The scary truth about our nation's intelligence - my rant about why universal suffrage maybe isn't the best idea

[CaptainKahuna]

I was reading in OT today a thread where the OP says that none of the girls he works with at a nightclub can do basic subtraction in their head (ie. cover is either $8, $10, or $12 - how much change from a $20?).

The thread basically goes slightly off topic to determine that it's not only girls 18-21 that can't do math in their head, it's really an endemic problem in America. I encourage you to read the original thread, and take my rant in that context.

The average level of intelligence in America scares the sh*t out of me, and this is why:

There are a few people in this thread calling the OP's workplace a "crap" job, etc. Here's the thing - it's not. This is middle America. Club workers, waitresses, department store clerks, etc. To us (the AT crowd, generally well educated and science-minded) these people seem like the lower end of society. They're not. The average household income (Wikipedia) in America is $48,500. That means 50% of the country makes less than that. These are your waitresses, clerks, bus drivers, etc. These are the people that in general have problems with basic arithmetic.

Here is where it gets scary: That means 50% of the people voting for president likely can't do basic subtraction in their head. 50% of people voting for president will take out a sub-prime mortgage they can't afford and then expect the government to bail them out. 50% of the people voting for president probably use credit cards like free money, paying only the minimum balance every month.

And now you know why the candidates never talk about important issues - social security, the economy, etc. Why? Because 50% of Americans likely don't understand, or care about, these issues. And guess what? 50% of the vote wins the presidency. So the candidates will spend their time talking about issues that don't really matter to the country (gay marriage, abortion, etc) but that push people's buttons and win votes.

This is why the electoral college was created - because the founding fathers had this figured out. They realized that glamorous as democracy may be, there is part of the population that really has no business running this country and making important decisions on issues.

If you vote for Obama because he's black, Hilary because she's a woman, or John McCain because you "like him" or "trust him" or any other non-issues based reason - I don't believe you deserve to vote.

Flame away guys.

 

[Jmman]

Pretty slippery slope if you ask me. I can do partial differential equations in my head. Can you? I guess that means I get to vote and you don't.......😀

 

[CaptainKahuna]

Originally posted by: Jmman
Pretty slippery slope if you ask me. I can do partial differential equations in my head. Can you? I guess that means I get to vote and you don't.......😀

Agreed it is a slippery slope - but this is my point - if you vote for Obama because he's black, Hilary because she's a woman, or John McCain because you "like him" or "trust him" or any other non-issues based reason - I don't believe you deserve to vote.

 

[techs]

Have you considered that Bush can't do basic artithmetic in HIS head and yet he is the President?

 

[CaptainKahuna]

double post

 

[CaptainKahuna]

Originally posted by: techs
Have you considered that Bush can't do basic artithmetic in HIS head and yet he is the President?

It's a tragedy. But you have to realize, despite his flaws, he was elected by the country twice - and that's the scary point I'm trying to make.

Also - let's please avoid getting side tracked on GWB and stick to the topic in the OP.

 

[Jmman]

Originally posted by: techs
Have you considered that Bush can't do basic artithmetic in HIS head and yet he is the President?

Silly argument you got there, Techs. Carter was one of our smartest presidents, and also one of our worst presidents. Intelligence != great leader

 

[fskimospy]

In effect you're saying 'democracy sucks because people are stupid'. The alternative you're presenting by saying in effect that stupid people shouldn't vote is a form of oligarchy. I have a sneaking suspicion that you probably would complain about the corruption and lack of concern that politicians in Washington show for average people, and honestly they are in effect an oligarchy now. (98% incumbency rate or whatever you say?) Sure people are ill informed, but if you restrict it to elites they just become corrupt. This is not an improvement.

I'm reminded of a quote from Churchill: "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."

 

[BeauJangles]

In an ideal world, the country would be run by a small group of highly intelligent individuals, who acted in the best interest of everybody. In reality, that system would be an oligarchy and we'd all suffering tremendously.

 

[CaptainKahuna]

Originally posted by: eskimospy
In effect you're saying 'democracy sucks because people are stupid'. The alternative you're presenting by saying in effect that stupid people shouldn't vote is a form of oligarchy. I have a sneaking suspicion that you probably would complain about the corruption and lack of concern that politicians in Washington show for average people, and honestly they are in effect an oligarchy now. (98% incumbency rate or whatever you say?) Sure people are ill informed, but if you restrict it to elites they just become corrupt. This is not an improvement.

