Samuel Clemens would be truly amazed if he were alive today. A phenomenon that rose to prominence in perhaps the last two decades of the 20th Century, that of pathological self-willed ignorance in which one's evidentiary-unsupported beliefs and irrational prejudices are one's only reality. Self-willed ignorance has seemingly grown exponentially in the opening years of the 21st Century and has emerged as perhaps the greatest single danger to America's Constitutional rights, freedoms and privileges.
In the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary such individuals persist in reveling in and spreading their self-willed ignorance to others of the same shallow mind-set. The problem today seems to rest mostly in the right-wing arch conservatives of the late, great Republican Party that is clearly being led down the primrose path to self-willed ignorance and irrelevance by the hog-wash of Glen Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and Lou Dobbs. Mike Huckabee warns of a "Terrorists EMP attack." Funny he doesn't seem too worried about the massive solar flare or nuclear weapon air burst required to create one and how many nukes would be necessary to create EMPs all over the US.
There's Gov. Rick Perry shouting secession and "birther's" idiotic "show me Obama's birth certificate" noise and resigned but still winking fellow secessionist Sara Palin's claims where "Death Panels" evolved to a "Death Book" not to mention "Pulling the plug on grandma." Rush Limbaugh's latest claim is President Obama wants every man in America circumcised and RNC Chairman Steele idiotically claimed on Fox-noisework that the Department of Veterans Affairs has a manual encouraging veterans to "commit suicide." That's off-the-scale ignorance.
"Obama's gonna' take our guns away" ignorance has resulted in loaded weapons on display at town hall meetings where there is supposed to be civilized discourse among adults behaving in a civil manner. That evolved to the malapropistic use of Thomas Jefferson's "Watering the tree of liberty" quote by an armed ignorant dullard at a town hall meeting hosted by President Obama.
Time knows only one direction, forward. In order not to become a history footnote, it's necessary to move, learn and evolve over time; moreover, it's necessary to learn history's lessons. Self-willed ignorance will relegate anyone to history's midden.
