I have encountered a good deal of complaints from rightist critics who take offense to my characterization of right-wingers, Tea Baggers, etc., as ignorant. But it’s hard to sympathize with their protestations when Fox Nation does stuff like this:

This image appeared as a featured story on the front page of the web site. It linked to a posting by Rob Port on the SayAnythingBlog. Obviously he will “say anything” without regard to its truthfulness. In this post he regales readers with tales of his recent tour of the White House. While there he snapped a photo of some books on the shelf in the library. Among the titles he observed were “The American Socialist Movement” and “The Socialist Party of America.” Then Port scampered back to his blog to smear First Lady Michelle Obama and effusively gush, “lookie, lookie what I found.” The Fox Nationalists exclaimed…

“It figures. Michelle Obama stocked the White House Library with books on socialism.”

With no apologies to rightists who may object…That’s really stupid! Steven E. Levingston, literary columnist at the Washington Post, quickly refuted the asinine allegation. As it turns out, those books have been there since 1963.

But the stupidity transcends the easily debunked nonsense that Port unleashed on the First Lady. What if she had personally selected those books? What’s the problem with stocking a library with books that encompass a broad range of the ideological spectrum and of American history? It is utterly absurd to condemn someone because they have books that represent unpopular ideas. In fact, in order to fully understand those you oppose, it would be folly not to own and read the writings of your opponents.

Port made a rather lame argument that the presence of these books represented a pattern in the administration’s philosophy. He asserted that in context these books prove something. He cited the Mao Christmas ornament and comments by former White House Communications Director Anita Dunn, all of which were taken out of context. The only pattern I see is how pathetically averse to education the right is. I see how consistently the right seeks to promote a fear of books and knowledge. I see them belittle academics as a path to elitism. We used to admire people with advanced degrees and academic achievements. But today’s conservatives argue that the more you know, the farther removed you are from the common folk. So whatever you do, if you want to serve the public, do not work hard to obtain a degree from a prestigious institution because it will just prove how out of touch you are.

If we are going to castigate people based on the books on their shelves, then let’s start with Glenn Beck. He owns and promotes titles like “The Coming Insurrection,” a communist tract that advocates revolution. He waves it around on his TV show and implores his viewers to buy it and read it. As a result of his promotion the book is currently the #1 Public Policy book on Amazon.com and #14 overall. Beck’s library also includes Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” – another book he has featured on his TV program. He has even cited Hitler as his favorite political philosopher:

The rush to demonize the First Lady for collecting a diverse cross-section of books (even though she didn’t) is emblematic of the stupidity on the right that I have pointed out in the past. It is stupid to disparage the quest for knowledge. It is stupid to seal yourself off from views with which you disagree. It is the very definition of stupid to purposefully abstain from learning and to chastise those who aspire to learn.

If you don’t like being called stupid – don’t be stupid.