Things You Were Completely Wrong About (Politics Edition) - Page 2

Yes that right, with these you may be able to vote and hold office.

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Make way for the new mandarins, that is the new ruling elite of intellectuals who , by default, should be given all powers, thats right, because they are smarter than you, are informed, and can make your decisions, because they know your needs and wants best!

Seriously, if there is a major step to be taken, it would not be stripping freedom form the fucked-over, it would be not only remodeling our critical-thinking-free education, but also to remove the endless distractions and opiates of the masses, like the consumer culture, that exists. Maybe then it would get people to think and be involved. I may just be wrong...

This is one of the flaws in your belief, though. Yes, it's very true that if we took a fraction of the money we spent on defense and corporate welfare and moved it to education, all those things could happen. But we're never going to do that.

And that aside, giving the vote only to those with a college education is not democracy. It's an oligarchy. You're assuming that if a college education were easy to get, everybody would get one, which is simply not true.

If you really believe that there will never come a day when the United States will actually give its educational system the same priority it gives to something as ridiculously ineffective and expensive as the missile defense program, then I have to wonder what keeps you engaged politically. It wasn't so long ago that we had an adequately funded National Endowment for the Arts or a New Deal. God willing, we'll have a sanely and intelligently run government again one of these days.

Also, I never assumed everyone would get one if it were easy. I was suggesting that, if it were to become easy, those citizens who would willfully forsake that opportunity would be, quite literally, willfully ignorant and should not be allowed a voice in the political process. Also, as Schwartz pointed out, I described it as an aristocracy or 'rule of the best' rather than a democracy. If you give someone the resources to become an informed participant in public life and they willfully forsake that opportunity, I don't see the problem with removing them from that process. We wouldn't insist that a mechanic or surgeon who refused to complete his training be allowed to have continued access to our vehicles or bodies by virtue of their humanity alone. Why should we allow the willfully ignorant behind the wheel of our ship of state by virtue of their humanity alone?

He also seems to be assuming that if one gets a college education, it means that they're miraculously capable of never being uninformed or making stupid decisions again.

A college education is a good thing. I got one, and I'm now in graduate school. But it isn't a magical ticket that opens your eyes to everything and makes you beyond reproach. In my years in school, I've seen no shortage of hopelessly naive, hopelessly unmotivated, and, to be perfectly honest, completely ignorant people walk out the door with a degree.

On the flipside of that, you've got someone like my dad. He didn't go to college (there were seven kids in his family, my grandmother didn't work, and my grandfather was a farmer. Not exactly a lot of money lying around.), he's a blue collar worker, and yet I would have no problem saying he's easily more well read and intelligent than a massive percentage of people that have graduated college. He can more than hold his own in any conversation ranging from physics to philosophy, but because he didn't get a piece of paper he shouldn't be allowed to vote?

That's fucking elitist nonsense.

If you read my response to Zooey, you'll see I explicitly deny making that assumption. Bush went to both Yael and Harvard and is a fucking moron. I'm just making the assumption that education would generally make people better than worse, which isn't really radical.

This idea is no different from Heinlein's heinous notion that the vote should only be given to those who have served in the military.

No, it isn't radical, it's just wrong.

I think that's a straw man, really. I'm not saying that I'd want to hand out voting as an exclusive reward for pursuing an education (I think an education is its own reward). I'm saying that, in general, an educated population is more likely to make better decisions than an uneducated population most of the time and we should give more weight to the voice of the educated rather than the uneducated because of that.

So, your position is that an education either doesn't leave much of a mark on a person or, contrary to my position, makes them worse rather than better?

You're not giving less weight to the voice of the uneducated, you're giving them no voice at all. And if only those with a college education are allowed to vote, then in fact, you are handing out voting as an exclusive reward for education. This sounds like you're backpedaling now.

It certainly doesn't make them more likely to follow the issues or make informed political decisions based on current events. Having learned the foundations of how governance works is all well and good, but it doesn't help you choose between Hillary and Obama. So in terms of political awareness in the here and now, no, an education doesn't make an appreciable difference.

There are many many different ways to get an education.

