I don’t know that I ever considered Americans smarter than the citizens of other countries (although electing Bill Clinton twice should have given me a clue that they weren’t), but it appears that assumption would have been a mistake.
I’ve seen panics for gasoline in other countries and the people act like idiots, hoarding it and sometimes selling it on the black market. It was funny at the time, because it seemed so stupid that people would buy gallons of gas to sell on street corners for twice the price. There were a few fires and explosions, helping ordinary citizens understand that having your own gas station and/or large quanitities of gasoline in milk jugs was not a great idea. But eventually, the strike/shortage/confusion was fixed and life went back to normal.
Now that people are doing it here, (right here in Tennessee) I’ve had to change my mind.
It appears the only thing that has kept Americans from utter stupidity is America itself.
