When I was a kid, guys who said dem, dese and dose when they were attempting to say them, these and those, were regarded as ignorant mugs, and in the movies were often portrayed by the likes of Nat Pendleton and “Slapsie” Maxie Rosenbloom.

These days, dese and dose have pretty much vanished from the scene, leaving only the dems, otherwise known as Democrats, as representative of gross stupidity.

What I find most objectionable about Democrats isn’t simply that they are wrong on every issue, ranging from abortion and taxes to global warming and national defense, but that they’re convinced that they are smarter and more decent than the rest of us. I ask you, in what universe would anyone believe that Joe Biden, Barbara Boxer, Elijah Cummings, Nancy Pelosi, Al Sharpton, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Patty Murray, Alan Grayson and “Slapsie” Maxine Waters, wouldn’t have to cheat in order to score 80 on an IQ test?

Only a liberal pinhead who thinks that the government should handle charitable contributions, along with everything else, would actually suggest that Democrats are even more giving and more compassionate than, say, churchgoing conservatives.

By way of full disclosure, I used to be a Democrat, though never a liberal. I still blame my parents, but that was a long time ago. Back then, it was quite acceptable to be a Democrat and still object to Jack Kennedy’s allowing partisanship to trump principles by encouraging civil servants to unionize or to dismiss LBJ as a boor and a bully or to write off Hubert Humphrey as a naïve simpleton.

Today, that is never the case. It’s as if every registered Democrat has sworn an oath not to speak or even think badly of any cheap hack with a (D) after his or her name. They view it as an act of heresy to even question the various crimes and sins committed by the Clintons, be they political, fiscal or moral.

I mean, how is it that we never hear Democrats say, for instance, that they approve of the Affordable Care Act, but that they resent the lies Obama kept repeating in order to sell it.

And why is it that no Democrat, in or out of Congress, ever points out that inasmuch as ObamaCare is supposed to provide comprehensive health care for women, it should no longer be necessary that $500 million in federal tax dollars be used to fund Planned Parenthood, an abortion mill run by crones who all seemingly aspire to be this generation’s Dr. Mengele.

Why are Democrats unable to even ask, if gun control laws are the answer to lowering the nation’s violent death rate, why it is that Chicago, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., with the toughest gun laws on the books, remain the murder capitals of America?

Clearly, it must be difficult for some liberals to swallow all the vile swill that this administration doles out, particularly when it comes to something like the nuclear deal with Iran. But when you see the way that the Democrats have closed ranks behind Obama, difficult — even in the face of an existential threat — does not mean impossible.

The other day, a caller to a radio talk show raised a point I had never even considered. It seems that the number of representatives in the House is based on the 1910 census. A century ago, there were 92 million people in America. With 435 members in the House, that worked out to one for every 211,000 people. Today, with a population of 320 million, each member is allegedly representing 735,000 of us. The caller felt deprived and thought that the House membership should be increased in order to bring it in line with what it used to be. But in order for every member to represent, say, 200,000 of us, the total would rise from 435 to nearly 1,600!

Frankly, I can’t imagine a worse idea, unless it would be increasing the number of U.S. senators. Taxation without representation brought on the American Revolution. These days, when politicians are among the most revolting people in America and when most of them reckon that raising our taxes is their main responsibility, the very thought of increasing their numbers makes my blood run cold.

A wise friend of mine sent me an email in which he pointed out that over the past century, three major delusions have poisoned our planet, infecting billions of us.

The first was communism, also known as socialism, progressivism and liberalism.

The second was Nazism, also known as Fascism and Islam, but always having as one of its major tenets the annihilation of Jews.

The third is Global Warming, aka Climate Change and Environmentalism, which goes to prove that nothing was learned at the Tower of Babel about the inability of mankind to usurp the power of God or Mother Nature to control the weather.

I would add that Babel should also have taught us that just as we’re not destined to all speak the same language, we’re not all really the same under the skin, and that those hayseeds who argue that we’re all brothers apparently never heard of sibling rivalry and apparently confuse Cain and Abel for characters on a sit com.

Finally, I found myself sympathizing with Mike Huckabee when he came in for a hailstorm of criticism for saying that the deal Obama cut with Iran will lead the Jews to the oven. Even some Republicans took him to task for suggesting that Obama was no better than Hitler. Of course he’s better than Hitler. Whereas Hitler actually used the ovens to exterminate six million Jews, Obama was merely providing Iran with the means and the money with which to annihilate six million Jews.

Still, Huckabee was off base when he referred to ovens. After all, Iran’s plan is to nuke Israel. Therefore, the kitchen appliance he should have referred to is a microwave.