I don’t normally give out awards for being stupid. I kinda thought, Dave, if you start to do this, it will become something that people will expect of you, and then you’ll find yourself looking for stupid people to give awards to. Of course, that can be pretty easy.

Washington, D. C. Need I say more? Problem is, looking for stupidity in Washington is like filling a rain barrel full of bass and going fishing with a shotgun. There’s people in that city that are so stupid, you wonder how they manage to breathe without an instruction book. You can collect stupid by the gallon, if you want it. I reckon it’s oozing out under the door where they’re debating on Judge Alito. Like the Blob, in that old movie with Steve McQueen. A big old blob of Stupid, oozing out from under the door, there in the Capitol Building.

I should mention that, even though I’m a Conservative Christian, I don’t hold with the idea that all stupid is reserved for liberals, or Democrats, or drunken old men from Massachusetts that get away with negligent homicide. Anybody that thinks only Democrats are stupid needs to get a reality check and come down to our southern border. Try not to get trampled by illegals heading in the other direction, if you do. And the guy in the White House, who Knows they’re coming across (remember, he used to work in Austin before he moved) isn’t doing a thing about it.

Now, Pat Robertson is getting pretty stupid. Might be a good idea for him to do a lot less talking and a lot more praying. I don’t think God is in the business of zapping people any more, especially since He sent His Son down here to give folks a way out. Of course, God might figure that we’re getting so good at zapping each other, He can just sit back and watch, until it’s time to pull the plug. In the mean time, ole Pat might want to take some lessons from Billy Graham.

Hollywood. Take a look at the Hollywood Walk of Fame, sometime. There’s a bunch of folks that got stars. I hear Vanna White, the letter lady of Wheel of Fortune, is about to get one. Imagine if they gave out stars
for being stupid. Now there’s a list a person could sink their teeth into! A person wanted to give out stupid awards, the entertainment industry could keep you busy for two or three lifetimes. In fact, the concept is so screwy, they’d probably line up to get one, if you set up categories and televised it with a name emcee. ABC presents, THE STUPIDS! See who’s in line to get awards this year! Nominees in the categories of Most Stupid Political Statement, Most Inane Threat, Most Money Collected for Stupid Causes….
Well, you get the idea.

I understand that movie theaters are planning to respond to less attendance by raising the price of a ticket again. Now, there is world class stupid! Let’s see, the Princess and I can rent the DVD for a couple bucks, make popcorn, sit around in our jammies, and watch the movie, or we can spend twenty bucks, get into a small cramped theater, and listen to screaming kids, cell phone conversations, people of indeterminate sex making out…. Give me some time to think about it, it’s a really hard choice. Maybe the people that set the prices need to be forced to sit through fourteen Barbara Streisand movies with a theater full of adolescents. Is Babs still in the country? I thought I heard something about her moving to Canada or France or somewhere, a few years ago. I guess I should look into that, sometime. Might be an All Time Stupid Pre-Election Statement Award in there somewhere.

I run into your basic, garden-variety stupid every once in a while. Had a gal walk up to me a few days ago, point to my gun, and ask “Is that thing loaded?” I was tempted to tell her no, but I had a bullet in my shirt pocket. I think the only reason I didn’t do it was because I thought she’d believe me. Besides, I wasn’t sure whether or not it was my resemblance to Don Knotts that made her ask in the first place.

Oh, heck.

I guess I’ll just have to give a stupid award to the Maryland Legislature. Well, I guess it’s what happens when you put a lot of liberals in office, and then let them be conned by the idiots in the AFL-CIO. The Wal-Mart Bill is probably the most stupid piece of state legislation since Texas made it against the law to shoot camels from the second floor of the hotels in Houston. What I wonder is, has anyone read “Atlas Shrugged”? Looks like no one in Maryland has. One of the things Ayn Rand talked about was trying to order a business to produce, while at the same time taking away its ability to do so. Seems like what’s happening here. The unions are so upset at Wal-Mart, they’ll try anything to get them to knuckle under. And this piece
of stupid legislation, and others like it pending in several other states (guess what color most of them are?) is designed to force Wal-Mart to buckle.

I own stock in Wal-Mart. Not a lot, but some. Only pays sixty cents a share dividend. I plan on sending them a little letter on Tuesday. Tell them to keep my dividend, and the dividend of any other shareholder that’s also willing, until the moving expenses are defrayed. Yeah, that’s right, the moving expenses. I’m going to demand, as a stockholder, that they close down every Wal-Mart store in Maryland. With an either/or message for the state legislature. Either repeal that stupid legislation, or be ready for a massive drop in your tax base and a massive raise in your unemployment claims. It’s time government was forced to get out of the business of micromanaging business. If the Maryland Legislature thinks it can run a business by legislation, then let them pass a law starting a state competitor to Wal-Mart. They can pass laws about pay, parking, holidays, health care, all sorts of things. And they can see if it’s possible to run a business like that. But don’t count on it.

They’re Destroyers. You know, I don’t believe everything Ayn Rand wrote. But she was right about some things, and she was right about the Destroyers. Only now they’re called unions, and legislatures.

NOTE: Copyright 01/14/06 by Dave Hoffman

Use granted to all who identify author.

Beneficium accipere libertatem est vendere.

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