I’ll leave it to you to take that title as being verb-object or adjective-noun.

Next, I’ll make what I believe to be a safe assumption that no one reading this is a moron. I’ve chosen to use the group “morons” to illustrate my point because they never seem to be offended by anything anyone says or does. You never hear of the ACLU representing morons in some discrimination suit. But hey, we live in strange times, it could happen.

So as you read this, when you encounter the word moron, feel free to substitute whatever group, based on nationality, religion, race, gender, sexual disorientation, etc., comes to mind for that particular scenario. I’m not calling those people morons, just avoiding naming them, so I don’t offend anyone (in this essay, anyway). I’m really not expecting any responses that say something like “hey, I resent that; my grandfather was a moron!”

Think of it as kind of my own twist (or satire) on political correctness (which is by & for morons).

We all profile, whether we admit it or not, and unlike most writers who assert that reality, I’m not going to send you on a guilt trip about it. (It might get hijacked by a moron. Only morons hijack planes.)

In fact, while I have mixed emotions about profiling, I have to lean a little toward profiling based on behaviors which seem unique to morons. For instance, almost all suicide bombers have been morons, but not all morons are suicide bombers. So if you sent all morons back to where they came from, odds are the suicide bombings would stop. Sure, you’d make a lot of morons mad, but maybe they should be mad at the ones that give them a bad name. Could a little peer pressure work there on a massive scale?

It’s just human nature to draw conclusions about groups of people so that we can classify them along with the observations (not judgments) we make about them. It can actually be dangerous not to do it. That doesn’t make you a bad person. We do it based on all sorts of things. Someone will always be offended when you (who are not a moron) say something like “he’s a very articulate moron”, or “most crimes committed in those communities are by morons against morons.” “You should have known they were going to do that – that’s what morons do.”

Then there’s the common lament “if we didn’t have so many morons coming into this country illegally, our economy wouldn’t be in such bad shape.” (Not altogether true; look at the morons who are ruining, I mean running the economy.)

The usual objection to profiling goes something like this…. “well, if you profile morons, pretty soon, you could be next!” True statement, and a concise summary of the Martin Niemoller quote, which I’m going to take the moron-like action of hijacking, “first they came for the morons, but since I wasn’t a moron, I didn’t speak up…”

You may have even lamented “they say morons are regular people just like you & me, but with what they do in the privacy of their homes, I don’t want them teaching my children; my children could become morons!”

“Those morons are always trying to push their beliefs on everybody else, like they have all the answers.”

It’s always gratifying to be able to say “she’s not like most other morons I’ve ever met. She’s more (fill in the blank) than most morons.” Or “he’s not as (your adjective here) as other morons I’ve known.”

Congress is always quick to want to make morons a protected minority, if the outcry from the moron community is loud & sustained. What legislator concerned about getting re-elected would oppose the Moron Anti-Discrimination Act? After all, morons comprise a powerful lobby.

The problem with this is multi-faceted, but I’ll just quickly address two.

First, laws apply to all people, morons or not. Morons should not be treated any differently than anyone else, until they break laws. When more morons than non-morons break certain laws, they should suffer the same consequences borne by non-morons, rather than seek to be protected from them. The non-morons are always made to feel guilty that they’re discriminating against morons. But if the morons would quit acting in the way they don’t want to be perceived, their perception among non-morons would change, along with the stereotype they may have deserved. When morons know they can do certain things and not be held accountable by people who are afraid that they’ll be profiling, they continue to do those things. It’s a subtle form of social manipulation. Maybe those who aren’t typical morons who have the courage & integrity could rise up as leaders of all morons and get them to abandon the behaviors that earned them the stereotype.

Second, if the framers of the Constitution were alive today, they’d be heartbroken at (kidding aside) what morons we have become, because we think that rights belong to groups, rather than individuals. They’d say that the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights belong to all people, morons or not. They never intended for morons to be treated differently than everyone else. They’d be especially horrified about the so-called “hate crimes legislation”, where if the victim of a crime is a moron, then the punishment for the perpetrator is increased. The result is that no one dares do anything to, near, or for a moron, for fear of being charged with a “hate crime”.

I don’t have the answers. When you think we should profile morons, you really have to think very carefully about where its abuses will lead, because no matter how good the intentions, someone, somehow, eventually will pervert it.

We can only expect more on that later…

Note: moron n. [Gr. moron, neut. of moros sluggish, dull, stupid...] 1. A moderately feeble-minded person. Most morons can do routine work under supervision, and can be happy with tasks too simple and monotonous to satisfy an intelligent person. (Source: Webster’s New International Dictionary, Second Edition Unabridged, Copyright 1948, p. 1595)

By Fred Marshell III

frankneudecker.com

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