In past several decades I have wondered what has happened to America and the World we live in.  It seems that stupidity and insipid behavior have taken over where logic, common sense, and rationality once reigned.   We live in a litigious and licentious society with no boundaries and certainly no sense.  Everything is out of whack and there seems no possibility of our return to a normal safe and courteous world.  We are run amok.  We are stuck on a sand bar in an ocean of inane laws and ignorant actions.  Our ship is solidly aground.

I kept asking myself why this gradual change of pandering to the lowest common denominator?  Why are we litigating against companies whose produce have stood the test of time and are now considered very dangerous: so dangerous in fact that everything now requires a warning label to be sold in our stores?  After years of deliberation and cogitation it came to me.  It’s the bicycle helmet!

Consider that as a young child learning to ride a bike was a rite of passage and a sign of freedom.  We learned by falling down and having the occasional accident, but we survived.  We learned from our mistakes.  We got up and kept trying.  There were the unfortunate few that died in the process and removed themselves from the gene pool.  These few were often performing some idiotic stunt that would put fear in most, yet they would persist until they either achieved their goal or more often than not died in the process.  Parents of these not so bright children then brought suit against the bicycle manufacturer and won.  The result was the bicycle helmet.

This new invention protected these not so bright daredevils from disaster and death thus preserving the not so bright genes for procreation.   Since they were now able to pass along these “stupid genes” the world soon filled with more not so bright people who also continued to procreate and now we have the result: A society of really stupid people that insist that the government protect them from themselves.

The result is obvious…  There are teaming masses of idiots clogging the freeways with daredevil maneuvers and antics: cutting from lane to lane in a futile attempt to gain an extra car length in traffic or tailgating to make you go faster in parking lot traffic.  They drive at excessive speeds.  They use the carpool lane for passing and for travel because traffic in the legal lanes is moving much too slow for them.  They have an over developed sense of entitlement.  They are the only ones out there and everyone else is in their way.

Here are a few of the more common pursuits of the new stupid class:

Sports:

·         Bungee jumping:  Tie a rubber band to your ass and leap from a very high object for the thrill and bounce.  Sometimes it works… sometimes it doesn’t. 

·         Sky diving: jump from a perfectly good and flying aircraft with a piece of silk strapped to your ass.

·         Skateboarding: four wheels on a small board for side-walk surfing and doing amazing and really dangerous tricks; jumping over a moving car; sliding down the hand railing of some concrete stairs; riding down an steep incline to fly up the other side to flip and turn in the air.

·         Riding a bicycle down an even steeper ramp to perform the same tricks

·         Demolition Derby’s: take several very heavy cars and ram into each other to disable the opponents – and the last one driving wins.

·         Driving a motorcycle as fast a possible through a cactus filled desert.

·         Riding a bicycle down a steep mountain path as fast as possible – Mountain biking!

I think you get the picture.  All of these thrill sports were invented by bicycle accident survivors.  Then had to be the inventors: no sane person would do many of these things on purpose.

Warning Labels:

·         Do not use this curling iron in the bathtub

·         The contents of this aerosol can are under pressure – do not puncture.

·         This plastic dry cleaning bag is not a toy – keep out of the reach of children

·         This scooter moves when operated.

·         Poison – do not ingest – it may cause death

·         Contents are flammable – keep away from fire

·         Improper use of this helmet could be harmful

·         Taking this sleeping drug may cause drowsiness

·         The hot coffee in this cup is hot…

Oh Really!!!!!!

Now tell me that there is no correlation between rampant stupidity and these warnings.  What seems painfully obvious to most of us is a complete surprise to these people.  It must be or they wouldn’t need these warnings!  If you didn’t realize that taking an electric appliance into a bathtub full of water is dangerous and yes, fatal, then you need to be removed from the gene pool.

My favorite of all times is the addition of the calculator function to cash registers so the people operating them no longer need to perform those higher math functions like subtraction and completely screw up your change.  If you want a real thrill ask one of these rocket scientists to count the change back old style… 

It’s not just the rampant ignorance it’s that they have reduced the educational levels to that of lower elementary grades.  You don’t even need to read to graduate.  I was told by a close friend that her grandchild was fitting for a commencement gown for graduation from fifth grade! Commencement from fifth grade!!!

The bicycle helmet has more far reaching implications as well.  Take business for example.  How many really idiotic decisions are made in the boardroom of big companies?  You ask yourself, “What person in their right mind would do that?”   Huge companies have cut the work force to bare minimums but still expect the same productivity.  Why?  Because they know that the remaining workers will bust their asses to keep the pitiful jobs that they currently have.  The short-sighted decision makers look at the bottom line as a goal onto itself.  They don’t care about the more far reaching ramifications of the decision.  These are short sighted decisions made by bicycle helmeted business people.  They can’t think any farther than the next quarter’s profits.  That would require an enormous amount of brain power: power that they just don’t poses.  Bicycle Helmets kept these people alive as children and now we pay the price.

Then there is our government.  Every one of the people in office is there because natural selection was cheated.  The bicycle helmet is the root of our problems in this country.  We have multicultural diversity and ethnic tolerance.  There are more languages in this country than there is room on the signs to accommodate the additions.  English is no longer our national language.  We can no longer speak our minds; we must be politically correct.  We have laws that require child car seats to protect our small passengers from our own ignorance and selfishness.  We have to be told that drinking and driving is not a good idea.  We talk and text on cell phones while driving being total distracted and paying no attention to the job at hand.  We blast loud music on our car stereos or wear headphone to enjoy our music so loud that we cannot hear the sirens of the emergency vehicle.  It is all because the lowest common denominator was allowed to remain in the gene pool.  Natural selection was cheated and now the gene pool is so shallow that you can walk across without wetting your feet.

Every facet of our lives is changed to protect those that should have never been born.  Our charge in life is to protect those that need protecting.  Yes there are many born with less than optimal intelligence and they need protecting, but they should not be lowed to breed like rabbits.

The result dear friends, this is a country of low grade morons that litigate at the drop of the hat and insist on their rights to what everyone else has.  The really sad part of this is… we give it to them.  We don’t say no!  We just keep giving in and handing over more control and license to these people.

There is no solution.  There is no way out.  We are doomed to repeat the history of every country that has given before us.  We embrace a multicultural society rife with demands for their personal rights to change America into the third world country that they just left; and we let them.  We don’t say no.

We give billions of dollars to Arabic / Muslim countries that hate us and want to kill all of us infidels.  We call it foreign aid.  It’s really bribe money handed out but people that should never have been born.  And it’s all because of the bicycle helmet!

Obviously the reference to the bicycle helmet is a metaphor for the over protective actions we take every day to protect stupid people from themselves.  If an animal is to dumb to feed itself or to protect itself from predators, we call it natural selection – survival of the fittest.  When it comes to human stupidity we call it safety and charity.  We cannot seem to understand that we are also animals and subject to the same laws of nature.  We can enact laws to require companies to post warning on simple product to protect the morons for using an electrical appliance in a tub full of water.  We can insist that our government enact laws that protect idiots from harming themselves, but that doesn’t stop those creative idiots.  Einstein said that when you think you have made something idiot proof, they come up with a better idiot.  He’s right; but they didn’t have bicycle helmets in his day, did they?

How long can this continue?  From where I sit, the time is almost up.  We are headed toward the cliff at full speed and the brakes don’t work.  If by some miracle we survive, we can sue Toyota for a sticky accelerator and bad breaks.  Never mind our responsibility to keep that vehicle in safe and working condition.

Well… At least we have a ring side seat for the crash!