is not just a matter of stupid adherence to bizarrely twisted concepts, it is an attack against anyone who would support or even condone religion in the public sphere.

Detroit-area homeowner Theodore Wafer has been on trial for killing 19-year-old Renisha McBride with a 12-gauge shotgun on his front porch last year.  She was threatening him. The ruling by jurors made on Thursday found him guilty. I find the jury rather stupid.

And the most recent stupidity?  The Fuehrer said HE has authorized (ordered) the U.S. military to launch targeted airstrikes on Islamic militants in Mesopotamia –  This is the deepest engagement since 2011, and means that we are once again sticking our nose and risking blood and treasure for… what?  Another stupid war?  Really?