Don’t Tell Us What to Do

 

What do American Idol, CSPI and the GOP have in common?

We Americans hate to be told what to do. Oh, we love GIVING advice, but don’t dole out advice to us. We won’t follow it, just to prove a point.

 The latest examples all seemed to come at once.

 For years, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has been warning Americans about the hidden – and not-so-hidden — fat in some of our most popular foods. Movie popcorn, fast food, and, most recently, menu items at the Cheesecake Factory all have come under fire for containing enough fat to plump up an army. We listen, but we swat away CSPI’s constant whining like a mosquito at a fat-laden picnic.

 For the second year in a row, the less-talented contestant won American Idol. Why? Is America tone-deaf? No, we just like voting for the underdog, and we hate it when the judges crown an heir-apparent early on in the process. Crystal Bowersox blew the competition away from the time she sang her first note, but there was no way the judges were going to pick the winner for us, no way we were going to listen to their opinions, even if it meant that the bland, if likeable, Lee DeWyze was crowned – a development that seemed to stun him as much as it stunned the judges.

And, finally, the GOP put up a site  asking the American people – and by that, they meant American people who looked and thought the way they did – to set an agenda for the country. An ambitious goal. And one that might have worked if they really wanted advice. Oh, sure, the crazies came out first. There were the advocates for corporal punishment. The haters. And my favorite, the one who was exercised that her child’s teacher dared to call whales and dolphins mammals (“A ‘teacher’ told my child in class that dolphins were mammals and not fish! And the same thing about whales! We need TRADITIONAL VALUES in all areas of education. If it swims in the water, it is a FISH. Period! End of Story” — presumably that leaves Michael Phelps stranded as some sort of unnatural hybrid).

But eventually, some valuable nuggets may have come through.

Unfortunately, that would have meant dealing with the advice that poured in, the bad as well as the good. I have to think the GOP didn’t really want advice, they wanted affirmation of their already-formed opinions.

The site was removed on the same day it launched. 

Because, really? We don’t want to be told what to do. We just want someone to agree with what we already planned to do. Because, if you tell us? We’ll just do the opposite. Oh, wait. Maybe it wasn’t crazies writing on the GOP site!

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