From mass murders to failure of security systems to massive mismanagement, this first-ever annual list puts together a genuine, no-holds-barred catalog of governments and their respective failures.

      It is not intended to mock any individual or organization.

      The purpose of this list is to provide a hall of shame for government leaders and decision-makers who have been, at the very least, remiss in their duties and responsibilities to their people, and at most, have engendered unethical and immoral practices.

      In most cases, it’s just a circumstance of being outright dumb.

Framework

      Templates for democracy and capitalism exist all over the world, not to mention the wealth of information and knowledge from academic research disseminated through myriad sources, all designed to help avoid detrimental decisions.

      Our belief in the philosophy of governance is based on the ideals of the American Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, John Locke, Adam Smith, David Ricardo (to name a few economists), the Federalist Papers, along with the Constitutions and jurisprudence of the freedom-loving peoples of the world, and the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

      Needless to say, there is a community of government leaders in the world who have similar backgrounds in education.

      In formulating this list, we made sure that there are no standing economic sanctions imposed on these nations by the US and/or the EU. A radical or revolutionary change in government is not necessary to overcome dumbness. In other words, democratic governments do not need to reinvent the wheels of freedom, free trade or fundamental human rights.

      The objective is to ensure that meaningless killing, political persecution, corrupt acts, unethical practices, and the wasting of tax payers’ money and government resources end and never occur again. (Some people will ask us to call a spade a spade, or a diamond a diamond, but everybody knows what dumb is when they see it.)

      Our list is based on the Human Capability Index. It is a formula based on factors such as the population of a specific group – in this case the government – over its accomplishments (including, but not limited to, and in no particular order, economic development, scientific advancement, employment gains, domestic and national security, generational progress, military preparedness, educational attainment, administrative, legislative and judicial experience, poverty alleviation, enforcement of the law, peace, democracy, capitalism, etc.), minus sheer, unbridled dumbness, irrationality, and illogical and nonsensical actions and decisions.

      Simply put, if you’re highly-educated, experienced, knowledgeable, and have access to all the information in the world there is no reason to act dumb.

      It is our belief that all basic freedoms have corresponding social and moral responsibilities. Most importantly, our arguments are based on rationality, logic, reason and common sense. We strictly adhere to the standard that all fallacies should be avoided. If you are one of the elite few mentioned on this list, rebuttals and opinions must not come from unsubstantiated emotions or the non-intellectual side of movies, TV shows or petty trivial literature. In the end, there is an inherent expectation from all individuals in government to raise all things to a higher level.

      On one extreme, this is the bottom line – we would rather call you dumb governments than have more people killed in cold blood, have basic human rights denied to the population, deprive the masses of the basic necessities for a decent and dignified life, have your corruption spoil the government, or just make mistakes that are not expected of you.

Criteria for Selection

      We have a list of all the nations, states, countries, territories, and/or municipalities that are democracies and practice capitalism in all its forms and permutations. A great number of the members of government, especially the head of state and head of government, were educated in the United States or Europe. Along with this, their predecessors and (for some political dynasties) ancestors were similarly educated in the United States or Europe. Most members of these national governments have college degrees, while a great number even have graduate and post-graduate educations. This means that they did not just recently learn about democracy and capitalism (e.g. People’s Republic of China), they also experienced them.

      We then selected a dumb action or decision committed by the national government or any of its members in the year 2009.

      While some are monarchies (e.g. Dubai), all countries considered are not protectionists or isolationists.

      Nations like Iran are not included in the list because they practice a unique genre of government that possesses very few, if any, comparative points vis-à-vis other nation-states considered in this list. In other words, if we applied the template of American and/or European Union-types of democracy and capitalism on nations such as Iran, for example, it would be seen as an imposition of values, norms and cultures. This is not the intention of this list. On the other hand, we must distinguish being dumb from sheer ignorance or naïveté.

      Additionally, nations such as Iraq and Afghanistan have not lived up to the democratic potentials of the other nations cited on this list. Consequently, we have decided to exclude them as well.

      Cuba is beginning to open up but policies from previous American administrations have hindered development. Honestly, however, just what is the problem with Cuba’s government being called dumb? At present, dental care is free for the entire population, life expectancy is one of the highest on the continent, and the economy is relatively developed so there simply is no reason for it to be included in the list.

      Venezuela is the South American version of North Korea minus the patriarch-ancestor. The education, or lack thereof, of Hugo Chavez was also considered. With all due respect, the same goes for Evo Morales of Bolivia.

      The non-inclusion of the African states of Sudan, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Yemen, etc., is a no-brainer. They are, more or less, failed states. To consider these governments as dumb is tantamount to imposing an ideology that escapes them (forgive us for being so blunt, but we know the difference between ignorance and simply being dumb). Lastly, cultural differences (often used as an excuse for those in power’s inability to be objective in comparative politics) were not included as part of the criteria.

      Finally, in the latter part of the list, dumb is just doing something that doesn’t make sense.