Links for 2010-05-01

"The stupidity of the tea partiers has nothing to do with innate intelligence or with acquired intelligence. It has nothing to do with smartness or brainpower or where anyone falls on the bell curve of Stanford-Binet test scores. It is, rather, a moral stupidity, a moral imbecilism that produces simple imbecilism -- the inevitable intellectual consequence of a selfish refusal to listen to what empathy is shouting from all sides.

The correlation between bigotry and stupidity has been widely observed, leading to much speculation that there is likely also a causal relationship there. I believe there is, but I think many observers get that causal relationship backwards. Stupidity does not lead to bigotry. Bigotry leads to stupidity. Bigotry causes stupidity. Bigotry is a choice -- a series of choices. And each of those choices makes the chooser a little bit more stupid. Cumulatively, they make the chooser a lot more stupid."