{"id":97,"date":"2009-09-04T14:26:00","date_gmt":"2009-09-04T18:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbmt.MyCustomData.com\/blog\/?p=97"},"modified":"2011-04-14T02:34:37","modified_gmt":"2011-04-14T06:34:37","slug":"dear-you-yes-you-stop-being-an-ignorant-fool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbmt.MyCustomData.com\/blog\/index.php\/dear-you-yes-you-stop-being-an-ignorant-fool\/","title":{"rendered":"Dear You, Yes, You! Stop Being an Ignorant Fool"},"content":{"rendered":"

ig\u00b7no\u00b7rant <\/strong>(\u02c8ig-n(\u0259-)r\u0259nt): adjective
\n1 a : destitute of knowledge or education ; also : lacking knowledge or comprehension of the thing specified b : resulting from or showing lack of knowledge or intelligence
\n2 : unaware, uninformed
\nfool<\/strong> (\u02c8f\u00fcl): noun
\n1 : a person lacking in judgment or prudence<\/p>\n

Stop believing everything you hear…<\/p>\n

from your parents, or any relative for that matter
\nfrom your best friend
\nfrom your enemy
\nfrom your teacher
\nfrom the gossip columns
\nfrom the your favorite news anchor
\nfrom past, present, or future presidents, royalty or leaders of any sort
\nfrom the radio
\nfrom your pastor (yep, he’s a man, too, believe it or not)
\nfrom anyone<\/div>\n
they may be mistaken
\nthey may be lying to ‘make you feel better’
\nthey may be intentionally misleading
\nthey may be trying to sound smart
\nthey may be spiteful
\nchances are none of these will keep them from talking.<\/div>\n

Stop believing everything you read….<\/p>\n

in your newspaper
\non Wikipedia, or any other website, including this one
\non the bathroom stall
\nin a book, no matter how much money went into printing it, no matter the title or popularity of the author
\nin your church bulletin
\non a school handout
\nin any magazine
\nin emails, forwarded or not
\non bulletin boards or advertisements of any sort
\ndon’t be lazy, check your facts<\/div>\n

Stop believing everything you see on TV.<\/p>\n

Hollywood has an agenda
\nWriters usually have an agenda
\nDirectors usually have an agenda
\nActors often have an agenda
\nPoliticians have an agenda
\nAdvertisers have an agenda
\nReality TV is not real
\nThe news does not tell you everything, every side, or every story, and may even mislead you on purpose.
\nThe crap you consume affects you, even when you don’t notice.<\/div>\n

Check your history books<\/p>\n

Conspiracies exist outside of fictional stories.
\nJudgement<\/em> is not a dirty word.
\nPropaganda is used every day, and is successful when you don’t recognize it.
\nTerrorists and terrorist acts are not unique to the last few decades.
\nRome fell for a reason (or a lot of them).
\nWhen government and religion mix, the result is often ugly.
\nThere are at least two sides to every story, but history often records only one.
\nChances are pretty good the world will never revolve around you.
\nThe writers of the Constitution didn’t add the Bill of Rights on a whim.
\nIntolerance is not a dirty word, everyone has a limit to what they can or will tolerate.<\/div>\n

Research is not just something to do when it’s required<\/p>\n

research “facts” before you share them.
\nresearch stories before you believe them
\nresearch alarms before you sound them
\nresearch sermons before you preach them
\nresearch lessons before you teach them
\nresearch gossip before you believe it (and please stop spreading it)
\nresearch a theory before you accept it
\nresearch an interpretation before you internalize it
\nresearch a belief before you accept or share it<\/div>\n

Please stop being an ignorant fool. The smarter you are, the more degrees you have, the more times people call you a “professional”, “expert”, “great”\u00a0or “esteemed” the more likely you are to get cocky and lazy. No matter how many letters are behind your name, how high your IQ, how many arguments you win, or how many people like you, if you’ve chosen to spread nonsense without checking your facts you look like an idiot.\u00a0 It’s not attractive.\u00a0 There’s no excuse for it.\u00a0 Please stop, and I’ll try to stop too.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ig\u00b7no\u00b7rant (\u02c8ig-n(\u0259-)r\u0259nt): adjective 1 a : destitute of knowledge or education ; also : lacking knowledge or comprehension of the thing specified b : resulting from or showing lack of knowledge or intelligence 2 : unaware, uninformed fool (\u02c8f\u00fcl): noun … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[249,248],"tags":[174,172,279],"class_list":["post-97","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-deep","category-tips-2","tag-advice","tag-fool","tag-ignorant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbmt.MyCustomData.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbmt.MyCustomData.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbmt.MyCustomData.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbmt.MyCustomData.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbmt.MyCustomData.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/tmbmt.MyCustomData.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":300,"href":"https:\/\/tmbmt.MyCustomData.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97\/revisions\/300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbmt.MyCustomData.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbmt.MyCustomData.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbmt.MyCustomData.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}