Things Americans Believe
by Minna vander Pfaltz
TopTenz:- Mr. White must be believed because he speaks at 200 wpm or he won’t be able to get all the information in. There are too many “specialists” on the Internet who offer up their opinion in the name of knowledge.
America and Americans are better than anyone else on the face of the planet. The Brits once believed this. “Britain first” didn’t exactly get them any friends, either.
Guns. Real guns. Big guns. Bang bang rat-a-tat-tat guns. The solution to every problem–not only at home but internationally.
Americans do not believe in the Second Amendment because they’ve never read it.
America’s problems are all due to mental illness, a belief that smacks of mental illness itself.
Curling is a game.
Pop culture does not influence society.
Bigger is better–including that something is too big to fail. All of the giants died out.
Reality TV is real.
Rap is music.
Aliens will visit here first. . .and then destroy the rest of the world. Notice: this belief implies the US is the most deserving of first destruction; that is, the most dangerous place.
Kansas is flat. This is true if you discount the eastern half of the state where there are hills and valleys and marshland and some trees that have miraculously survived the rampant real estate boom. And second. . .that you discount the land rising steadily from about mid-state from a few hundred feet above sea level to about 4,000 feet above sea level at the Colorado border.
The Quakers were ever tea totalers. I guess this is why there’s an alcoholic drink known as the Dead Quaker. 18th century. Out in the woods. A follower of The Penn walked into the tavern and made a bet. He won. He stood up to receive his prize. He died. No. He was not the one who turned ’em.
Columbus discovered America.
The flat Earth theory.
We liberated Texas from the Mexicans.
Astrology.
There’s a dark side to the Moon.
Freedom of religion means I get to impose my religion on you, God damn it. Actually, the document reads, in paraphrase, “the freedom to worship” the religion of your choice. Of course, there has been down through history religious worship that imposed itself on others that included sacrifice, usually of slaves or captured others. And practiced exclusionary behavior. . .like witch hunting. Who is it will gainsay history, God damn it?
A foetus smaller than the very point of an extremely sharp pencil is a viable human. What, in fact, is life?
Americans believe the world, especially diseases, accidents and air, is against them. Sometimes those enemy aliens are so small you can’t see them. That is to say, America is paranoid. . .you might say too careful.
Teaching STEM is the answer to all of America’s needs. And the humanities?
There’s something inherently wrong with the poor. They are a drag on society. But it is the über-rich, the people who hide their money elsewhere or become involved in external money making who are a drain on the economy because they are putting nothing back into the country’s economy that allowed them to get so rich. They are using resources that others are paying for.
Economics and economic efficiency are The Way, the answer for making everything work better. But, in fact, economics is like casino gambling. Remember Hurricane Sandy that flooded NYC? And Wall Street did not function at all for two weeks? Guess what happened to the US and the World economy during that time? Answer: nothing. Nothing at all. A bunch of slavering greedy company proxies gambling. Economics cuts the human right out of the equation.
talesofthefloatingworld 