2009: Year of the Moron

This according to one of my favorite writers and bloggers, Paul Mulshine of the NJ Star-Ledger:

In the Chinese tradition, 2009 is the Year of the Ox. In the American tradition, 2009 will be the Year of the Moron, I predict.

It's a safe prediction. At some point in the not-too-distant past, stupidity in America reached what the writer Malcolm Gladwell called a "tipping point" in his book of the same name. A tipping point is "that one dramatic moment when everything can change all at once." And the United States has passed the tipping point into stupidity.

[snip]

President Bush had a major role of course, but I put a lot of blame on the internet. The application of democracy to communications accelerated the descent into dumbness.

In those golden days before the net, the average idiot had no way to express himself easily. Putting pen to paper or using a typewriter was too much of an intellectual exercise. But anyone can send an e-mail or comment on a blog. And anyone does, if my experience is any indication. ...

Worse, they consider any criticism of these shortcomings to be hitting below the belt. They see the Internet not as an outlet for civilized expression but as an organizing tool for the unintelligent. They're right, of course, and the effort is bipartisan.

I therefore propose that, like the Chinese, we adopt a system of rotating names for the years. The Year of the Moron will be followed by the Year of the Dolt, and that by the Year of the Cretin and so on -- right until our republic disintegrates under the weight of its own stupidity.