There are a lot of not-so-bright people in the world.

The NY Times has a story on an umeployed man, Tom Grimes, who first went to his representative (a Democrat) looking for health care coverage after being laid off, but then ended up joining the Tea Party and advocating for smaller government and lower taxes.

Now, I understand that being laid off creates anxiety which feeds into dissatisfaction with everything, but it seems to me that many of the Tea Party folks are terribly confused.

The weaker a government is, the fewer rules to protect people like Tom Grimes from being killed at work, or being abused by health care insurers, or from chemicals leaching into drinking water. In fact, weaker governments create instability, as there is no backstop to runaway economic swings. I doubt Tom Grimes really want to see 100% inflation followed by 100% deflation during economic swings and 50% up and down stock market swings, but without a strong central government, such swings are possible as natural market forces - based not upon rational markets but upon irrational human behavior - push markets every which way the wind blows.

It is in fact, people like Tom Grimes, that should be forced to play Sims games, to understand that simplistic thinking does not satisfy the needs of a modern society. But unfortunately, there are a lot of not-so-bright people in the world, who have simplistic views that are passed off as solid opinions. Not all opinions are created equal, even if in the most basic of biological terms, we are all created equally.