They were always there, those of low intelligence. And I'm not talking only of those labelled as metally retarded; no, I'm talking of the majority of people - the workers, the salt of the Earth. In the middle ages they were serfs and were nearly slaves of the property owner on whose property they eked out an existence. In many countries, like Russia, this extended well past the middle ages. In this disempowered state they were fair game to anyone in the right position. They were shamelessly exploited for their labour and given just enough to stay alive to work again tomorrow.
But things change. In some cases it took revolutions, led by con men and idealists, and in other cases the masters slowly developed a conscience and things changed. Then came democracy and each of these children of serfs had a vote. Unfortunately intelligence didn't come with the vote. As Robert Heinlein said, "when the monkeys find out they can vote themselves bananas, they'll never climb another tree." And find out, they did. They were stupid, not mentally retarded.
With democracy came a new kind of con man: the democratically elected politician. All they had to do was convince enough people to vote for them. Abraham Lincoln said, "there are some people who can be fooled all of the time." That's all a politician asks for. The "all people can be fooled some of the time" is a bonus.
Given the fact that these people of low intelligence make up the majority, it's no wonder laws changed to favour them - the politicians want to stay on the gravy train. These people, the ones who don't know the difference between "their" and "there" and "your" and "you're" and "its" and "it's" and use apostrophes to pluralise words, are now the politically correct elite. There is no way one can herd them together and put them to work for a pittance. But that doesn't mean some people don't want to take advantage of them and make money out of them. After all, they're still stupid. One just has to come up with the right formula.
Being stupid, these people can be suckered into wanting what is really of no good use and harmful to them. This can be sold to them at a huge profit. So, how does one trick a sucker? Why, every con man and politician knows: appearances. Dress it up, talk it up and tell them it's desirable. Why are politicians' speeches so flowery and full of fine sounding, empty rhetoric? They know their audience.
So these prospective con men employed statisticians to sort the milking cattle into groups to which different strategies will appeal. And, boy, did they come up with the right answers. Things harmful to these suckers, their families and society are so popular with them they will revolt if it's taken away. Think of drugs, smoking, booze, prostitution, and all the forms of gambling. Many of these are dressed up as the essence of having a good time, and it works. Some cigarettes were sold as the brand of the man's man - the Gunston man knows where he's going. Yeah, straight to the cancer ward. Some menthol falvoured brands were for "ladies." Some with expensive, imported tobacco were for people of refined taste. The same happens with booze. The ultimate con trick with booze is the wine connoisseur. Go online and search for double and triple blind wine tasting. You will see that all this sniff, sniff, taste, twirl, the far away look in the eyes like a dog busy evacuating its bowels, and then the wise pronunciation about the origin of this wine, its character, its merits, are all such a crock of... This masterpiece of deception fooled even many people who don't belong to this stupid group.
So, now you have these people clamouring for what's bad for them and the other group who proclaims itself as benefactors of these morons, selling it to them at a huge profit and the politicians pocketing the cash from these "entepreneurs" and washing their hands and asking "am I my brother's keeper?"
Now I ask you, seeing these morons are asking for it, shouldn't one get on the band wagon and milk these suckers for all one is worth while the going is good?
