This thread is intended as an intellectual exercise, not a serious attempt to validate the mass murder of large segments of our society. Mass murder is a crime, and a moral obscenity, and the OP does NOT condone it.
No matter how much good it might do.
“First thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”
It’s an old saying. I don’t remember where I first heard it. I keep wanting to say it’s from Shakespeare, but durned if I could cite it.
The upshot of the concept seems to be that lawyers are more trouble than they’re worth. True, without them, the common man would be at the mercy of a thick, convoluted, incomprehensible, and often hostile legal system…
…but WITH them, the common man is all too often at the mercy of the lawyers. Especially when they decide to go into politics.
…and with the introduction of politics, this brings me to the other topic of this thread: stupid people.
Now, stupid people are ubiquitous; stupidity is the hydrogen of sapience. It’s that common. Furthermore, it’s pervasive. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US does stupid stuff on occasion. Every human on the face of the earth, at one time or another, looks back on an action or decision and says to himself/herself, “What was I THINKING?” On occasion, we are all idiots.
Well, most of us, anyway. The stupider ones don’t. When stupidity is a way of life, looking back is a fairly uncommon event, much less reevaluation of previous decisions, I would think.
I first encountered this particular brand of stupidity during the Nixon administration.
A lot of people flatly refused to believe that Nixon was up to anything. Anything at all. Nixon was the President, and the idea that the President could possibly be up to anything aside from the greater glory and good of America and her people was simply unacceptable; worse, it was a Communist lie. Not just a lie, but a Communist lie. Exactly how the Communists could be involved was unclear, but the fact that the President’s honor was being impugned certainly seemed to point to Communist involvement, didn’t it?
I mean, when Nixon tried to fire his own Attorney General for refusing to drop the investigation, a LOT of people wised up. Not the stupid people. Plainly, that bad old Attorney General was a Communist, that’s all.
When Woodward and Bernstein’s exposes began to hit the papers, the stupid people barely blinked. Communists, both of 'em. And wasn’t one of them a Jew?
When the Tapes With The Missing Eighteen Minutes became public, the stupid people refused to even listen to them. Plainly, the eighteen missing minutes would CLEAR the President, if only that secretary hadn’t erased them! Plainly, she was a Communist. Or maybe a Jew. A woman, anyway.
…and then, finally, Nixon resigned.
The reaction of the Stupid People were mixed. Some of them swore that Nixon had been railroaded. The rest abruptly about-faced, refused to admit that they had ever defended Nixon, and then, later, savagely attacked President Ford for pardoning the guy.
Today, I read This Thread on the SDMB. So… because Kerry is married to the Heinz heiress, ketchup is therefore evil. Communist, maybe. No, the word “communist” is kind of outdated… I notice we’ve reverted to the even more antediluvian “unamerican.”
…and so some clown has created “W” Ketchup, a good American ketchup, a proper Republican ketchup, a ketchup that will never protest a war or argue against corporate energy policy. A ketchup which will provide profit for a good American entrepreneur, instead of fueling the great Commu-- um, Jew-- er, Unamerican Kerry Political Machine.
It’s not THE dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, but it’s certainly up there.
And there are people who believe it. There are people who will buy the ketchup, simply to prevent the evil Kerry from profiting from his evil wife’s evil ketchup.
Communists.
And as I read further, I began to have one of my uglier, but more familiar fantasies:
“First thing, let’s kill all the stupid people.”
I mean, it would certainly clear things up. Retail work, and counter jobs at fast food joints would certainly become easier; the dumber and more contentious customers would be gone, as well as the more obstreperous managers, thus freeing the employees to do their jobs more efficiently.
Politics would become a matter of issues and problem-solving, as opposed to a clash of egos, who has the better hair, and who can sling crap at his opponent faster and more efficiently.
The American educational system would undergo a miraculous transformation, almost overnight. Meanwhile, much petty crime would simply cease, due to sheer lack of people committing them.
On the Internet, “do not feed the trolls” would become a meaningless statement. Everyone would have better things to do and say than diddling around with people’s heads on message boards.
True, we’d have to murder millions of people in cold blood, but I can’t help but think about the benefits, as well.
Which got me back to thinking about the lawyers. Would killing all the stupid people provide better benefits than killing all the lawyers?
Any takers?
