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For the last few years I’ve been keeping an eye on human behavior, and it’s not a pretty picture. I mostly pay attention to the antics of politicians, since those amusing critters are among the goofiest. Also, their actions sometimes have an effect on our lives.

In addition, I listen to what “ordinary” people say on news programs. I note, for instance, what mothers say after their children are killed in some accident or at the hands of other humans. Usually, they say they know their kids are with Jesus in Heaven.

I’ve yet to hear a distraught mother claim their dead little brat is in Hell right now, yanking on Satan’s pointy red beard.

Folks seem to think they know stuff. Often, they appear to know stuff that really needs to be categorized as unknowable.

Politicians often claim to know the “real” motives of their rivals, and so feel free to criticize them on the basis of this “fact.”

Republicans, for instance, know President Obama intentionally lied when he told Americans they could keep their current insurance plans under Obamacare. And since they know this “fact,” they have no reason to wonder if maybe Obama was simply too optimistic the insurance companies would not take advantage of the situation by canceling policies and jacking up the price on new ones, a situation the President has no real power to prevent.

But yeah, Obama should have considered this possibility more carefully, along with taking a closer look at the question: Will the friggin’ Website operate properly?

There’s a rule for this, Hanlon’s Razor, which goes: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

Here are a few of the things people claim to know (some of them may even be true):

• They know their country is under the protection of God.
• They know Barack Obama is a Muslim from Kenya, born in the shadow of a mullah’s juice box.
• They know there is a vast conspiracy to convert the planet to a One World Government, a process call the “New World Order.”
• They know their religion is the best, and all the others suck.
• They know you can “catch your death of cold” just by getting a chill. (George Washington was bled to death by his doctors when he got a chill.)
• On TV, if you’re outside at night, and you get wet, you’ll be sneezing in the very next scene.
• And while we’re on the subject of medicine, superstitious Africans know you’ll die if they put you in the Ebola isolation hut; relatives drag their loved ones out of there for their own good (often with disastrous results).
• Some white folks know all other races are inferior to theirs.
• Other people still think the world is flat, and that the moon landings were faked.
• A disturbing number of individuals know they’ve been levitated out of their beds into flying saucers, where their poop nozzles were probed by anal-curious space aliens.
• A dangerous number of drunk folk know they’re perfectly capable of driving home from the bar.
• A growing chunk of the world’s population know the United States is waging a war against Islam. And this even before we were tricked by al Qaeda into invading several Muslim countries.
• Most English speakers know the word “forte” (a French word identifying that thing you do best) is pronounced “fortay.” It’s actually pronounced “fort.” Feel free to look it up.

If you were to ask folks how they come to know all this good stuff, they would probably say: “I just know what I know, that’s all.”

Some of this stuff is decidedly trivial. If a few nutbars want to think the world is flat, let ’em all go to hell – and report back whether or not that place is also flat.

On the other hand, a couple of these goofed-up notions have already gotten a lot of people killed. And it’s only going to get worse.

It’s time to consider what’s going on here, and whether anything can be done to stop it.

Or at least slow it down . . .