Intolerance

The esteemed prize-winning Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa just yesterday posed this question to all democratic institutions of the world:

"What could compel a man who is not stupid to say stupid things?"

His immediate answer:

"Intolerance and lack of culture".

One need not go to a far away land with a nascent democracy to find intolerance. We are entreated to a continual stream of intolerance by the mostly seemingly non-stupid people in power right here on Marco Island.

The intolerance is manifest with backroom secret deals a la putting a power grid on a tract of land deeded as "School Site", since publicly discussing the arrangement would not be tolerated by the syndicate. Hence, to cover up their intolerance to the voices of the people who they disagree with, the intolerant spew utterly stupid comments like "… driving children to Tract K to watch solar panels is educational".

Most of those suffering through years of intolerance by the ruling syndicate have for all practical purposes given up or ignore what Sr. Llosa calls "stupid things". Others still take it seriously.

Why would anyone accept intolerance is a mystery, other than perhaps to be entertained since many of the stupid things uttered by the syndicate and their pawns on the council are just hysterically funny at times?

But more intolerance is coming. Just this week a "discussion" is to ensue regarding Tract K. But with limited or no public comment, namely INTOLERANCE, because God forbid anyone who is on the protected species list (no, not the burrowing owl that conveniently disappeared from the middle of the asbestos dump) may become offended, or the discussion on the subject become further inflamed because of the … truth.

An aside:

Question: why can the burrowing owl in the middle of the asbestos dump be moved so as to cover up asbestos dumping and later build an empty park, but the eagle in the middle of Tract K cannot be moved to build a school?

Answer: the syndicate doesn't make money off the school.

Compromise: Give the syndicate a 99 year lease on the vending machines in the new school

Actually, the intolerant tact is one of self preservation. If open discussion on the future of Tract K is allowed, enraged syndicate operatives (especially those in the council) fueled by their testosterone may spew more "stupid things" akin to further prostituting their children because they play tiddlywinks at a certain high school or because some child "survived" at a certain high school, or because a huge high school offering every sport ever conceived (including Gang Olympics and Drug Trafficking Shot and Put) is the new American Way, or because the truth would hurt those that attended, may have attended, may attend, could attend, should have attended or imagined to attend a certain high school.

Does one see the logic now? Intolerance forces presumably "a man who is not stupid" (that may have graduated from a certain high school) to emit exasperatingly asinine and inconsequential comments. Hence, to avoid these gaffes, they disallow any opposing comments. (Boy, did they learn their lesson with the "There be [sic] fecal in the waterways" and "Swamps have Hydrogen Sulfide" blunders.)

Isn't democracy and intolerance mutually exclusive? Imagine if the founding fathers of this great waning experiment were so intolerant.