The ship as a destination, but the same cannot be said for societies and states. Does it make you, with your degrees and titles, possessed of knowledge of where the direction of the stae/society, much less the boat, should be headed. In other words, are you sure what you imagine is the "Perfect State?" Unfortunatley for Plato and you, the forms do not exist, so there can never be a perfect state. The attitude I see here is that you want rights and political power for yourself and the intellectual crowd, and none for anyone else? Yes, the tyrant always believes in freedom... for himself. Have you given thought to directing your energies to destroying what keeps people ignorant and manipulated. Why do you complain of ignorance then merely want to ostracize the ignorant instead of educating them? These are not willfully ignorant, they are hypnotizd from a young age to give up their will.

In my opinion, it is better, but not easier, to educate them than despise them. "Oh but they are aillfully ignorant!" you say, no it is the very system of consumption and distraction, mixed with a bad education. If this were destroyed, instead of stripping those afflicted of their rights, we would have none of this nonsense. Honestly, it is this process of stupification that makes people ignorant, thus it is artificial and inculcated. You very seriously underestimate humanity by thinking that people are born this way. Example, you and many others who are very aware of the state of affairs and see that many die of starvation and poverty, yet you think tha you are the only ones that want to to help and who care. You are wrong. Go up to anyone in a mall (the HQ for the ignorant) and tell them of these dying people, I guarantee you that sympathy will be displayed and at least some may say that they would likle to help but DON'T KNOW HOW. There is the ignorance at work in the last few words I just typed. You may even get those who say that such things are continents away and that they shouldn't think about it. This is a product of thier opium, part of which is the Hobbesian notion of everyone for himself, a continuing war against the other for one's own preservation. If the person who did not want to think about it, actually did, they would feel sympathy but also at least some feelings of wanting to help. They know what is to be done, but the dumb machine in their radios and living rooms that keep them docile, but not dumb. If there is in fact ignorance, it is because elitists and intellectuals like yourself have been keeping information, knowledge, and wisdom for yourselves, and not doing anything to kill the system that keeps them docile.

Keep dreaming of your meritocracy, but realize that societies are always imperfect and evolving because they are made up of imperfect people with no clear "final destination."

Yes, people do not want to vote, but that is because they know that it is useless, as most of the time the elected is a useless bureaucrat that panders to special interests, a good amount of wisdom and foresight and othe part of the people. There is also the possibility that they will elect a dangerous despot (Hitler was voted into power). You of the intellectual elitist crowd will be the first and loudest in complaining of a bad regime or ruler, who takes away rights, treats others like dirt because they are considred less (like Hitler or any other supreme dictator, and then comes you and the elitists, would you be any different? Would you be any better? No you would just transfer power from one group to another who would treat the masses the same way. You just want relief for yourself. You criticize the old regime to get mass support but remain the same with a different name. A democracy assures that bad rulers don't stay inpower for long, so does revolution.

The elitists are not perfect and are also subject to mistakes. Would you allow an independent judiciary or free press to intervene in the event of a mistake?

I don't think saying that I think you misrepresented my position and then reiterating that position counts as backpedaling. The idea that serving in the military--which doesn't make you any more equipped than anyone else in terms of understanding policy--should give you special considerations above all others and saying we shouldn't allow the uninformed to participate in the political process are really different kinds of ideas altogether.

Also, the only thing that would make an education 'exclusive' in this case is one's unwillingness or cognitive inability to pursue an education. That's not quite the same as denying the vote to the physically handicapped, pacifists, and conscientious objectors


Actually, an educated person would be more likely to have the skill set required to read and critically evaluate the candidates' positions, policy proposals, and legislative history than an uneducated person, which seems to make an appreciable difference more than, say, picking the person you happen to like more or "would have a beer with."

Cuchulain should change his sig to "Would You Like to Know More?"

True, but outside of a formal education, there's really no way to tell whether or not a person has educated themselves and can make informed decisions regarding policy. I suppose that we could merely require everyone to take a standardized test in order to be able to register but that would seem only to add to the bureaucracy of the registration without giving anyone a further incentive to better himself or herself.

Well, that's an opinion, and I don't happen to agree with it. Those tools aren't learned. Intellect doesn't come with a diploma. You can be highly intelligent, or depressingly stupid, or anywhere in between, and a degree isn't really going to change anything for you. And awarding exclusive voting rights to the educated doesn't mean that the system won't still be focussed primarily on greed or self-interest, so it really doesn't change a thing. Sadly, ignorance is far from the biggest problem faced by modern politics.

Believe it or not, I'd actually positively rep you for that if I could.

Granted, but it's still probably the best gauge we have. I don't think what you're saying is all that wrong, but you're not making the next obvious step. Assuming that formal education is an imperfect, but reasonable, means to ascertain political awareness, you can probably make some equally informed decisions about voter intelligence based on subject area studied. One can conceivably receive honors in, say, physics or art history and never once crack a book about American politics or open a paper to read about current events. On the other hand, even a middle-of-the-road econ major probably has a superior understanding of American trade policies that might give him or her the edge in terms of deciding on an ideal candidate in that regard, any history major would probably have the edge in terms of analysis based on precedents, and a poli sci majors... well, naturally, a poli sci major must know more than just about anyone when it comes to politics, right?

Formal education means nothing, I say. It's the type of formal education that counts. We should probably extend voting rights to the people who actually studied the stuff that truly matters when it comes to making decisions that affect policy and keep them away from, say, theology/philosophy majors. Anyone with me on this?

Actually, Plato's metaphysics and his political philosophy are rather separate things. The only time the Forms come into the picture is that Plato believes that only those capable of grasping 'The Form of the Good' should be Philosopher-Kings, which, again, is an idea from the Republic, not the Laws.

The problem people seem to be having is with my wanting the state to insist that the people do educate themselves in order to participate in politics. So, I think, if anything, I'm guilty of the sins set in the opposite direction from this point.

The passage from Leviathan that you're quoting is actually not supposed to a normative statement. It's his presentation of what humanity would be like in a society without laws and the example he uses to back this up (we live in a society of laws but still arm ourselves and lock up our valuables) seems to be a strong one.

If you go back and read the post, my first concern is actually reforming the system in order to give citizens universal access to an education. The main criticism I've received on this point is that I'm too idealistic and that the system will never change that drastically.


Hitler was not actually brought into power by the vote. The Weimar Republic stupidly tried to pacify him by bringing his party into a coalition government. Their leading legal analyst and political philosopher, Carl Schmitt, had actually wanted them to use the executive authority in the Weimar constitution to declare the Nazis an enemy of the state. If they had done this, WWII would not have happened. At least not the way that it did. They thought it was too much of a threat to democracy to do that and the Nazis rose to power. We all know what happened next.

Um, so far, democracy in a modern state has done little to rid us of a ruler who has been committing high crimes and misdemeanors against the Constitution of the United States on a daily basis for the last six years.

Would the members of the judiciary and the press have a formal education? If so, they'd be as free to participate in the process as anyone.

Clearly, I have returned to the party late, but I'll put in my ten cents' worth regardless.

That's nice that you think that. Please provide one example of one society in human history that has managed to educate all of its children equally, regardless of their race, gender, or socioeconomic level. Then tell me why the United States is any different. Like I said, I believe firmly that we can make considerable and important changes to the imbalance in our educational system, but I do not believe that we will ever achieve such parity so as to render the racism, sexism, and, most of all, incredible elitism of your plan null and void.

I agree. You could. It's never going to happen.

I am, too, a huge fan of Obama's proposed education reforms. Sending a bunch of wet-behind-the-ears college kids into the crushing deprivation of America's inner cities is not going to fix the problem. It will most likely help, yes, but it'd be a drop in the bucket. Throwing money and nubile sacrifices at our schools is not going to make the problem disappear.

No, no, that's not what we're reacting to. I recognize that you don't think that people who haven't finished college are retards. But you do think that they're not fit to participate in the decision making process that shapes their lives and the lives of their children. That's just as offensive.

If you admit that there are those who managed to educate themselves in a non-traditional way why, then, would you deny them full participation as citizens? If you admit that there are those who, despite access to higher education, still manage to be ignorant, why would you permit them to participate?

Oh! Well, that's a horse of a different color!

Wait. No it's not.

Don't throw books at me. I don't care what you're endorsing and where it comes from - it does nothing to help the untenable stance that you're taking here.

It is.

Got an 'A' in rhetoric, hm?

Your argument, as I perceive it, has two parts. One - we should improve the primary and secondary education system in this country to create parity. Two - parity achieved, persons should be required to receive a college education before they attain full citizenship. As I do not believe that the first part of your argument is possible, the second part, lest you wish to create an utterly unfair system, is also impossible. I see no disconnect between my two lines of reasoning.

Did it ever occur to you that perhaps some people neither want nor need to go to college, but still have every right to participate as full citizens? What use does a garbage collector have for a BA in English? Why on earth does a dental hygienist need to spend four years in school when she could be out working?

Many of the people I know who didn't go to college wouldn't go if you paid them.

Yeah, because all us college educated people all know that getting one's education solely consists of going to lecture for nine hours a week. Studying? What's that?

But here's the very heart of our problem - you are automatically assuming that your value system is acceptable and correct for everyone else. For you, college is "improvement." Why do you assume that everyone else perceives it strictly as such? Getting an education, particularly a higher education, is a complex experience that can't be reduced to the simplistic idea of "improvement."

Fine. You don't live in a financial ivory tower. Few college kids who plan to go beyond their BA/BS do. But you've sure constructed a nice, tall, shiny intellectual one.

So am I. Forcing people into school and disenfranchising them if they don't go isn't going to fix this. It's just going to lead to a group of people who must sit idly by while others merrily vote against their interests.

Cuchulain, as I typed this, it occurred to me that, according to your public profile, you have yet to earn your Bachelor's degree. I earned mine seven years ago, and my Master's degree two months ago. There are many, many other people on this message board who also hold a couple of degrees. A lot of them are in this thread. Given this and given your conception of how the world should work, why on earth do you think you have the right to tell people far more educated than you how we should run our political system? You should probably just defer to your betters on this one.

Cuchulain, I'm not going to argue against you. But, I am going to tell you to re-read this thread in 5 years and realize that you're coming across as the absolute stereotype of a college kid exposed to philosophy for the first time.

Also, no rebuttal based on how you read and understood Kant at age 12 is going to change the fact that your ideas are hopelessly naive while remaining deeply intrinsically offensive.

Not at all. Most of the really heinous crap that's come down in recent years is coming from people who are trained in that area. Take, for example, John Yoo who teaches law at Berkeley and was part of the Bush Admin's legal apparatus (I forget where, but I believe he was very high up in the DOJ). Yoo authored the Unitary Executive theory that the Bush admin loves so much. Because of Yoo's scholarship, we know have an Executive branch that believes it can subvert any Constitutional protection it believes necessary and none of the co-equal branches have any say over their actions. This is an ugly and repugnant view of the Executive and creates a potential for abuse.

However, giving Yoo the benefit of the doubt, there probably are indications in the law that this is a sound legal theory. (Fuck, I never thought I'd write those words.) And here lies the problem with all this educated voter stuff: an educated voting populace does not come to the same conclusions. There is no one right answer that the educated populace, or voters, will come to if they examined the issues thoroughly. In policy matters everything is gray and lots of highly educated and experienced people disagree with solutions, and their individual solutions are perfectly valid. To put it plainly, I doubt very much that Paul Krugman would agree with the Ph.ds in economics who work at the Cato institute.

The end result being thus: an educated populace will not result in superior results to what we have now. An educated person may be able to better articulate what's happening, but they will still vote according to their own prejudices, emotions and self-interests.

Well, the title of this thread is Things You Were Completely Wrong About...

Ah, I finally understand. Cuchulain was just getting a jump on the thread title by being completely wrong right now. Very clever, Mr. Cuchulain.

But don't you think that educated people tend to be able to disassociate themselves more easily from their prejudices and elevate themselves above the fray for the common good? For instance, I once read a fine essay by a gentleman (perhaps a nutritional science major?) who dispassionately and clearly proposed a modest solution to the plight of Irish poverty.

Well, there's your problem: emotion. As soon as we mass-produce Prozium we'll all start voting in a calm, rational way.

You know thing I really detest about this idea that only educated people should be able to vote, is that it assumes that our government and the politics that goes with it is something that is difficult to understand.

In truth, it really is not.

One of my favorite things that Noam Chomsky talks about is the guys that will call into AM sports talk shows that know more about the sport than the hosts along with the athletes, coaches, and team owners.

The truth is that our system isn't so complicated that it couldn't be understood almost in full, by a twelve year old. Most of us are just distracted by a thousand other things that don't really mean a damn.

And had the world only listened we might be spared the horror of U2. Ah, missed opportunities.

Loving this thread! Too bad Mr. Elite hasn't made it to Aristotle yet.

By the way, "education" and "degree" have become rather flexible terms. Should the guy who has a degree in Nutrition have an equal vote to the guy who majored in History? How about Computer Science? Does a degree from a technical school count as much as a state run university? Maybe people from culinary schools should only get 2/3s of a vote!

FYI here in 2008 you can educate yourself just fine without a formal degree. For anyone who is interested check out www.techco.com for just one example.

I'd give you Rep for that but they took it away! Well said.

One (if not THE) major hurdle you missed is that even today there are many parents who don't value education.

Ah man, don't be like that.

I work with DeVry guys. Between three of them, actually. It's like working the closing shift at McDonald's. Non-fucking-stop conversations on either side of me about videogames is not professional.

Yeah, but that doesn't mean the institution they went to is flawed. I used to work with a bunch of people who graduated from "real" schools and they were dipshits too.

Non-traditional education is the future. Not everyone needs to go to a traditional university to be successful. I got my undergrad at University of Phoenix and I'm doing fine. I went to law school, passed the bar, and now I'm at a top tier law school getting my legal masters in tax law.

Oh, I was getting to it. I was just waiting for Fr. Ivory Tower to come back.

I hope you're talking in some kind of very general terms here. Our constitution has made the smartest people this country has ever produced cringe with its unbelievable complexity for over 200 years now. To suggest that anyone is fit to say that they completely understand our system of government is ridiculous.

So, if you're talking about learning where presidential candidates stand on issues and what the job the president pro tempore of the senate is, I agree. If you're talking about anything deeper, I think you just stepped in it.

Well I meant this mostly on the more general and broad level, but I think it definitely applies to even deeper levels, and to suggest otherwise is to give into the flat out lie that the common man is not fit to understand how our government works (or rather how it is supposed to), and therefore isn't fit to decide who is best to govern.

You see the argument being made is that those in power want the people to believe they can't understand these things, because if they did they wouldn't be in power. You also have to take into account the fact that the framers, in majority, were not actually fond of the idea of majority rule, and the constitution was designed more to benefit the upper class than the mob. Media figures into this because it literally infiltrates almost every facet of life with distractions.

Chomsky goes even more in depth on this topic, pointing to clear examples, but I can't recall it all from memory. As does Gore Vidal in The 2nd American Revolution, amongst other works.

If it is complicated, it is more complicated in writing than in actual practice and unnecessarily so. It is not so complicated that it cannot be understood by almost anyone, our society has simply been dumbed down. Take for example that the average citizen in The Netherlands (I mention this since I am Dutch, and my grandparents were Dutch immigrants) speaks at least 4 languages. They actually have to learn 4 languages to graduate High School.

So yeah, this "our government is too complicated" talk is pure bullshit.

Ok, I think I see what you're saying. But, I think, in so far as you're responding to my point, you're wrong. The common man isn't fit to understand our system of government. You realize that many top schools have majors in "Government" and some allow you to major in "the Constitution"? The complexity of our political system is no joke, and I'm not talking about the nitty-gritty stuff, either. I suppose I would be willing to concede that if the common man dedicated himself to the study of the government, he could get a reasonable grasp on the system is fair, but we're not here to discuss pipe dreams. I no more believe that the common man is capable of understanding the American government than I believe that most politicians are capable of explaining to me the proper means of hedging futures in a commodities market.

Where I think you and I agree is that the common man in intelligent enough to make decisions about the people and the policies that govern this country. I certainly believe that most people are capable, if they so choose, of looking at the abortion issue and deciding how they feel it should be resolved. I have much, much less faith that these same people could describe to me the means by which they would either (1) mandate that abortion be outlawed or (2) command that all states provide for legalized abortion. These types or procedural questions are exceptionally important, but you're not going to understand them by armchair study. It's simply not the way it works. It would be like claiming that theoretical physicists are only using quantum mechanics in order to keep the common man out of the system.

As for your point on majority rule, you've lost me. Are you for it or against it? How do you feel about the erosion of the police power in the last several decades?

But it is not because they are incapable. That's the point.

Absolutely I'm for it.

Erosion? Really? Where? I havn't noticed a decrease in law enforcement, but if there is one. GOOD.

Are seriously comparing government to theoretical physics? That's absurd. However this also works completely against what you're arguing. Because it really doesn't take years and years of studying books and history and laws to understand government. It just takes a little more participation, and alot less distractions like following whose trying to break home run records and whose is or isn't on steroids and what Nikes give you the best traction with the most comfortable fit.

Ok, you keep editing, and it's tough to keep up. But, this post convinced me, once and for all, that you don't know what you're talking about. The unbelievable rate of change in the Fourth Amendment (which is one of the biggies, so far as our day-to-day lives are concerned) is more than government and legal scholars can keep up with.

Of course, you've equated learning a language, which for most people stays well within the realm of memorization, with trying to resolve what falls into the sphere of the Right to Privacy. Stop trying to swim in the deep end. I have no doubt that Chomsky could hand me my ass in this debate, but you're not making sense.

Then you're really not a big fan of the American system of government.

The police power is the sphere of power granted to the states, which is everything not enumerated in the Constitution. It's not about the police. Erosion of the police power has been a big deal for the last few decades.

Only if we hire Grammaton Clerics to enforce it.

Really? I work at an auctioning house. Some of my fellow employees (and these are people who do not have any sort of degree that is specific to this kind of field, but are just simply people who collect and trade memorabilia) are people who can look at an autographed game used baseball and tell you exactly what year it came from, and sometimes they even get it right down to very game it was used just looking at the damn thing. They could also tell you the intricate details about game used jerseys down to the very specific fibers that were used to make them, from decades back all the way to today, and pretty much anything else pertaining to the world of memorabilia. And we get tens of thousands of items and only a handful of people process them, authenticate them, process them, write them, etc.

The rate of change their is alot more constant than the 4th amendment. So do not tell me that it is truly impossible to have a decent understanding of that.

But even more importantly, the specific details of the 4th Amendment seems like an area of law where one can be very easily caught up in all sorts of minutia. And it is not something that is necessary to understand in order to have a firm grasp on American Government. Much of that information could be considered somewhat arbitrary due to the fact that it also is not completely, strictly enforced. As our government tends to take certain liberties (often even more liberty here than what has been given to them) against these and certain other protections, and the people too often don't seem to care enough or ignore these rights without provocation.

I would also argue again that the complications are somewhat unnecessary. And to at least some extent (again) are more complicated on paper than in practice.

Understand this though: the point I'm making is not that all American citizens should be able to quote our entire history of law and all the changes that have taken place, but that the majority of people are wrongfully convinced that they do not have the capacity for understanding necessary to decide matters of law and government, and therefore are willing to give this power to a relatively small group of individuals who do not really have the interests of the majority in mind.

*gives up*

No, I am truly not. But it is more accurate to say I am not a fan of the idea of a handful of people governing and deciding things for the majority. I'm also not convinced that people cannot be made, for the most part, capable of governing their selves.

I see, on certain issues I agree with eroding away certain powers granted to the states, like those that would impede upon alternative lifestyles and so forth. In other areas this has been a travesty of justice, like federal government stipulations that have kept California from regulating their own fossil fuel emissions, for example.

Totally missed this, but thanks dude. At least we agree on something.

They are called Electors. The small states are helped by the Electoral College because the number of electors is the same as the number of Senators plus the number of Representatives. (Plus a candidate is locked into only 55 electoral votes from California, even if he/she dominates with 75% of it's popular vote. A smaller state's votes would get overwhelmed by just the extra population in California that counts toward the national popular vote but does not factor in the electoral college system.)

It is more complex system, but I don't know if it is unneeded. There are pros and cons. Personally, I like how it makes it a race to win the popular votes of all 50 states instead of just 1 large vote. We are called the United States, after all.

Why do you consider this a good thing?