Almost everyone is stupid by default

Including me.  How dumb must I be to freely share my pearly political punditry with the raging masses of shallow voters who will never really understand or care enough to read what I have written more deeply than a quick scan for emotive catch phrases on which to tack a pathetically pithy comment?

Here is how it is.  Some political issues are complex, and some are simple.  Some issues matter a lot, and some matter less.  I'm here to tell you about the simple issues that matter a lot.  Everyone who disagrees with me on at least one of the following points is stupid:

1. Climate change is happening, and it's worth worrying about.  Any Republican who denies this deserves to be called a Tea Partier for being so obstinate.  The single most important national policy to slow global warming is to raise the gas tax.  Doing so would make us a little bit more like our liberal friends in Europe.
2. The U.S. government has a lot of debt, and the debt is growing fast.  Failing to stop this trend will bring great regret, in the year 2026 by one economist's guess.
3. Invading Iraq was a mistake.  But that's not even the point.  Here is the point:  If a lonely group of rogue liberal members of Congress had found a way to prevent the Iraq war by any means possible, including shutting down the George Bush administration by voting no to everything he wanted, we would owe these lonely congressional heros some debt of gratitude for saving the U.S. from a useless multi-trillion dollar war bill.
4. A lonely group of rogue Tea Partiers, much like the hypothetical group in (3), claims to be doing whatever it can to resolve (2), and they deserve respect for that, despite their great shortcomings (1).  This desperate situation gives Obama an opportunity to negotiate drastic future spending cuts to save the homeland from disintegrating like the Roman empire.  Go Obama!

Update on the meaning of a default (10/14/2013):  This article does an exceptionally good job of describing the mechanics of a default.  Some key points:  Default would be bad, but no one knows how bad.  At best, various payments would simply be delayed until Congress removes the debt ceiling.  At worst, these delays would trigger some greater economic collapse.  

In the past, I have speculated about how a doomsday default scenario might play out.  The present situation differs from my doomsday scenario in one big way.  Politicians aside, the U.S. is presently fully capable of keeping up with its interest payments, and will remain capable even if the interest rates shot back up to pre-financial crisis levels, about 5%.  That's because the debt maintenance, say 5% of 15 trillion, is far less than federal tax revenues.  By contrast, in a doomsday scenario, we'd be looking at 10% of 30 trillion, which could eat up ALL government revenue, leaving nothing for social security, defense, or national parks, etc.  When that time comes, it will be impossible (even if politicians cooperate) to pay the debt, and that's when the government and economy shut down for reals, folks.

In comparison to the horror of my apocalyptic medium-distant future default scenario, I am optimistic (but not certain!) that the present default, if it occurs, will be quite mild.  I am also optimistic that the default pains will be growing pains that prompt the electorate to become more conscious of fiscal sustainability, so that federal deficit spending can be corrected before it is truly too late.  Ideally, our dear leaders can agree to correct the spending problem right away to avoid all defaults, present and future.