I'm reminded of a quote from Churchill: "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."

I see where you're going. However, in my opinion, the ideal solution is not to disenfranchise people, but to educate them. Ideally, I would love to see a society where even the lower class understood that the issues that really matter are not abortion and gay marriage, but the economy, the war, social security. These are the issues that will really affect them.

However, that day will be a long time coming. Until then, I feel that it's a shame that our country is being misguided by hot-button issues rather than things that really matter - something should be done.

I will also leave you with another Winston Churchill quote: "The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter."

 

[Craig234]

I think this issue is a lot more complicated than it may appear on the surface. Here's my basic take.

Long ago, my first assumption about the election was that it was designed to get the best candidate. Of course, that quickly runs into the issue of the idiot voters having equal say with the expert voters, when the expert voters would tend to pick a far better candidate.

However, from that point, you can see other issues - and the law of unintended consequences comes up. The paradigm shifts from one of simply making the 'best choice', to an issue of the *right* of each person to have the slice of power the vote delivers - and you have to ask what good that is.

The bottom line is that when power is in fewer hands, the hands it's in tend to do a lot better at the expense of those without it. The simple distribution of power tends to have certain benefits in terms of keeping the leaders not wanting to upset the masses.

If you put more power in the hands of expert votrers, even they can be corrupted by it, and you would see harms from doing so. In short, there's a moral justice to giving people the vote.

Having said that, the problem then is that the people waste the power terribly - not only do many not vote at all, but those who do allow themselves to be influenced by money-driven propaganda - if not knowingly, by the negligence of not getting better informed. It's a pretty badly broken system.

But what are you going to do to fix that? Other than efforts to try to distribute the propaganda power - now concentrated in the hands of very few corporatist media conglomerates - it's not clear how to fix it. Fund PBS, for example, helps some.

So, you finally just appreciate the basic benefit that not pissing off too many people - even if our government has ratings in the 20% to 30% area - even if people like the poor Kurds getting slaughtered by Turkey because the US benefits from the Turkish alliance get no vote - and appreciate the fact that it's better than so many other nations.

If you want to be a good citizen, fund the public interest groups who try to get the truth out - groups like Media Matters for America, Salon.com, Thom Hartmann, Glen Greenwald among many. Recognize that the system is a huge mess giving us George Bush - then look at Putin, and China's leaders.

The answer isn't in denying idiot girls the vote, it's in protecting their vote, even if they probably don't vote and throw it away on the cute candidate if they do - and investing in their education, how about bringing back civics classes? Logic classes? And the politicians might think twice before pissing off the idiot girls TOO much, and that's good.

 

[Arkaign]

Originally posted by: Jmman

Originally posted by: techs
Have you considered that Bush can't do basic artithmetic in HIS head and yet he is the President?

Silly argument you got there, Techs. Carter was one of our smartest presidents, and also one of our worst presidents. Intelligence != great leader

Gah this again. Carter was neither very good nor very bad. He simply had the fate of becoming President at a time of a sagging global economy and rising fuel prices. He didn't do very much at all to either help us or harm us, which makes him a winner compared to many presidents. You want shitty Presidents, I submit LBJ and the Bush duo.

 

[CaptainKahuna]

Originally posted by: Arkaign

Originally posted by: Jmman

Originally posted by: techs
Have you considered that Bush can't do basic artithmetic in HIS head and yet he is the President?

Silly argument you got there, Techs. Carter was one of our smartest presidents, and also one of our worst presidents. Intelligence != great leader

Gah this again. Carter was neither very good nor very bad. He simply had the fate of becoming President at a time of a sagging global economy and rising fuel prices. He didn't do very much at all to either help us or harm us, which makes him a winner compared to many presidents. You want shitty Presidents, I submit LBJ and the Bush duo.

Thanks for your input guys, but let's try to stay away from a deterioration into president bashing, and stick to the topic in the OP.

