No one looking at America from a balanced perspective can deny any longer that the country has gone collectively insane. Certainly there are some rational, intelligent Americans still around, but we must face the fact that a large segment of the population is totally nuts. Worse, the ruling class is sociopathic and inherently evil. This untenable situation has serious implications for our nation’s future stability, our living standards, and for democracy itself.

According to a recent Win/Gallup opinion poll of more than 66,000 people in 65 countries, America is the number one threat to world peace. In their annual End of Year Survey, researchers found that a whopping 24% of global respondents consider the United States the country which poses the biggest obstacle to peace in the world today; not Iran.

Pakistan and China were next on the list, although they lagged far behind the USA garnering only 8 and 6 percent, respectively. Iran, Israel, Afghanistan, and North Korea all tied for fourth place with 4 percent.

Ironically, while Iran was predictably voted number one by US respondents, Americans also identified their own country among the world’s most threatening nations – in a tie for 3rd place with North Korea.

Americans are fearful people, and we can be pretty scary when we feel threatened – which is all the time. Fear brings out the worst in human nature. Scared people lash out angrily, violently, and irrationally. They willfully do harm to others, believing the damage is justified and that it’s their place to force others to submit to their will.

Fear is a serious problem, and it’s only getting worse as the anti-Muslim rhetoric intensifies. Humans are unable to think clearly when they’re scared out of their wits. Fear distorts perceptions and it forces people to make bad decisions based on emotions.

Those who still want to bomb Iran are crazy. The last thing America needs is to attack another Muslim country. That is what creates support for Islamic terrorists in the first place. Does anyone still believe that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have made America more secure? Bombing Iran would be far worse than those two illegal wars, and it would directly undermine our national security.

Rather than promote freedom and justice around the globe, America’s belligerent foreign policy has brought chaos and mayhem. The world is clearly not a safer place since 9/11.

The USA has traditionally supported some of the most violent, oppressive regimes in history, and this trend continues to this day with Egypt, Honduras, the Ukraine and Israel – to name but a few. Obama recently approved 500 billion in weapons sales to the despotic nation of Saudi Arabia – just in time for the manufactured war in Yemen – and he is sending the military regime in Egypt another couple of billion in military aid.

Our greatest ally in the region is the truly repulsive and dangerous ultra right wing government in Israel.

America breaks its own laws to wage terror across the planet, and it violates international treaties whenever it serves our interests. We circle the planet with over 800 military bases: It’s no wonder people fear America to such an extent.

The warmongers know the blowback from bombing Iran would be catastrophic; the truth is they don’t really care as long as it sells more weapons. But it’s not just Iran: on every major issue, the neocons and their Libertarian stooges have lost the capacity to recognize how absurd their claims of victimization are. Even worse, these self-righteous imbeciles are absolutely sure they know what is best for everyone. They’ve got all of the simple (wrong) answers for everything, and they become annoyed when they have to “dumb it down” to explain things to the rest of us.

Ideologues are not interested in negotiation or compromise of any sort. They don’t want to live in peace and harmony with anybody.

What they really want is to eliminate all of us ‘free-thinkers’ from society and take everything for themselves. But they won’t openly admit that, of course. They vehemently deny it’s true. That’s why you can’t have an actual debate with these people: they lie to your face about their real motives and then they deny lying about it. That’s what sociopaths do. It’s genetic. Most people are afraid for the wrong reasons. Americans are endlessly bombarded with fake threats: exaggerated warnings about violent crime, Mexican drug cartels, terrorist plots, Mooslims, Neegrows, Feminazis, Libtards, Fags…

Their response is to load up on more ammo.

Conversely, those still capable of critical thinking – the lefties, liberals and progressives – are concerned for different reasons. These include an unresponsive government subsidizing dangerous levels of economic inequality; persistent racism; suppression of the rights of women, children, gays, and minorities; a rising police state; endless costly wars and fake terror threats. Not to mention all the angry white guys out there armed to the teeth and ready to snap at any moment… These fears are real and quite valid. But they tend to be the ones that FOX “News” denies or ignores.

Too many people are driven by paranoia and a maniacal obsession to live the mythological ‘American Dream,’ brainwashed by their corporate masters to love only money. They are inundated with materialism, false individualism and a cycle of endless violence. They’re afraid to stop hoarding their precious guns; hounded by their creditors; hustled to no end by media shills and crooked politicians. The public is blinded by their belief that they still live in a democracy while the 1% limits their political choice to a single corporate party with two branches. As the late, great George Carlin once said, “When you’re born into this world, you’re given a ticket to the freak show. If you’re born in America, you get a front row seat.” Enjoy it while it lasts!

ADDENDUM:

A growing body of research confirms that stupidity robs people of the ability to recognize their own ignorance. In other words: dumb people are too incompetent to realize it. The Dunning–Kruger effect refers to a cognitive bias study in which incompetent individuals were shown to suffer from the illusion of superiority, mistakenly rating their own abilities much higher than others.

This bias is attributed to the inability of the unskilled to recognize their ineptitude. Incompetent people fail to recognize their own lack of skill; they don’t see genuine skill in others; and they are unable to recognize the extremity of their ignorance. Some of the recent reader comments posted on the Daily Lobo website would be hilarious if they weren’t so disturbing – although they do provide a fascinating insight into the sociopathic mindset. One of the trolls actually accused me of “unequivocally declaring alignment with history’s worst and most brutal dictators and statists” simply because I advocated taxation in one of my columns as a means of sustaining a civilized society.

I really can’t think of a single civilization which has survived without resorting to some form of taxation to support the functions of state…except perhaps the barbarian hordes. Is that really what these lunatics want? I believe the answer is yes: they are actively creating a world which is virtually uninhabitable. They would actually prefer to live in a country where it’s ‘every man for himself’ and the law of the jungle prevails than be forced to care about other people. That is civilization to these libertarian sociopaths: they are willing to destroy the lives of future generations – including their own – for the sake of short-term profit. Like I said, crazy.

Three relevant quotes:

“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.” – Confucius 

“The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance” – Aristotle

“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.”  – Charles Bukowski