Greatest American Finale (or; ‘The Problem with Democracy’)

So, tonight was the final installment of Discovery’s “Greatest American”. Let me just cut to the chase; Ronald Reagan (the winner) is not a “greater” American than Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, or Benjamin Franklin. To assert otherwise is surely the product of idiocy, ignorance, lunacy, or some delusional form of jackassery.

I did enjoy Ron Jr.’s comments, particularly when the field had been narrowed to Lincoln and Reagan. He said (mind you, I’m paraphrasing here) that if his dad were alive today, he would vote for Lincoln. He was very gracious and polite, but I got the sense that he was very cognizant of, and a bit embarrassed by, the foolishness of the whole thing.

Which brings us to the central point of this rant. The American people are, by and large, idiots. During the broadcast a term that kept coming up was “cultural amnesia”, which is a bit kinder and more generous than my diagnosis of “rampant jackassery”. This really served to highlight one of the problems with the democratic process; that the vote of an ill-informed (or totally uninformed) moron counts just as much as the vote of a person with some rudimentary understanding of the issues and the “big picture”.

The sad thing is, you can’t cure stupid. If a person is dead set on remaining ignorant (as so many seem to be) there is nothing you can do to educate them.

Oh well, at least Oprah or Elvis didn’t win.

Just a quick postscript: I work with adults with MR/DD, Monday morning I asked one gentleman (who happens to love Ronald Reagan) which of the five finalists he thought was the greatest American, ever, and after a thoughtful pause he said “Lincoln”.