Joe,

Does any of this surprise you about a nation that once had a national party called "The knownothings"? Ignorance is as old as mankind. As Immanuel Kant said: Nothing stright shall ever be made of the crooked timber of mankind.

What saddens me is the political weaponization of ignorance. The cure for bad speech is more good speech, the adage goes. Could the cure for pervasive stupidity be more education, something woefully underfunded in America. Finland should be our educational model. Rather I think it may be Iran with tthe influence of the aggressive religious.

To finish with my favorite Allbert as in Einstein:

Two things are infinite - the Universe and human stupidity; and I am not sure of the first.

He was right to doubt the first, as the universe is an expanding finite.

With hope for sanity, arrrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhhh!

Peter