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: CaptainKahuna

Originally posted by: eskimospy
In effect you're saying 'democracy sucks because people are stupid'. The alternative you're presenting by saying in effect that stupid people shouldn't vote is a form of oligarchy. I have a sneaking suspicion that you probably would complain about the corruption and lack of concern that politicians in Washington show for average people, and honestly they are in effect an oligarchy now. (98% incumbency rate or whatever you say?) Sure people are ill informed, but if you restrict it to elites they just become corrupt. This is not an improvement.

I'm reminded of a quote from Churchill: "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."

I see where you're going. However, in my opinion, the ideal solution is not to disenfranchise people, but to educate them. Ideally, I would love to see a society where even the lower class understood that the issues that really matter are not abortion and gay marriage, but the economy, the war, social security. These are the issues that will really affect them.

However, that day will be a long time coming. Until then, I feel that it's a shame that our country is being misguided by hot-button issues rather than things that really matter - something should be done.

I will also leave you with another Winston Churchill quote: "The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter."

I don't think its possible to educate people about issues they don't care about. I also don't think it is anyone's place to tell people what issues they should care about, or what issues they should consider to really affect them.

 

[palehorse]

The obvious question for the OP: Is "education reform" the most important factor in your choice for President?

 

[StageLeft]

This scares me too and I've long seen the problem in the fact that with everybody having the equal vote, not everybody has an equal level of wisdom to make the right choice. And it's BS to say that what i want is different than you but doesn't necessarily make it better. Some people simply do not know fvcking jack squat about anything and yet when election day comes they go and vote with little brains behind it, whereas Dr. Political Science who's spent 30 years of his life studying politics and history votes with no more sway. Just as a jury of 12 votes on a conviction, not 12 random people off the street--because the 12 are privy to information and have been paying attention to a great degree--why with voting is it reasonable to think that all people's votes should carry the same weight?

I don't know how to fix it. Probably shouldn't have only land owners or only college grads or whatever else. This is the best system there is now, but it is definitely flawed and it. People vote on things like a FWD that Obama, for example, is a practicing Muslim. This is what they'll use when vote day comes.

This is no small matter and is of the utmost importance. We have an entire nation's leaders being elected by a pool that is heavily diluted with ignorance.

Case in point? 30% of people still approve of Bush. I don't want to make this a Bush bash but I cannot think of even the hardcore right wingers on this forum who approve of him because even though they are hardcore rightwing, they are paying some attention.

 

[CaptainKahuna]

Originally posted by: eskimospy
I don't think its possible to educate people about issues they don't care about. I also don't think it is anyone's place to tell people what issues they should care about, or what issues they should consider to really affect them.

It's pretty hard to make the argument that the economy and social security don't affect everyone in this country, particularly the middle/lower class. People are deeply in debt as rates on their sub-prime mortgages balloon. People who pay into social security their whole lives will likely not see a dime.

How does this not affect every American? My view is that if a person is so uneducated as not to care about issues that impact them in a non-trivial way, they do not deserve to vote.

 

[Arkaign]

Allright, in regards to the OP :

I agree that it sucks that we have so many idiots, incompetents, blind followers, and degenerates in this country. We'd probably have a much better country if say only those people with an IQ of at least 125 were allowed to vote. That said, that country wouldn't be the USA. If we start to accelerate the way that we're abandoning our principles, then we're going to lose everything that we've built here. By denying the vote based upon discriminatory factors, we open a Pandora's box of sorts in terms of the abuses that can be perpetrated.

Our social/economic/educational makeup does present a problem however, I think (without much hope, really) that it would be nice to be able to see some progress towards raising those elements of our country to higher levels during my lifetime. Sadly, I fear that we will see just the opposite. Our country will continue to cannibalize itself from within, the rich further compounding their clawhold on the largest piece of the pie, the poor falling further whilst yanking dollars from the fading middle class to support their underachieving lifestyles and high crime statistics. The marginalization of the center as the right and left reach polarizing extremes. It seems we have two idols that each extreme wants to reach for, Hitler for the Right, and Stalin for the Left. Each extreme viewpoint looks at the government as the solution to the country's needs.

 

[heyheybooboo]

My Pop had an idea that every voter be given a 'civics' test to determine their knowledge of issues and the basic functions of gov't.

