Well Said

Another of my alter egos sees something dark down the road of sloppiness:

When we don't care about correct spelling or usage or expression, isn't it somewhat easier to not care about other written things? How about following the Geneva Convention? The Constitution? Oh yes, it says X, but, really, we can do Y because we know what's important. Doesn't it mean what it says, as written? Don't we have to follow laws? Does an opinion rendered in a "signing statement" mean it's okay to ignore a law that we've just signed, simply because we can and we think we know better?

Education accounts for a lot, but not everything. I've known plenty of otherwise bright people who graduated from "good" schools yet spel appallingly, capitalize random Common Nouns, use dreaded grocer's apostrophe's, and write run-on sentences with willful abandon, the only explanation I can think of is that they were beaten throughout childhood for using periods. You might think they'd pick up some clues by reading newspapers and books, but evidently not. All of which leaves me with very little hope.