Man of the People

Democracy is overrated.

I spent this afternoon at a nearby college library researching the No Child Left Behind Act for the final paper of my online course (which must incidentally be a minimum of 10 pages long - the same length as a paper for a graduate English course, but that's another rant). In my reading, I learned some interesting facts from the a report published by the National Assessment of Educational Progress in 1998:
>> 10 million high school students cannot read at the basic level.
>> More than 25 million students do not know basic U.S. history.
>> More than 20 million high school students cannot do basic math.
Not too long ago, in a source I've since forgotten (because I wasn't planning to do any citations with it), I learned that 2/3 of Americans don't know that the United States has three branches of government. I thought that was American Civics 101!?

Rampant ignorance hardly surprises me. In simply observing the world, one can conclude that most of the world simply isn't that educated. I'm not talking about intelligence here; statistically speaking, approximately 49% of the American public should be of above average intelligence. A person can be smart and still uneducated, and according to just about every measure American public schools, our country isn't exactly a crew of scholars.

Which brings me back to my original statement about democracy. The common wisdom in America is that we have a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people." But the much ballyhooed "people" don't inspire me with a lot of confidence. In fact, most of the founding fathers felt the same way. That's why we don't really have a true "democracy" in this country - we have a republic. We elect who we feel is the most qualified to represent our interests and make intelligent decisions on our behalf.

I always grumble when I hear people talk about how elected officials should listen to their constituencies and do whatever they want. It sounds nice in theory, but think about the complications in practice. In determining policies and laws, officials should ideally be poring over dozens if not hundreds of documents to research all the angles and points of view. Then intelligent decisions can be made by people who actually know what they're talking about. Remember, 2/3 of the American public doesn't even know that we HAVE three branches of government, so putting stock in their opinion of government issues seems unwise to me.

If you want a nice counterexample, take a look at California. They really do have a democracy with regards to all laws. Whenever some new legislation is introduced, Californians go to the polls to vote on it. Again, this sounds great in theory, but remember the blithering idiots who are voting. For instance, when Proposition 8 (regarding gay marriage) came up for a vote, do you think every Californian considered the legal, historical, sociological, and political implications of the decision? Or do you think most of them just said, "I hate those fucking faggots!" or "Gay people seem nice to me!" and cast their vote accordingly?

Now lest you think I put myself above everyone else, let me just say that I have very little understanding of most political issues. I stay reasonably well-informed with regards to what's happening in the country and the world, but when it comes to specific legislation, I'm just as ignorant as the next guy. I put a lot of faith in my elected officials to make the right calls. And I don't care how informed you are; on some level everyone does. We all can't be informed on every single area that the government handles. There are government agencies overseeing the economy, global warming, education, health care, agriculture, industry, transportation, parks, international relations, and countless other issues that concern all of us. We elected people we find to be credible and intelligent, and we trust them to wade through the mountains of legal mumbo-jumbo in order to make the right calls.

I don't want the government to listen to me. I don't know shit! I approach government this way: I observe my elected officials and if their results are positive, I just might reelect them. I try not to get hung up on specific policies because there could be 100 different perspectives that I failed to consider in forming my opinion. Should our sales tax be increased to 23% so that we can reduce income and property taxes? Hell if I know. Don't ask me about it, Mr. Elected Official, and don't look at the opinion polls. Go ask some economists with twelve degrees and look at some industry reports. Quit using "the will of the people" as an excuse for making bad policy. People are fucking dumb.

Of course, this whole argument is undercut by the corrupt, ignorant, glory-seeking, money-grubbing, ass-kissing, philandering politicians who litter our public offices.... and that doesn't even include Sarah Palin and Mark Sanford!

I suppose we could always try to educate the masses... though that would be a job for those educator-types who want to be high school teachers. And we all know how loony those people are!

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JP realizes that he's practically declared his full support for some sort of bourgeois dictatorship, so feel free to completely disregard his entire argument.