"Look!" he said, gesturing out the window at the falling snow. "See the global warmin'..."

"Educate yourself and read a book!", I interrupted. "You are not entitled to an opinion. You are only entitled to an informed opinion."*

"My opinion is informed."

"No, it isn't. Not on global warming" I said as I turned and walked away.

This short back and forth is fairly indicative of a major failing in these United States. We are a nation that is proud of our ignorance. We show off how dumb we can be, and get angered when anyone tries to educate us with anything that is outside of our pre-determined knowledge. This is a sad, sad state we find ourselves in.

Now don't get me wrong, I fully support your right to remain ignorant. However, I do not support you spreading your ignorance. If you want to remain stupid, go for it. Just keep it to yourself. Which is why I find it irresponsible for you out there who choose to intentionally mislead others with your idiocy. I'm sure that some of you are merely confused. You need to think things through before you start spouting off your ignorance. Some of you are intentionally spreading ignorance, which is telling a lie. Those who fall in this category need to shut the hell up.

Learn, for Christ's sake. Look it up. Let's take Global Warming for instance. If anybody out there actually looked it up and spent about a half-hour on the interweb doing actual research, you would have a valid opinion. When I say "actual research", I am referring to actually doing some research, not looking up a couple of articles on any news site. Maybe look up the Scientific Method beforehand to introduce you to how to effectively study something would help as well.

But those scientists fudged the data. It all needs to be thrown out and done over. That is an actual argument I have heard. That is stupid. A couple of guys doing some shady things do not invalidate THOUSANDS of scientists working for THOUSANDS of hours. It's something like 98% of scientists agree that climate change is occurring and 2% don't. Who is right? Neither. Who is wrong? Neither. That is the thing about science. It's all in the interpretations. The numbers they use to back up their ideas is generally fine. It's how they interpret the data. You can look outside and say that it is snowing. You cannot interpret that as proof that global warming is false. If you actually knew what global warming entailed, the snow supports it.

All I am saying is that you need to form your opinions before you spread them. It is your right to be stupid, but if you cannot defend your argument by something more than "Nuh Uh!", you are an idiot and should stop. Also, the idiots you see on the telly are just people trying to sell you what you already want. Never trust 'em. Not for a minute. Verify verify verify. Just 'cause they say it, don't mean it's so.

* Paraphrase of a quote of Harlan Ellison