The Rube Dispensation

Let me follow up on The Boy's rant below on stupid people pulling the whole country down into their beloved hells (he doesn't tell you there are actually three such stupidities at the C&L link). It starts with how it only took Sorkin three episodes to piss me off with one of his condescending yet ignorant ravings. No, this is not about Sarah Paulson, who has been written off better by Lance Mannion than I ever could. (I'll just agree that her character is so bad at being what she's cast as being that the other characters have to, over and over and over, tell you she really is what she's cast as being. This is never good.)

No, this is about her "angelic" character's getting the show to lay off that dumbass MO town that banned "The Crucible," the one play every American citizen should have burnt into their brains. Somehow, we shouldn't react negatively to ignorant people doing ignorant things that drag the entire nation down into their ignorance. Why not? Because they're poor and don't know any better. Call it "The Rube Dispensation."

I call BS. Our standards, our class, our honor, our intelligence as a nation are being covered with crap that we may never get out from under, and none of the shovelers gets a dispensation for being poor and stupid. Poor and stupid people are just as corrosive and destructive to a democracy as rich and malevolent. That's why we built public education and tried to have a middle class before the Busheviks. Feel bad about their poverty if you want and try to get things done that will relieve it, even as their own votes cancel out yours, but do not let them off the hook. You can feel sorry for someone who can't swim (like me), but by God I will not hold it against you if you don't let me take you down with me. And people who think they're "kind" and "understanding" and "not being superior" when they do are just condescending and ignorant (or did I already say that?)

Elitist? Eat me. I grew up poorer than anyone reading this. Wardrobe from Goodwill, the Dollar Store, and a weird cousin (male, mostly, fortunately)? Been there. Think beans are a main course? Done that. Can't afford to take a pet to the vet so it dies? Story of my life. Lived in a trailer park? Need I go on? I'm so white trash my family makes Wisteria Lane look like a Mormon reunion (I'll rethink that one later). Put the future of this nation in the hands of anyone in my family? Well, that's what "The Rube Dispensation" is all about. So save your ignorant name-calling for your next conversation with Sorkin.

The greatest sickness eating this democracy, our American Legacy, out from its core is proud and determined ignorance boldly unafraid to act on its stupidity, convinced their idiocy is truth. It doesn't matter whose it is or where it comes from. It has to be stopped, Mister Rogers be damned. And if it's ignorant people banning books, plays, statues, speeches, whatever, they have to be called out for it and put down . . . completely and forever. Sorkin's still living in his Manhattan/Hollywood world where Repubs (leaders and the worse people who put them there) are "honorable" people who play well with others. That ship sailed before "West Wing" even came on, Aaron.

I like Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford, though.