The fool who has not sense to discriminate between what is good and what is bad is well-nigh as dangerous as the man who does discriminate and yet chooses the bad. there is nothing more distressing to every good patriot, to every good american, than the hard, scoffing spirit which treats the allegation of dishonesty in a public man as a cause for laughter. based on the words in bold, the overall tone of the selected lines is one of