It’s a tough job these days not developing a cynical approach toward the world around us.
All you have to look at it is the stalement in Washington. You have to wonder, how did things get so out of whack?
Well, as the great broadcaster Edward R. Murrow used to say in essence, maybe ‘we only have to look to ourselves.'
What I mean by that, as a prime example, is that when a basic skill such as reading no longer seems to matter to a large percentage of the population, its no surprise. Skiing down the proverbial slippery slope past mediocrity heading for something worse is one of the results.
When so many in the electorate simply don’t bother to learn what is going on around them – who’s for what and who’s against a particular issue for instance – it happens.
Now this ‘rant’ isn’t aimed at one particular political group. There’s blame to go around.
But consider that fewer Americans have what we used to call ‘common knowledge.’ Studies show how when it comes to our own history, we don’t measure up.
In 2010, a survey found that more than 25% of Americans didn’t know that we had gained our independence from Britain.
Even worse was a report from the U.S. Mint that found that only 7 percent of Americans could name the first four U.S. Presidents in order: George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.
In 2011, Newsweek magazine gave the official U.S. Citizenship Test to 1,000 Americans. It found that only 27% of Americans knew which country we fought in the Cold War – the Soviet Union.
I remember once being embarrassed for someone who was a friend of some close associates. Once around Independence Day, that person said something like “What’s everyone worked up about July 4th for, anyway?”
The trouble was that individual wasn’t remotely ashamed that they didn’t have a clue. It took every ounce of self-discipline I had not to go find of a copy of the U.S. Constitution to hit them upside the head.
Trouble is, in our politically correct world, so many people are afraid to point it out when others, including elected leaders, regularly demonstrate – and there’s no other way to say this in my vocabulary – how ridiculously stupid they can be when they don’t bother to learn basic facts.
As comedian Chris Rock often asks: “Whatever happened to crazy?!”
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