Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Stupid Is as Stupid Votes

I missed a story about the Crimea vote charade from The Onion a couple months ago. It bears repeating since it also applies to the votes in eastern Ukraine that purport to show (contrary to opinion polls) that residents want to leave Ukraine and join Russia.

The humor hurts because it is true:

“Yesterday was a historic day for Crimea. Our people had a say in their future, and our voices were heard loud and clear, which is extremely special given that it won’t happen again for who knows how long.”

On that same day, I remarked:

And let's wrap our heads around the idiocy of Crimeans begging to go into Putin's Russia. Did nobody point out that when the opportunity presented itself between 1989 and 1992 that everybody who could manage it escaped from the then-Soviet Union's loving grip?

While some Crimeans and Ukrainians in the east are surely so dumb that they want to live in Putin's autocratic state, why can't they just move to Russia rather than drag down their more intelligent brethren with them?

Some people really are just too stupid to be free. I'm reasonably sure that Ukraine's loss of Crimea to Putin-adoring Russia resulted in the average IQ of both countries going up.