Stupid is as Stupid Believes Hysterical Internet Rumor

["Stupid is as Stupid Does" is yet another anti-Muslim e-mail circulating the internet. It pushes a vision of sterotyping, profiling and Obama is a Muslim. You can find it with you nearest search engine. Normally, I disregard such message, but this was was forwarded to me, with concern, by a family member so I felt obligated to write a response.]

The kind of casual stereotyping in the “Stupid Is As Stupid Does” is troubling at best, bigoted at worst.

If I were to base even an iota of my vote on “Stupid Is As Stupid Does” then maybe I should report to the nearest government office and insist that they revoke the privilege due to my intellectual apathy, indifference and undernourishment. (See why Thomas Jefferson agrees with me below.)

Basic American values reject profiling. In America, the idea of profiling people based on race, religion or ethnicity got thrown out when the clause “…three fifths of all other Persons." (a reference to slaves) was sliced from the U.S. Constitution in 1865.

If our basic values and the Constitution are not enough for you, the Department of Justice, President Bush and former Attorney General John Ashcroft also reject profiling.

Unfortunately, it is easy to assemble a list of violent radicals from almost any background.

Not one of us would conclude that Americans are somehow more inclined to violence and terrorism than others because of the relatively recent acts of the following individuals:
*Timothy McVeigh (Oklahoma City, 1995)
*Terry Nichols (Oklahoma City, 1995)
*Eric Rudolf (Olympic Park bomber, Atlanta 1996, grew up in the Christian Identity movement)
*Ted Kaczynski (The Unabomber)
*Sean Gillespie (convicted in 2005 for firebombing an Oklahoma synagogue)
*Buford Furrow “went on a shooting rampage at a Jewish day-care center in Southern California.” (Washington Post, 6/05/2005)

The post-9/11 anthrax case that recently garnered a new flurry of media coverage does not point to a Muslim. We all, regrettably, know the name of the town of Columbine. The rape camps where primarily Bosnian Muslim women--at least 20,000 of them-- were violated in the early 1990’s were crafted by Serbians.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, in its “Terrorism 2002-2005” report concludes, “Eight of the 14 recorded terrorist preventions stemmed from right-wing extremism, and included disruptions to plot­ting by individuals involved with the militia, white supremacist, constitutionalist and tax protestor, and anti-abortion movements.”

Voting for or against any candidate for public office must be a matter of objective study of character, positions and experience.

As Thomas Jefferson wrote, "A democratic society depends upon an informed and educated citizenry."

“Stupid is as Stupid Does” fails the “informed and educated” test, rather it fits Jefferson’s more dire concern: "The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment."