Obviously, there is no such thing as a collective American intelligence, and obviously the 300 million-plus individuals in America have widely varying IQs, but you would be amazed to learn just how dumb some Americans are. Not residents of a home for special-needs individuals but “ordinary” people who have jobs and families and voter registration cards.

Take the voters in Georgia’s 10th Congressional District. They used to be represented by a Congressman named Paul Broun, who famously declared that:

Evolution and embryology and the big bang theory are lies from the pit of Hell.

So what did they do after Congressman Broun quit to run for the Senate? They elected Jody Hice (above), who came up with this one:

A woman should enter politics only “within the authority of her husband.”

Hice, who is a preacher and radio talk show host, also opines that Muslim-Americans are not protected by the First Amendment because Islam is not a true religion. As you might expect, he is ardently pro-gun and adamantly anti-gay.

You might expect this kind of talk from a politician in some rural Georgia region, but Hice’s district is just east of Atlanta, which I used to consider a sophisticated, modern city. And the Democrat he defeated is an attorney from the college town of Athens. This election was no backwoods brawl.

Hice is not alone among the new Republicans emerging from the midterm sweep. The people who will now have America’s future in their hands include a large cast of bizarre characters.

Iowa’s new senator, Joni Ernst, for example, who ran TV ads showing her castrating hogs. She is a believer in the New World Order’s black helicopters and underground detention camps. (yes, that conspiracy theory still lives.)

And that new congressman from North Carolina, Mark Walker, who recommended “we go laser or blitz” Mexico to keep those illegal aliens from crossing the American border.

The list goes on and on.

So what’s happening?

This is 2014 after all, and this is America, the world’s leading democracy, top economy and number one superpower. How do people like these take over the government of such a country in this day and age?

I think it’s because a lot of Americans are not just uninformed but misinformed. This country has a truly pitiful education system. (The high school student bagging my groceries at Publix last night told me he wants to go to that country next to Switzerland – England.)

The powers that be deliberately hide the truth and spread lies (as those Wikileaks emails demonstrated). And powerful special interests invest huge amounts of money in propaganda professionally designed to brainwash the public.

It’s a combination that breeds crazy conspiracy theories as a confused populace plan for the Apocalypse, join militias, share nutty suspicions with nutty talk show hosts, send money to religious quacks, rip pages out of school text books, warn each other about the dictator in the White House who is coming for their guns,  and bar their doors against gays, abortionists, Muslims and illegal aliens from non-white countries.

Not all Americans are that crazy, of course. Not even the majority. But enough to elect a Congress that grows ever more dangerously dumb.

Click for more on dumb politicians.

Click for Ernst and the black helicopters.