There’s a popular bit of advice that it’s better to keep your mouth shut and have people suspect you’re a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

Two examples from last week’s headlines:

First, a New Hampshire couple is being investigated for chasing a moose on snowmobiles. The bright spot here is that the moose finally had enough and chased one of the snowmobilers right off his machine.

Harassing wildlife is illegal. But only a true fool is stupid enough to post a video of the practice on YouTube.

Then there’s the story of Cliven Bundy, who became a sort of folk hero to the far right for his refusal to pay the federal government for grazing his cattle on public land for 20 years.

Bundy told anyone who would listen that he does not recognize the existence of the federal government, which seems hallucinatory from the start.

But enjoying his new-found celebrity, he began expounding on other subjects, suggesting to the New York Times that blacks may have been better off under slavery.

That notion of plantation life was once heard in the South, but even a cursory reading of history and the testimony of freed slaves from that era shows that slavery in the South was brutal and dehumanizing.

Bundy is clearly …

Well, you decide.

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The opinions expressed in this column reflect the views of the ownership and the editorial board.