A Week of Stupidity

I strongly suspect that various South Africans are hell bent on proving to the world that we're a nation of complete morons.

First there was Jon Qwelane and his homophobic rantings, the stupidity here not so much being his bigoted opinions, but the belief that he could publish his drivel in a national newspaper and not except a backlash. Then again, what was the editor thinking?

Then Cosatu's Zwelinzima Vavi leading protesters against rising food prices, threatening to have the Minister of Finance by the balls if he didn't zero rate a list of basic food items. The erudite Mr Manuel pointing out that 4 of the 5 items Vavi demanded are already zero rated.

Not to be outdone Cosatu spokesman Patrick Craven says "We don't want to be bogged down in specifics, but are making a general call that anything that forms part of ordinary people's daily diet should be zero rated - that remains our position"
If you're planning to cripple the country through national strikes, getting bogged down in specifics should be pretty high up on the list.

Given that they've been planning the protests for weeks surely someone in Cosatu would have enough brains to do some basic research, or if they're too busy/lazy/stupid to do it assign the task to some eager intern. Step one, compile a list of most common foodstuffs consumed by ordinary people, that should take no more than an hour. Step two, next to each item insert VAT Free, or leave blank if VATable (Info on VAT courtesy of SARS website). Step 3, send the document to the bosses and hopefully they'd then be able to rattle off a list of items where they think VAT should be dropped. Voila! Vavi may even come across as vaguely intelligent.

Kissing cousins Malema (ANCYL) and Manamela (SACPYL) are out in full force proving once again that they haven't got a fucking clue about how anything in the world works, not least a stable judiciary.

In defence of stupidity DarrenRavens writes that being prejudiced against stupidity is no different to any other form of discrimination. Re-reading what he writes a couple of times I cant decide if he's taking the piss or genuinely believes that Stupidism is a form of discrimination. If we agree with his hypothesis, that to be anti stupid people is a form of discrimination and that its simply a function of their circumstances (nature or nurture?) and that being anti-stupid is no different to being say anti-gay, etc etc. Then they key point he misses is that these stupid people unfortunately have an impact on our lives. They can be as stupid as they like, I really don't care, gather in groups, form societies for the promotion of stupidity, build shrines to the Gods of stupidity, whatever floats their boat. But, if anyone wishes to assume a position of power in civil society or government, their peers should keep the stupid ones out. I certainly do not advocate a homogeneous bland consensus across the various leaders, but if you are going to debate or demand something at least do so from from a position of knowledge, even it is based on precepts I personally think are wrong.