2011...The Year When The Stupid Stupefied.

I suppose it was bound to happen. We’ve been building up to it for years, indoctrinating our youth instead of teaching them to think, and creating a climate where the right not to be offended was more cherished than the right to speak plainly, with the full knowledge that the intended recipients should be ashamed, rather than offended. Still, for me at least, it felt like in 2011, stupid reached critical mass, and started a chain reaction of stupid in everything that it touched. And as I watched, I felt…ennui.

I know that it, and other things kept shouting at my muse this year, until I rarely heard her sweet song, enticing me to tap out far fewer lines than I normally would. I just find it difficult to be either insightful or entertaining when my response to 93% of the headlines is “DUH!” and my response to 5% of the remaining 7% really shouldn’t be repeated in polite company anyway.

It was a year when we saw a key economic partner crippled by earthquakes and tsunamis, giving much fodder but little fact to the anti-nuke hysterics. A story that then faded from our conscience as our news outlets found new stories to hyperventilate about, despite the fact that the real story will continue to unfold for years.

It was yet another year when dissent equaled racism in the eyes of the people who believe their opinions should be our own, and tell us so at every opportunity. It isn’t surprising though. The criticism equals racism meme was getting almost as lonely as it was tired.

It was the year when spoiled entitled youth from across the country mounted a frontal assault on the very same capitalism that made it possible to tweet the “revolution” from their iPhones and blog about it on their Macbooks.

It was the year that the middle east erupted in protests against despotic leaders, so they could replace them with…despotic leaders…and terrorists. And in at least one case, it wasn’t enough for the Duffer-in-Chief to “Bear Witness”…he made sure we helped to replace the devil we knew with the one we didn’t. (Go ahead…call this racist, it won’t make you right or me wrong.)

It was a year in which we saw the Federal Government sue states for trying to enforce the same laws that the Federal Government refused to.  And it was a year in which we learned of the most incompetent plan to track illegal firearms and activies with them EVER…a plan that could only exist to curtail a Constitutional right, not make anyone safer.  Just ask Brian Terry, and scores of Mexican citizens…oh, that’s right…you can’t.  And, as predictable as Grandpa going to the bathroom after breakfast with the newspaper tucked under his arm, calling for the resignation of the Attorney General who appears to have known all about it is….wait for it…RACIST!!!!

It was the year in which we learned that needing an ID to drive, buy booze and cigarettes, apply for credit, get an apartment, and go to college was NOT racist, but requiring it before you let someone cast a ballot, IS. (Thank you, Uncle Facts.)

It was the year when our elected officials received the clearest warning yet given from the financial sector that spending more than it takes in is an invitation to ruin and doom…and their response was to ignore the real issue, point fingers at each other, and keep spending money it doesn’t have on things it has no lawful authority to do. I wish the stupid was confined to the government on this point, but our shame is double, since we keep letting them do this. I can’t think of any other situation where we hire people to perform certain duties for us, for which we pay them sums certain, only to have them decide that they also have to feed everyone in the next state, clothe them, make sure they get medical care, and in order to do it, they take out loans in our name, without our consent, and tell us that it will be fine, because it will actually be our kids and grandkids paying the loans back.

I’d like to live just long enough to see those same little children who were singing the creepy “dear leader-esque” songs to the serial vacationer in the Oval Office shouting his name in anger when they are all in their 40s, living in efficiency apartments and clothed in rags as they service the debt to pay off the Spendulous slush funds and payoffs, furious that he and the Senate that hasn’t passed a budget in years so blatantly stole their futures from them so they could live very comfortably in the now. I am sure that when my own sons are grown adults, Senator Reid’s name will be synonymous with corruption, shortsightedness, and FAIL!

It was the year in which we heard an entire party that at least understands the differences between an America that is strong, prosperous, and exceptional, as opposed to one that is gripped by economic decline and malaise, without focus, vision, or unity, decried as evil, mean people who want blacks hanging from trees, and old people and kids with autism to starve.

It was a year when an athlete who openly practiced his faith became a punchline for people too cowardly or too lazy to find and keep their own. And still, he prays. Thank you for that.

It was another year when those who believed in nothing, and had no standards or goals past living another year, and getting whatever they could continued to mock and critique those who do. It was another year when decency was something uttered with a sneer by people who could not or refused to find it in themselves.

It was another year when truth was there to be found by anyone diligent and humble enough to seek it, and accept it for what it is. It was a year in which I learned even more about the “Why?” relating to the design, and to my sorrow, many of the points of deviation.

It was a year when certain divisions became more pronounced, and certain outcomes began to feel more inevitable. It was sobering, and frustrating when I could see where so many people either sleepwalk through it, quietly accept it, or worst of all, embrace it.

My resolution for 2012? To make myself speak, rather than letting this show stun me in to silence for another year. I’m no different from many of you. I’ll be swept along in the tide of events along with every other average Joe and Jill.

But I’ll be damned if I go quietly.