Why are good guys so dumb? Pick any movie over the past few decades that had a protagonist with a heart of gold and chances are they also had a head of brick. The bad guys are always smart but evil, and we are left reluctantly rooting for the virtuous but somewhat slow hero. They are all a bunch of Homer Simpsons, bumbling and making mistakes for 89 minutes before their moral sense kicks in and they channel their inner strength to do the right thing before the credits roll.

Is it just a Hollywood formula or does it show a deeper truth? Does too much smarts obscure your moral compass?

In the world of academia, it is a cliché to observe that the more educated the faculty the more likely they are to be socialists, but that might be a combination of effects, including the ivory tower feeling that we can and should control the masses, if only we had the right people in charge.

You probably knew all there really is to know about right and wrong when you were a toddler: Don't take other people's stuff; don't hit. Since then, you've grown a lot smarter. Now, it is okay to take other people's stuff if someone else wants or needs it more; that's called "redistribution." It's okay to hit someone your government considers an enemy; that's part of "spreading democracy."

Maybe there is a bug in the human psyche, a moral cancer, that grows and takes over our basic, simple understanding of right and wrong the longer we live and the smarter we get. Maybe it's why we look down on those who still cling to their childlike beliefs in good and evil.

Our country was founded by Yankees, and "Yankee" started off as a derogatory term. By the time of the Revolutionary War, the British were using it condescendingly to describe our stupid but determined forefathers. They called us "Yankee Doodles," basically ignorant dolts. We stuck a feather in our cap and called it macaroni — how droll!

The etymology of the term probably came from the diminutive Dutch first name Janneke, meaning Little John. And ironically, Connecticut people probably used it to describe the Dutch settlers of New York. An outside group, the British, began applying it to us.

When the supposedly smarter people encounter these weirdos who still keep things simple, and seem a little slow, they are always curious. I know because I am one of those weirdos. I am a Libertarian, and the Libertarian Party is the party of principle. We keep things simple. Don't steal. Don't hit.

After my debate at the University of Connecticut in Stamford in 2006 against the Republican and Democratic candidates for the Fourth District Congressional seat, the spouse of one of my opponents was waiting at a crosswalk with me. "How does a Libertarian cross the street?" she joked. She was quite nice and we chatted for a bit, but I now understand what she and many others must think about Libertarians (and what the British may have thought about the Yankees): They're all a little off-putting. They remind us of our own simpler core. And we don't like it. We need to bring them back to size, and a derogatory term makes us feel better.

Let's not forget that it is the simpler people — the film heroes, the Libertarians, the macaroni-cap buffoons — who are the only ones who ever have or ever will fight for freedom, a freedom that benefits even those that make fun of them. We all still have that core moral compass inside us, if we just brush off the years of dust.

We've made our mistakes, with the economy, with war, with health care, with too much government in general. It's time to channel our inner strength, free our inner Yankee, and once again do the right thing.

Dr. Phil Maymin is an Assistant Professor of Finance and Risk Engineering at NYU-Polytechnic Institute. The views represented are his own.