[lit-ideas] Re: Theory of democracy...
- From: Andy Amago <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Lit-Ideas <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 20:12:58 -0400 (GMT-04:00)
----Original Message-----
From: Andreas Ramos <andreas@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Aug 25, 2004 5:59 PM
To: Lit-Ideas <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [lit-ideas] Theory of democracy...
The current New Yorker has a short article on democracy and voting. It points
out that
researchers have found that only 10% of the voters have a clear understanding
of the issues.
The other 90% just guess at it: they vote on whether the candidate has a nice
smile, if the
weather has been good or bad (this alone accounted for several million votes in
the last
election), and so on. 90% of voters are clueless. They hold contradictory ideas
(for
example, they want lower taxes and more services) or not much of any ideas at
all.
Democracy, in theory, sounds good, if everyone were equally rational, but in
reality, it's
no better than having a king chosen by his decendence from Apollo (or your
favorite local
sky god.) In any form of government, the 10% have to contend with the inertia
of the
remaining 90%.
A.A. CNN ran a story today that compared the candidates' comedy/entertainment
styles. They said one of the best things candidate Clinton did was play that
saxophone on Arcenio Hall. It got him more votes than any other thing.
Likewise Kerry has been making the comedy circuit lately, learning to smile. I
didn't see the part on Bush.
90% is just about everbody, including the so called "educated". So it doesn't
matter who's in the White House, because nobody knows what's going on. I saw
an interview with Denny Hastert, the Speaker of the House, second most powerful
man in the country. Sad to say I never heard of him. He spent (I might be
slightly exaggerating this, but not much) about 15 minutes relating the story
of how the chaplain was selected. I would have thought the whole selection
process for a chaplain would have taken 15 minutes, but it took that long just
for the summary. No wonder nothing is getting done in this Congress and they
just went along with invading Iraq. Don't even ask that we're having the heck
taxed out of us.
Andy Amago
yrs,
andreas
www.andreas.com
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