That is my ace in the hole. I am getting to the age where some family members might advocate putting me in a nursing home. I have a plan. I will simply write insulting graffitti all over the bathroom walls in my room, and the staff, who cannot read cursive, will think it's Arabic. They will then transfer me to Guantanamo Bay, where a US veteran can get better treatment than in the US.
Serously, sometime back I spoke with a young lady who was a rising sophomore at a local university. She had no idea who we fought in the Revolutionary War, when it occurred, did not know the name of the Vice-President, could not name either of our Senators or our Congressman. After her insistence that she had a "good education," I gave her a simple sentence and ask her what the direct object was.
Clueless.
I asked her to tell me which part was the subject and which part the predicate
Clueless.
I handed her a pen and paper and asked her to convert .75 to a fraction.
Deer in the headlights.
It doesn't take rocket science to descry what is wrong with the US when you consider that we let people like this vote.
I once read that the average high school senior today graduates with what would have been considered a mediocre 7th grade education in the early seventies when I graduated. I think that may be too generous.
Dios nos ayude.

In large part from Quora's Andrew Weill, with generous modifications by me.

Conservatives and liberals often believe that the other are stupid people with bad ideas or are bad people with stupid ideas.

I have thought many times about this. I have worked with lots of both...many are close friends. Neither, as a given, are bad people with stupid ideas or stupid people with bad ideas. Many, if not most of them, are rather good people with whom I share large areas of agreement and with whom I have some differences of opinion at times. There are some issues where my initial views were modified (sometimes substantially) by persuasive arguments from another.

Interestingly, one example is my attitude toward same-sex marriage. I had been in the camp that civil unions were sufficient to address the issue. An acquaintance took me to task and convinced me that my view was no different from “separate but equal” racial discrimination.

Here’s a basic notion, and I want readers to try it on: There are people who hold different views that are just as worthy of consideration as mine/yours.

Try saying this aloud a few times. If you feel resistance, that’s fine, but listen to the nature of your resistance and try to pinpoint it.

Certainly, there are some extreme views that I find repugnant. But most liberals and conservatives I know share my repugnance. Yet, they may see the issue differently, and it behooves us all to give all a fair hearing.

I’m not saintly on this issue, believe me. But I work at it. If nothing else, my efforts to converse respectfully lead to identification of places of agreement and understanding of the reasons for the divergence of views.

Here’s my invitation: Next time you’re inclined to an argument, pretend that the person you’re talking to may have an important lesson in life for you, if only you’re clever enough to elicit it.

You may be surprised by the results.

Or, perhaps not.