back again.
Depending on how fast the president "moves" in office, how fast world events unfold and how fast public opinion can be changed via their main source of communication and what time we are looking at the president, US presidents appear to be some combination of all the above.
President George W. Bush is a wonderful case study in the evolution of stupid.
At one point in time I used to think that former Pres. George W. Bush was an evil monkey boy. Then, he became a stupid evil monkey boy. Then, a clueless idiot that was slightly less evil but still a monkey boy. Then a clueless idiot in charge of a government run by evil puppet masters. Then, he became a helpless confused little boy by the end of his term. The cycle just went on and on until I realized, this is ridiculous! How can a monkey boy be both evil genius and idiot at the same time? The truth is, it just depends on who's perspective you're taking.
I noticed that if you live physically "far away" from Pres. George W.Bush, like on the other side of the planet in a remote Middle East village, he appears quite the evil genius, especially if you don't have access to a TV that captures his perpetual look of sheer confusion.
If you live on the opposite side of the world in a poor remote village you have very limited resources for communication. The type and amount of communication resources you have severely affects how fast your opinion changes and ultimately what you decide to do.
Let's do a theoretical exercise and take for example a remote village in the Middle East.
Suppose there is a family of Arabs who have a sick little girl that needs a doctor desperately but the only doctor available is across the border. So they get into a van to go to the doctor. From the outside of the van, the dad is the only visible one since he's the driver. The dad knows that the border is guarded by an American soldier but he thinks that the American will be kind enough to let them through if he can show them how sick his little girl is. What the dad doesn't know is how to speak English. Likewise, the American doesn't speak Arabic and has no idea why he sees an Arab man in a van driving towards him. All the American knows is that some of his solider buddies got killed by a bunch of angry Arabs the other night and now he has to guard the border to prevent the Arabs and possibly THE Arabs that killed his buddies the other night from crossing the border.
So now the American soldier sees the van coming and fires off a warning shot to tell the van driver to stop. The father in the van hears the shot but is too far away from the soldier to shout out that his little girl needs help, so he drives even closer to the soldier.
Now the soldier is getting even more alarmed because the van didn't stop. The soldier has heard stories that there are lone suicide bombers that ram into border blockades and begins to wonder if this is one of them.
The dad gets closer to the American soldier and is finally within shouting distance. He shouts in Arabic, "Help! My daughter is dying! Please don't shoot! Look! I'll bring her out so you can see how sick she is!" So the dad goes to the back of the van and tries to take out his daughter who is bundled up in blankets because she was shaking from chills and fever.
The American soldier can't see that far and is now really freaking out because all he sees is a shouting angry appearing Arab who is pulling out what looks like a large bundle of something. The soldier wonders "Is it huge bomb? A bazooka? OMG! He's taking it out and he's so close to me! He's going to kill me!!!"
And so in a split second, the soldier gives into fear and decides to shoot his machine gun at the angry looking and shouting Arab. The van is riddled with bullet holes and the Arab falls dead. The soldier puts down his gun and inspects the van and finds that he just accidentally killed an entire family, including a sick little girl that looks just like his own daughter back home.
Back at the village, the relatives of the family that got killed hears the news from a villager who saw the American soldier inspecting the bodies of the family with the gun in his hands and tells the village what he saw. The villager left before he saw the American soldier break down in tears. Can you guess what happens next?
This example was actually not purely theoretical. As a medical student treating American soldiers in a psychiatric ward I saw this story unfold over and over again. The soldiers who experienced this kind of thing come home depressed and suicidal. They can not function in every day society anymore.
It's just awful to see what's happening all around the world. People give into fear and anger more and more at the most critical of times. Why? All because they couldn't understand each other and in some cases never bothered to ask why.
That is why President George W. Bush at times looked like an evil genius, a monkey boy, an idiot, a hero, and a confused little boy who just wanted to save the world. Whether or not he was or was not, it doesn't matter any more. The role he played just became a part of history that will likely predict the future.
Now it's President Obama's turn to try and save the world.
The evolution of stupid is circular not linear and right now on June 24, 2010 we are all acting stupid and have been for a very long time!
I noticed that if you live physically "far away" from Pres. George W.Bush, like on the other side of the planet in a remote Middle East village, he appears quite the evil genius, especially if you don't have access to a TV that captures his perpetual look of sheer confusion.
If you live on the opposite side of the world in a poor remote village you have very limited resources for communication. The type and amount of communication resources you have severely affects how fast your opinion changes and ultimately what you decide to do.
Let's do a theoretical exercise and take for example a remote village in the Middle East.
Suppose there is a family of Arabs who have a sick little girl that needs a doctor desperately but the only doctor available is across the border. So they get into a van to go to the doctor. From the outside of the van, the dad is the only visible one since he's the driver. The dad knows that the border is guarded by an American soldier but he thinks that the American will be kind enough to let them through if he can show them how sick his little girl is. What the dad doesn't know is how to speak English. Likewise, the American doesn't speak Arabic and has no idea why he sees an Arab man in a van driving towards him. All the American knows is that some of his solider buddies got killed by a bunch of angry Arabs the other night and now he has to guard the border to prevent the Arabs and possibly THE Arabs that killed his buddies the other night from crossing the border.
So now the American soldier sees the van coming and fires off a warning shot to tell the van driver to stop. The father in the van hears the shot but is too far away from the soldier to shout out that his little girl needs help, so he drives even closer to the soldier.
Now the soldier is getting even more alarmed because the van didn't stop. The soldier has heard stories that there are lone suicide bombers that ram into border blockades and begins to wonder if this is one of them.
The dad gets closer to the American soldier and is finally within shouting distance. He shouts in Arabic, "Help! My daughter is dying! Please don't shoot! Look! I'll bring her out so you can see how sick she is!" So the dad goes to the back of the van and tries to take out his daughter who is bundled up in blankets because she was shaking from chills and fever.
The American soldier can't see that far and is now really freaking out because all he sees is a shouting angry appearing Arab who is pulling out what looks like a large bundle of something. The soldier wonders "Is it huge bomb? A bazooka? OMG! He's taking it out and he's so close to me! He's going to kill me!!!"
And so in a split second, the soldier gives into fear and decides to shoot his machine gun at the angry looking and shouting Arab. The van is riddled with bullet holes and the Arab falls dead. The soldier puts down his gun and inspects the van and finds that he just accidentally killed an entire family, including a sick little girl that looks just like his own daughter back home.
Back at the village, the relatives of the family that got killed hears the news from a villager who saw the American soldier inspecting the bodies of the family with the gun in his hands and tells the village what he saw. The villager left before he saw the American soldier break down in tears. Can you guess what happens next?
This example was actually not purely theoretical. As a medical student treating American soldiers in a psychiatric ward I saw this story unfold over and over again. The soldiers who experienced this kind of thing come home depressed and suicidal. They can not function in every day society anymore.
It's just awful to see what's happening all around the world. People give into fear and anger more and more at the most critical of times. Why? All because they couldn't understand each other and in some cases never bothered to ask why.
That is why President George W. Bush at times looked like an evil genius, a monkey boy, an idiot, a hero, and a confused little boy who just wanted to save the world. Whether or not he was or was not, it doesn't matter any more. The role he played just became a part of history that will likely predict the future.
Now it's President Obama's turn to try and save the world.
The evolution of stupid is circular not linear and right now on June 24, 2010 we are all acting stupid and have been for a very long time!
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