Toxic Stupidity

For the Super Bowl, Gillette made an ad entitled "Toxic Masculinity." It didn't come out and say it, but it fit into the "Me Too" movement and even though it tried to put a positive "spin" on it as to what men could do better, it pretty much backfired on Gillette.

A whole host of men felt that it was a direct attack on them, and I saw on social media a whole bunch of Gillette products being thrown away. Which advertising "genius" thought it would be a good idea to attack the very group of people (men) who buy the bulk of their product?

This all brings me to the subject of this week's column -- "Toxic Stupidity." As Forrest Gump says, "stupid is as stupid does" and we have stupid in abundance in our society. It's everywhere and just keeps spreading like a pandemic.

Let' start off with the liberal darling Ocasio from New York City. The new congresswoman, who this time last year was a bartender, helped run Amazon out of New York City, costing thousands of people jobs paying up to $150,000 a year. As if that wasn't bad enough, then she compounded her "lack of knowledge" when referring to the tax credits the city was poised to grant Amazon.

She said that the city should take the $3 billion in tax credits that they were offering the company and spend it on infrastructure and other needs. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio had to explain to this "educated" congresswoman that the city didn't have that $3 billion but, rather, the tax credits would have been generated for Amazon based on the billions of dollars of economic development it "would" have brought to the city.

Of course, those billions are going somewhere else now because she was "fighting" for her constituents by keeping that big bad company out of the city. Oh my! And she actually has a degree from Boston University. I'm sure the university is proud of its graduate.

Next up is this New Green Deal for the environment that she and other liberals are now embracing. Apparently, if we don't adopt their radical agenda to completely get away from fossil fuels within the next 12 years, then the world as we know it is going to end.

I would hope that they know that there is not a "bubble" around the United States and that air flows all over the world -- not just over individual countries. I'm all for protecting our environment, but I kind of know that if we do everything we can and the rest of the world doesn't, then we really haven't solved the problems.

I know that I sure don't have the answer, but I do know spending trillions and trillions of dollars on some far-fetched ideological rambling manifesto most likely isn't the answer either. But, what do I know? I don't have a degree from Boston University. But, my folks did give me a pretty big dose of common sense -- which is not so common anymore.

Then there is the "open borders" group. Apparently, any kind of wall to protect our country from any and everyone coming in is "immoral" and "not who we are" as a country. I'm so tired of trying to make them understand the fallacy of their arguments that I'm not even going to try.

Except, I want them to think about this one for a moment. I saw a post on social media the other day (and it wasn't Russian) of a young man from south of our border that was being detained. About half his body was covered with some kind of spots consistent with a communicable disease. And, in the post, it said that there were a whole host of people trying to come into the U.S. who had tuberculosis.

So, what happens when refugees come from countries that do not vaccinate their population and then we start having major breakouts of diseases in our schools? Do you think these "open borders" people might change their mind? What if it affects their kids?

And this one has to be the poster child (literally) for toxic stupidity. On our way to Houston a few days ago, there was a huge billboard right on the interstate on the downtown loop into the city. It was a picture of a naked (sheared) sheep. On the billboard, it read, "We are individuals, we are not sweaters, wear vegan."

Not sure I can adequately address the stupidity of this one. I would never knock someone who wants to be a vegan -- their choice and not mine. But, do they realize that sheep are not "individuals" and have to be sheared or it can cause problems and that the act of shearing does not harm the sheep in any manner?

Toxic stupidity. No cure is known to mankind. Guess we have to accept it, but it sure is sad.

Kevin Wilson is a former state representative who was born in Goodman and now lives in Neosho. Opinions expressed are those of the author.