I'm confronted with a conundrum.Is a person who is too lazy to think about solutions to serious problems affecting his or her life—in other words, too lazy to use the brain—and who consequently does stupid things, merely an intelligent person who does stupid things, or truly a stupid person? I ask the question for three reasons.

First: because wealthy, "privileged" classes of all past cultures and all eras have openly claimed the ignorant masses of "commoners" to be stupid; a belief seemingly accepted by members of the American republic's contemporary privileged classes.

Second: because the American population, ignorant or educated —whatever the current definition of "educated" is in the contemporary U.S.A.— is fast approaching the 300 million mark—about 131 million in the past 50 years). Americans, unthinkingly, are breeding like rabbits, and robustly do their share to contribute to the overpopulation of planet Earth. This despite the truth that there are no longer enough good, or fair-paying, jobs remaining in the U.S. to satisfy all the growing future generations of working-class Americans.

It means Americans are creating for their children a highly, competitive, volitile, future labor-market in which there will be insufficient jobs and in which only the lowest-wage work will be available. So, are these American parents merely intelligent people doing a stupid thing, or are they truly stupid people?

"Third:" I ask the question because working Americans have long been accustomed to the corrupt nature of their political system and its bias toward the privileged class, yet rarely have they attempted to change this system, at least not since the early years of the last century.

This situation is compounded, today, because the American System has allowed a group of right wing, fascists to grab control of the federal government and dismantle its system of checks and balances. This group is totally—and openly— committed to wealthy owners of corporations and the needs of business, as opposed to the needs of the citizenry and the republic.

The grooup has placed the nation into an illogical war causing unnecessary death and mutilation of thousands of American boys and girls, and it has looted the federal treasury and bankrupted the federal government. Yet nowhere is there a cry to change the nation's political or economic systems and remove the power of decision-making from corrupt politicians or greedy businessmen.

So, are these 300-million Americans who do nothing about changing the American System to one more favorable to working families intelligent Americans who merely allow corrupt, stupid things to happen, or are these truly stupid people?