DANGEROUSLY DUMB

or How To Recruit An Army Of Idiots

She offered a veggie tray and a box of sardines.

The self-proclaimed ‘Queen of Canada’ had instructed her followers to head to the police station in Peterborough, Ontario and peacefully make a citizen’s arrest of… the entire police force.

A small group of people showed up to do her bidding.

Prior to it all going EXACTLY as you think it would, the ‘Queen’ emerged from her carriage (RV) to provide the faithful with a couple of vegetable trays and a box of canned sardines.

They thanked her. Acted like this was perfectly normal.

To clarify, it’s totally fucking bonkers.

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“If you want to get rich, you start a religion.”

I’ve always loved that quote by science fiction writer turned pseudo-guru/the obvious inspiration for Skipper from Gilligan’s Island, L. Ron Hubbard.

I’ve only read Dianetics (a roller coaster ride mash-up of Jungian and Freudian theories - TL;DR: Tap into the collective unconscious! It’s your mom’s fault! etc.), but I feel that line about starting a religion may be the truest thing to ever leave his brain.

L. Ron, in case you’re unaware, started Scientology. This post isn’t about Scientology. Enough things have been written about it by people who know way way more than me.

This is about what gets people into things like Scientology. That fine line between learning and being told a secret. That notion that THIS is the key to it all. The missing piece that will make it all make sense and maybe even give you an advantage.

I’m not really religious (more agnostic) so I can see how that notion of ‘discovering the truth’ could be applied to any belief system.
Any religious belief, actually.

I understand that. That yearning for meaning or guidance.
Totally valid.

There are times in our lives when that discovery of ‘secrets’ that make things easier or attainable or ‘make sense’ is VERY real. Learning to tie your shoes. Learning math. Learning to read. Learning how to cheat at Wii Bowling.

But there comes a point when most of us realize… this is the world. Things sometimes are just as they seem. No tricks.
Some stuff we haven’t bothered to learn.
Some stuff we have.
Just life.

So, imagine yourself beaten down daily by reality. Underpaid, undervalued, unappreciated, and (as far as you can tell) misunderstood.

All it takes for me to get you on side is to tell you either…

• YOU’RE the victim and THEY’RE the problem or

• I will tell you a secret that will make you happy/happier

I want to exploit people. I really do. There’s a LOT of money in exploiting people (see FOX News… actually don’t bother).

But I can’t. I just can’t bring myself to do it.
Well, maybe just a little bit (unrelated: buy our merch: PeaceLoveCanada.ca).

I get consumed by guilt. The guilt of taking advantage of people’s doubts, worries, and fears.

To be clear, I’m not saying I’m a good person.
I’m saying I’m a failure at being totally awful.

Sadly, there is a whole host of people who are very good at being totally awful. They read the saying “it’s a dog eat dog world”, lifted their leg, peed on empathy, and then scarfed down a chihuahua.

Totally awful people are in every field, though recently have been quite successful in politics.

This is where I feel it gets dangerous.

If you encourage stupidity, you won’t be disappointed.

These totally awful people who are exploiting the more gullible of us seem to be totally unaware of what happens once you’ve recruited an army of idiots… you end up with an army of idiots.

An army of idiots may follow instruction at first but, being what they are, will eventually be largely uncontrollable.

I’m not sure why those totally awful people don’t see that.
Or maybe they do and they think things will be different for them despite hundreds of years of history to the contrary.

It makes me sad when I see the people outside FBI offices with guns defending a man who you can almost guarantee wouldn’t let them use the washroom at Mar-A-Lago.

It makes me sad when I see people with flags on the back of their pickup truck lapping up the notion that their problems will vanish if only a career politician came in and took charge because they ‘don’t play politics’.

It makes me sad when I see people believing someone in an RV telling them a triangle-shaped aircraft was sent by the military to hover over the police station of a town with a population less than 85K (they actually said that).

These people are being suckered.
They’re being used.
They’re going to possibly needlessly suffer in some way.
They’re going to get angry.

What they’ve bought into may be dumb… but it’s dangerously dumb.

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(pictured: Author sits in lovely Allen Gardens in Toronto while contemplating fate as self-aware idiot)