Jim Peden notes: "In Heinlein's classic tome, MARCHING MORONS, the morons have bred to the point where they are the predominant cultural group, and the few smart folks left were burdened with trying to hold the fabric of society together.

Jim Peden commented on Andrew Revkin's Facebook link the other day:

"In Heinlein's classic tome, MARCHING MORONS, the morons have bred to the point where they are the predominant cultural group, and the few smart folks left were burdened with trying to hold the fabric of society together. All of the Morons had PhDs earned by reading comic books ( reminds me of today's public school teachers, who have the 2nd lowest SAT scores of any college major ) and ran around calling each other "Dr." while driving cars that made vroom vroom sounds with an errant speedometer that made them appear to be going faster than they actually were.

Heinlein's solution was of offer free vacations to Mars, where money grew on trees and similar reports. They simply marched the Morons on to rockets and launched them out into the void, while sending postcards back home to their relatives telling how great their vacations were and urging their relatives to join them.

A wonderful story, very humorous ( as only Heinlein could write ) and highly reminiscent, as I said, of today's public school system."

NOTE: Wiki reports that this story was not written by Heinlen:

"The Marching Morons" is a science fiction story written by Cyril M. Kornbluth, originally published in Galaxy in April, 1951. It was included in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two after being voted one of the best novellas up to 1965. The story is set hundreds of years in the future: the date is 7-B-936. John Barlow, a man from the past put into suspended animation by a freak accident involving a dental drill and anesthesia, is revived in this future. The world seems mad to Barlow until Tinny-Peete explains the Problem of Population: Due to a combination of intelligent people not having children and excessive breeding by less intelligent people, the world is full of morons, with the exception of an elite few who work slavishly to keep order. Barlow, who was a shrewd con man in his day, has a solution to sell to the elite.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons