“(she) brings youth and energy,”
“.....it would be wonderful to have a working mom as vice president.”
“We’ve got to vote the way God wants us to vote.”
"She is a Washington outsider."
“She should run for president. I’d vote for her for president and McCain as vice-president. She’s going to be the most beautiful vice-president in history.”
Wow. So this is it folks. Here are the words of our fellow citizens describing a person who could possibly have more power than any other person in the history of the world. This is terrifying and it leads me to seriously question our democracy. Now I'm actually not a socialist or communist, but our political ideology must evolve. I would like to suggest a simple (in theory at least) idea:
Civics tests for voters
The right to vote is at the heart of democracy. It is democracy. But our situation is a dire one when uninformed citizens can stroll into a booth and elect a person to office because they think she's a milf. This is laughable, worthy of parody.......except it's not.
Take her reputation as a "Washington outsider." Ok I'm an "engineering outsider." Anyone want to hire me to work on the next NASA project? Should I wait for Boeing to call for my advice on their new airplane? No? Why? I have flown on many airplanes.......I've even touched one. Doesn't that qualify me?
"She brings youth and energy." Uh huh.......and??? You know who else has youth and energy? Children!!
"Hey Johnny, should the U.S. be responsible for bailing out private companies?"
"I wanna go to McDonald's!"
"Should we talk with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad about his country's nuclear ambitions?"
"I don't wanna go to bed! I hate you!"
"it would be wonderful to have a working mom as vice president.” I actually have no idea what the rationale for this is. I've actually asked a few people about this question and they respond with something like "Well it shows she is just like us." I have a radical response for this failure of logic: Our leaders should not be the "guy I wanna have a beer with", nor "the woman next door." Our leaders should not be "just like us."
Our leaders should be extraordinary
That's why they are leaders! George Washington was a general and a diplomat, devoted to civic virtue and respected as a man of extraordinary qualities. He wasn't the local buggy whip maker, raising two kids and tending to his pig farm.
Here is another quote from an obviously well-informed citizen: “We’ve got to vote the way God wants us to vote.” Oh boy.........So God has a horse in this race? What are the odds that this person has any idea that ours is the only constitution in the world that forbids the mentioning of God, except to limit the influence of religion? And keep this is mind: This person is going to vote!
Last one: "She’s going to be the most beautiful vice-president in history.” Now I have to say that she has that sexy repressed librarian thing down pat. The "Tina Fey" look. So if we are nominating her for the local "Miss Dewey Decimal" pageant I'm down. But we are not. Have you ever taken a look at Angela Merkel? Tarja Halonen? Pratibha Patil? All women. All qualified. Not hot. How far has our great country fallen? Put it this way, we have come from: electing candidates based on experience and knowledge........to making the vice presidency the final round of America's Next Top Model.
But to my main point of this article: civics tests for the right to vote. Yes, voting is a right. And that right should be earned.
2 comments:
You've put your finger on the problem with Americans: they want to vote for a buddy - not a leader -- to rule the free world.
As Sam Harris mentioned in an oped: when you look for a neurosurgeon -- or even a carpenter -- you want not only a qualified one, but a good one. But when it comes time to invest more power in a person than at any time in our history, well, people chose based on the "beer question".
It is ridiculous.
Read Sam Harris' oped on Palin-- he nails it:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/160080/page/1
What I do care about are all the other things Palin is guaranteed not to know—or will be glossing only under the frenzied tutelage of John McCain's advisers. What doesn't she know about financial markets, Islam, the history of the Middle East, the cold war, modern weapons systems, medical research, environmental science or emerging technology? Her relative ignorance is guaranteed on these fronts and most others, not because she was put on the spot, or got nervous, or just happened to miss the newspaper on any given morning. Sarah Palin's ignorance is guaranteed because of how she has spent the past 44 years on earth.
What is so unnerving about the candidacy of Sarah Palin is the degree to which she represents—and her supporters celebrate—the joyful marriage of confidence and ignorance.....
Ask yourself: how has "elitism" become a bad word in American politics? There is simply no other walk of life in which extraordinary talent and rigorous training are denigrated. We want elite pilots to fly our planes, elite troops to undertake our most critical missions, elite athletes to represent us in competition and elite scientists to devote the most productive years of their lives to curing our diseases. And yet, when it comes time to vest people with even greater responsibilities, we consider it a virtue to shun any and all standards of excellence. When it comes to choosing the people whose thoughts and actions will decide the fates of millions, then we suddenly want someone just like us, someone fit to have a beer with, someone down-to-earth—in fact, almost anyone, provided that he or she doesn't seem too intelligent or well educated.
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