Preparing for my interview this week with Rick Shenkman, the author of Just How Stupid Are We?: Facing the Truth about the American Voter, led to the discovery of a kindred mind working on the same problem from a different direction, yet reaching some of the same conclusions.

I thought one quote from his book applies to us all. "When our side loses an election we may want to throw a shoe at the television as we bemoan our fate to be born in a country so stupid as to have elected So and So."

How about this quote? "A great fear expressed by the Founders was that ordinary people would use their power at the ballot box to confiscate the wealth of the wealth of the many and give it to the few. . ." Sound familiar? It should if you’ve been reading here and know how fear of loss is used by both political parties.

Shenkman’s book raises a whole host of issues. Perhaps the most consequential is why we are so unwilling to directly confront our own stupidity and what to do about—especially since we are so willing to talk about so many other things formally taboo for conversation.

I recommend his book. It’s newly out in paperback and available in stores and at Amazon.com

The topic of President Obama’s recent commencement address at Notre Dame illustrates several points I’ve been making here of late.

Let’s start with this. Is there anyone living in America today who wishes there were more abortions? The answer is probably yes, but you would have to search long and hard to find those few individuals. The reality is the vast majority would say no. So why do we have so much difficulty finding common ground with this topic? Here is my explanation.

Salespeople know all about sifting through a lot of "no’s" to get to a yes. Successful salespeople succeed because they can tolerate rejection. Rejection is the reason many people would not consider a career in sales.

For years now, abortion opponents have tried to persuade us abortion should be illegal and have been rejected. Americans have said, in essence, we don’t like abortions, we want there to be fewer abortions, but we do not think the process should be illegal. Frustrated by that rejection, opponents of abortion have reached the following conclusion: If we can’t persuade Americans to make abortion illegal, then we will take over the political process and force abortion to be illegal.

This small and narrow minded attitude is a threat to the sovereignty of our nation and our way of life.

Attorneys will tell you the landmark case on abortion (Roe v. Wade) was decided . . .

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