An average person would receive their single vote. Those with superior understanding would receive multiple votes. Dumb asses would, in effect, be a negative vote for their candidate.

Did I mention this idea came to him after he had a series of heart attacks and strokes, died three times and been confined in a wheelchair for 6 years?

Just face it - no matter how hard you work to understand and support democracy there is always a dumb ass out there to cancel your vote ....

 

[StageLeft]

I don't think its possible to educate people about issues they don't care about. I also don't think it is anyone's place to tell people what issues they should care about, or what issues they should consider to really affect them.

But they don't operate in a vacuum. Their decisions affect me just as mine affect them. It is their moral responsibility to be reasonably educated when making decisions than can affect me.

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: CaptainKahuna

Originally posted by: eskimospy
I don't think its possible to educate people about issues they don't care about. I also don't think it is anyone's place to tell people what issues they should care about, or what issues they should consider to really affect them.

It's pretty hard to make the argument that the economy and social security don't affect everyone in this country, particularly the middle/lower class. People are deeply in debt as rates on their sub-prime mortgages balloon. People who pay into social security their whole lives will likely not see a dime.

How does this not affect every American? My view is that if a person is so uneducated as not to care about issues that impact them in a non-trivial way, they do not deserve to vote.

Well what if someone thinks that the moral decay in society is more important then what's going on with social security? Do they get to vote if they don't care about that stuff? What if someone thinks that rates on subprime mortgages don't really matter when the evil islamist terrorists are coming to kill us all? Who gets to decide what issues are the ones that make someone able to vote? This sounds like a return of the literacy test for voting from the days of the Jim Crow south. We all saw how well those turned out.

All the things you say are in some ways true, but they are all unenforceable in any reasonable way. The only real solution is to let every person decide what is important to them, and let them vote accordingly. It's not up to you or me to decide what other people should think and any attempt to do so will probably end in disaster.

Oh, and I sincerely doubt that people paying into social security now will be screwed out of it later in their lives.

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo
My Pop had an idea that every voter be given a 'civics' test to determine their knowledge of issues and the basic functions of gov't.

This would be laborious to implement but fair and reasonable. A basic sense of how government works and ability to answer true/false on the top candidates and their history. Just to show you've been paying a little bit of damn attention.

 

[CaptainKahuna]

Originally posted by: eskimospy
All the things you say are in some ways true, but they are all unenforceable in any reasonable way. The only real solution is to let every person decide what is important to them, and let them vote accordingly. It's not up to you or me to decide what other people should think and any attempt to do so will probably end in disaster.

I agree with what you're saying. If you have researched all the issues, and abortion is the one that is most important to you, I encourage you to vote on the basis of that. That is an issues based vote. It's not my place to say abortion is less important than the economy. But I do not respect someone's opinion if they haven't taken the time to study the economy issues and then consciously decide that they care more about abortion. Do you see the difference?

However, my problem is with those who don't decide what's important to them. Those that vote for Obama because he's black. Or those that listed their #1 reason for voting for GWB as "he is likeable".

These are the people that don't deserve to vote.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: Skoorb

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo
My Pop had an idea that every voter be given a 'civics' test to determine their knowledge of issues and the basic functions of gov't.

This would be laborious to implement but fair and reasonable. A basic sense of how government works and ability to answer true/false on the top candidates and their history. Just to show you've been paying a little bit of damn attention.

Yeah.

Too bad that dang Constitution is in the way . . . :shocked:

 

[BoomerD]

Originally posted by: CaptainKahuna

There are a few people in this thread calling the OP's workplace a "crap" job, etc. Here's the thing - it's not. This is middle America. Club workers, waitresses, department store clerks, etc. To us (the AT crowd, generally well educated and science-minded) these people seem like the lower end of society. They're not. Flame away guys.

While NO job should be considered to be a "crap job", do keep in mind that the OP in the OT thread does work in a strip club...not exactly the ideal workplace for Mensa candidates...while that doesn't mean some of the women who strip may not be intelligent...strippers rarely meet the levels of genius...and I'd be surprised if most people who work in such an environment are highly educated either. Again, strip clubs just don't attract the highly educated...except perhaps as customers...when the little head out-thinks the big head.