Thinking Outside the Box

Ok, so this going to be one of my philosophical posts, so be warned, there is no right or wrong here, so feel free to comment it will be interesting to see where this one goes. First to set this up, one of my classes is Introduction to Political Philosophy, in class discussion today the notion that societies have a natural bias towards thinking (and I mean true intellectual thinking) and that this creates a paradox. The paradox comes in that in order to society to advance it takes new ideas and new thoughts, but at the same time those who in a society bring new ideas or new thoughts into an argument are often shunned for not going along with status quo, example being the execution of Socrates for his revolutionary thoughts on government. So where in the hell am I going with this you ask, well where I am headed with this is that after class it really had me thinking about the current state of affairs not only in the country but in my home state as well.
First nationally, what does it say of a society when voicing ones opinion against the war or the presidency they are attacked as unpatriotic, or anti-American. Moreover, it goes beyond that, the American people are spoon fed news in small doses of what corporate media wants you to see and hear. Anytime a media source pops up offering differing views it is immediately attacked as not being credible or making things up. Second example is my home state, we have a governor so damned delusional that when anyone opposes one of his plans (which the majority of the state, and his own party do not agree with) all he can do is run to the nearest tv camera and a blame his detractors for putting the people of Illinois in harm’s way.
So your still asking, ok already, what the hell is the damned point? Well I’m not going to tell you. What I will say is my observations that by and large the American people have gotten lazy, thinking is hard, thinking is risky, so why do it? American people want to turn on the TV and be shown some entertainment that doesn’t require thinking, and what news they feel they need on an issue they want to have spoon fed to them in small bites that require absolutely no intellectual thought.