Fiction abounds in criminal masterminds like Dr. Fu Manchu, Professor James Moriarity, Lord Reesh, et al. What they all have in common is, they’re smart. That’s why it takes someone like Sherlock Holmes to stop them.
We, poor devils, live in a real world dominated by stupid masterminds. Their schemes are too stupid to succeed, but they do just as much harm, maybe even more, than Moriarity and Co.
Our masterminds think socialism really works, there are 57 states in the United States, society is better off without marriage and the family, you can spend your way out of debt, and so on. Even the people we think are really smart are really stupid. Hundreds of Nobel Prize winners have signed on to the Humanist Manifesto II–a document that recommends a mix of atheism, abortion, suicide, and homosexuality as the solution to the world’s problems.
If you wrote a fantasy novel or a detective novel featuring the machinations of a really stupid mastermind, it would be classed as unimaginative fiction. People would think you were trying to write a Democrat Party platform. “Duh! How about we tax the pants off people who work, and give the money to people who don’t work? That ought to get the economy humming!” There are real-life stupid masterminds working on that very scheme even as you read this. And others just as addled.
Go ahead, try it yourself–try to write a story in which the villain is a big stupid idiot whose asinine ideas can’t possibly result in anything but chaos and misery.
You’ll find you’re writing about real life.
Yes, I know what you are saying. I have often thought that if the deceased citizens of even one generation ago could arrive here and now and see what is happening, they would freak out in unbelief. I freak out
myself, and I have been here all along. Whew, it is getting crazy.
At least we don’t have to go to public school!
What is “real Life”? Our Founders had some very good ideas, like original rights from the Creator (their words) meaning the right to Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Happiness. But-what is freedom in real life? There’s an answer: “If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.” IT’S IN THE BIBLE!!! And we can be what we were made to be.
I find it especially galling that able-bodied people think they should receive money provided by hard-working taxpayers. I understand compassion for the poor, but opportunity is the answer, not handouts. Opportunity is best abetted by reducing needless regulation and promoting free enterprise. A taste of success can help someone to find their inner strength and realize their potential. By way of contrast, a welfare check doled out by faceless bureaucrats promotes a sense of helplessness.
Ann Coulter move over, here comes Lee Duigon. Great post, Lee!
Idiot masterminds have pervaded history. Remember Haman? He ended up building the gallows that he was hanged on.
At least his gallows worked. If he’d been a US Senator, the gallows would’ve cost ten times as much and then fallen down as soon as you tried to hang somebody.
“How about we tax the pants off people who work, and give the money to people who don’t work?” How about we teach them how to fish?