I got behind a pickup truck this morning that had a bumper sticker that read:
MY BIRD DOG HAS MORE SENSE THAN YOUR HONOR STUDENT
I didn't see the driver, actually I didn't want to. If I had, I would have urged my dog to growl and bark at him ---- it had to be a him. Of course, Buddy growls and barks at any man he sees while we're in the car. Very protective of his mama.
I like to think of myself as an open-minded, take people as they are, kind of gal. Easy does it, you know? No sense getting my knickers in a knot over things that don't matter. But something about that truck and its bumper sticker and its probable owner, just stuck in my craw and I can't let it go.
What the hell? We don't need honor students? Our country is in such fine shape that all we need are guys with hunting rifles and dogs? That's what it sounds like. It's such a stupid statement that it makes me go all wiggy and want to slap somebody.
I know that we have a deep, abiding undercurrent of anti-intellectualism in this country. One has only to look at the movies, the television heroes, and the tea party, to see its current incarnation. But it has also been around for a long, long time, this notion that all you need is grit, rugged individualism, and the willingness to destroy all obstacles in order to be successful. That was probably a pretty good mindset at one time. People without fortitude didn't last long on the frontier. But it wasn't an unmitigated good, and it did not preclude thinking, organizing, planning and inventing. And in case you haven't noticed, it's not 1867 anymore.
The search and destroy method of civilization not only allowed our "pioneer forefathers" to fulfill the country's Manifest Destiny, it also led to the destruction of untold numbers of human beings and their societies, plus ecosystems that will never be recovered, and natural resources that have been wantonly used up or left for dead.
After I pulled around this truck and on to my own destination, the daycare where my mother goes every day for stimulation and tender care in her demented state, I thought about how different that bumper sticker would sound if it said "My bird dog has more sense than my honor student."
Now that could be funny. It probably would have made me smile. Oh, teenagers. They can be troublesome, even the really bright ones. And who wouldn't think that the dog sometimes has more sense than a kid? If you want to say that about your own kid and your own dog, it is amusing ---- as long as it's a joke and not something you really believe. But to say that my dog ---- clever as he may be ----- is smarter than somebody else's honor student is not funny. It's just not. The owner of the truck might think it is a chuckle, but it's mean-spirited and it labels him as an intolerant yahoo who has a chip on his shoulder. At least that's what it said to me.
I know. Intolerant yahoos gotta live too. I just sometimes wish that the really smart, educated kids got as much acknowledgement and acceptance as the just-us-folks "Real Americans" with the gun racks and conviction that their God-given right to be wrong is more important than thinking things through and being reasonable.
Ouch. I must be channeling my 8th grade self today. Being a smart kid always makes you feel like you've got a target on your back.
Exactly. It kills me that the rural areas of this state celebrate macho ignorance. Somebody told me once that I spit out redneck as an insult like others use the N-word. I told her there is one difference. You are born with your skin, whatever color it may be, just like you are born with your sexual orientation. But being ignorant is a choice.
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