We the Sheeple

At first I thought we were just becoming dumber as a nation. 

I couldn’t understand how so many ordinary Americans simply couldn’t comprehend simple math. 

Simple stuff like:  If Jimmy has two apples and gives one apple each to Sally and Jill, how many apples does Jimmy have left?  Or to put it in a more relevant perspective:  if the Federal government takes in $2 trillion a year in taxes and fees, and spends $3 trillion a year, how much money does the Federal government have left to spend on other things? 

This type of stuff seemed to baffle a lot of people. 

They also seemed unable to separate something clearly false from reality. 

When Obama said in 2009: “no matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what. ” – that seemed to me to be pretty straightforward.   Practically a guarantee. 

Yet when millions lost their doctors and their plans because of Obama’s signature legislative achievement, it was as if he’d never said that. In fact, Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader, said that people who claimed they lost their doctors and their plans because of ObamaCare were liars. 

And a large part of the public shrugged and said, well, okay.   

When the government briefly shut down and idled 800,000 non-essential government workers, the public was outraged.  But when 5 million or more people lost their healthcare insurance they were promised they could keep, crickets.  Probably that old math problem again …

Then I had an epiphany. 

It wasn’t that the nation was becoming dumber. 

A lot of Americans just didn’t care anymore.  About anything. 

Economics.  Politics.  National defense.  Foreign affairs (unless these involved Bill Clinton or celebrities).   The national debt.  Education.  Healthcare.  Taxes.  Farm subsidies.  The growth of entitlements.  Holding politicians and government officials accountable.  The IRS investigation. 

You know, all the things Republicans and Fox News keep bringing up? 

Americans didn’t give a rat’s patoot about any of this stuff.  They couldn’t care less.

It’s clear to me now that a growing number are only concerned about what affects them personally, right now.  Stuff that happens to other people, and stuff that could happen in the future doesn’t interest them at all. 

If it doesn’t impact them now, they don’t care. 

This also means they don’t care what anybody else does, unless they get affected directly, and immediately, as a result. 

In the abstract this seems like a virtue.  Live and let live.  Don’t be judgmental.  Don’t try to tell others what they should or shouldn’t do.  If it’s not doing you any harm, what business is it of yours what others do? 

In reality, however, it’s become an easy excuse to justify indifference and ignorance. 

If people claim not to care what anyone else does, what the government does, what the laws are, or what’s happening in the world around them, it’s not a case of live and let live. They’re simply hoping things they can’t be bothered to understand will take care of themselves. 

That rarely works out well. History has proven that time and again. 

Still, a large number of Americans are apparently happy to ignore the world around them; their assumption is that someone else is already taking care of the important stuff so they don’t have to. They can’t see wasting their time trying to figure out if whoever’s running things is really up to the task at hand, or just screwing things up.  Life goes on, regardless. 

Besides, if anything was really that important, they’d hear about it on social media or someone would interrupt their favorite TV or cable show with an announcement.  Otherwise, who cares? 

Consequently, they are blissfully ignorant about current events here and abroad. They don’t bother reading a newspaper, watching the news on TV, or listening to newsbreaks on radio.  In fact, they aggressively avoid exposure to news.  News is just background noise getting in the way of something they really want like movies, music or other entertainment.  So most don’t know what’s happening in their own city or state, much less what’s happening elsewhere.  

And they don’t care.   They truly believe that what you don’t know can’t hurt you.

Now, there’s a great temptation to think this is largely a trait of the young – like adolescents, teenagers and the 20-somethings.  It’s not.  Talk to young adults in their mid to late 30s. Talk to people in their 40s and 50s, too.  Go ahead.  I dare you. Ask them about almost any current event – you’ll be stunned by how little they know. 

You’ll be even more stunned to find out how little they care.  At the same time, they’ll be stunned you even bothered to ask.

Lack of knowledge you could almost understand.  Many folks tune out under the weight of information overload. 

But lack of caring?  That’s harder to accept. 

If Americans don’t care about what their government is doing, how the government is spending their money, what laws will or won’t be enforced, and what threats lurk in the outside world, this opens the door to an autocracy that will take their indifference for consent. 

Sort of the situation we find ourselves in now. 

And American democracy will go out not with a bang, but a “whatever.”