Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for November 25, 2024

Bingo

I remember once seeing coffee mugs, T-shirts, etc, that read, “If idiots could fly, this place would be an airport.”

They also had the phrase with an A-word instead of “idiots.”

Before social media and cable news, people had opinions, but you didn’t hear them.

Problem is not that peoples has opinions. Problem is peoples trying to forcing one’s own opinions on another as if it is facts.

Dunning Kruger syndrome.

I believe this. Too many times people with no brains get elected because people who have no brains vote for the same kind of people. This is a problem on the left and the right, although moderates also have this problem.

Thank you, Rat.

During the Nixon administration someone said (forget who), “Opinions are like a*sholes – everybody’s got one”. “And they are probably on Yelp!” – my opinion. :)

A lot of Liberals come off as rude and racist when they express their opinions, a liberal replied to me in a racist way after I talked about homophobia among foreign residents in the USA.

Why are Americans on Reddit different from Americans on Youtube and Twitter?

Most Americans on Reddit are pro-illegal immigration, pro-feminist and pro-Islam.

however many Americans on Youtube and Twitter are anti-illegal immigration, anti-feminist and anti-Islam

My latest hypothesis is that all people are absolutely stupid. The problem is that some of them think they are relatively less stupid. Especially bad when they think so because they have extra money from winning some business lottery (or scam).

Can’t I have both opinions and a brain? There are facts which you cannot have an opinion about but you can simply know or deny them, while you can have e.g. an opinion how to deal with those facts appropriately.

Opinions are like butt holes. Everyone has one, and they all stink.

Back in the Cronkite Era the Big Three networks’ news shows were losing money, but they were a showcase for how good the networks were. The 1968 Bill Buckley/Gore Vidal debates came about because thrid place ABC couldn’t afford the coverage that the other guys were giving the political conventions.

Also, at that time every town had an independent newspaper and no one entity could own more than one TV station and two radio stations in a city.

Ronald Reagan made the Fairness Doctrine one of his first targets.

“Yeah? Well, you know, that’s just like your opinion, man.”

People have always had opinions, and most of them were always stupid. The internet makes it easier for the dumb ones to drown out the smart ones.

Too bad we can’t graph the rise in social media along side the scale change in the cartoon.