Duelling with the dummies.

I've become rather tired of railing on and on about how idiotic and venal one Republican politician and pundit after another are.  After all, if another guy is stupid and  crooked it doesn't mean I'm a genius and free from error, nor those with whom I agree. I'd like to say I stay calm and rational and analytical or I stay quiet.  But sometimes. . . sometimes the things you hear them say just take your breath away like a sudden blast of 25 below Chicago wind and you've just got to say something and call an idiot an idiot.

Washington State Rep. Ed Orcutt (R), who would like to tax bicycles (what, you really thought they don't like to tax things?) would like to justify it by telling constituents that bicycles, or at least people who ride them, give off more carbon dioxide than they would driving a car.  OK, so you passed middle school science and I don't have to tell you that even Honest Lance in his prime wasn't sucking in 400 CFM of air and oxidizing several gallons of gasoline an hour moving a couple tons down the road, but Eddy boy here either is grossly uneducated, dumb as a doorknob, a damn liar  -- or all of the above. Am I repeating myself here?  I guess so, I already mentioned that he was a Republican politician.

He doesn't need to be otherwise. He doesn't need to be truthful or make any kind of sense when flatulating to the fold. Republicans will believe anything as long as it's part of the creed or think it will save them or their owners a buck, which is pretty much the same thing.  No, as you might suspect, and like the bulk of the things Republicans rant and rave about, it's not true.

In a way, you and I can smile and act dismissive of such idiotic antics but there's a danger in it. Fighting with idiots can make us lazy and it can make us smug and sometimes we get caught with our pants down and our dunce caps on.  The Nietzsche thing about fighting with monsters applies to arguing with idiots. We still have to be as careful as ever to be sure of our facts, not to sound like idiots ourselves and sometimes when you look into the abyss of stupidity, the abyss looks into you.