Democracy Doubts

Like Rush Limbaugh before me, I'm going to say something deeply unpopular.  You ready for it?  Here it is:

I'm not so sure about this whole "democracy" thing we have going on in the U.S.

There's been a lot of talk about voter suppression laws lately, and it's just not an issue I can get incredibly excited about, because deep down, in a dark place I don't like to talk about, I don't believe that everyone should be voting.

Now, to clarify, I don't think that people should be kept from voting on the basis of race, class, income, party affiliation, or anything like that.  I simply think that we should weed out people based on stupidity.  If you're stupid, you should not be voting.  Simple as that.

"How would we gauge levels of stupidity?" you might be asking.  Well, of course the simplest way would be to let me decide on each and every person's ability to vote, but since that would be prohibitively time-consuming, I've devised a quick test that we could administer when people are registering to vote.  Here's my draft:

Question 1.  What are the 3 branches of government?

                    a. legislative, bureaucratic & socialistic
                    b. legislative, executive & judicial
                    c. maple, oak & pine
                    d. I thought there were only 2

If you answered a, c, or d, you don't get to vote.

Question 2.  Who is the current vice-president of the United States?
                   
                    a. Barack Obama
                    b. Dick Cheney
                    c. Joe Biden
                    d. Barack Obama is a socialist

If you answered a, b, or d, you don't get to vote.

Question 3.  Who is Kim Kardashian currently dating?
                   
                    a. Kanye West
                    b. Michael Jordan
                    c. I don't really give a shit
                    d. Who is Kim Kardashian?

Unless you answered c or d, you don't get to vote.

Question 4. Please name at least one of your U.S. Senators.

If you can't name at least one, you don't get to vote.

Question 5. Which of the following programs could be correctly defined as "socialist?"
                  
                   a. the Fire Department
                   b. the Police Department
                   c. the local public school
                   d. Obamacare

If you answered d, you don't get to vote.

We could always throw some essay questions in there just to make it a little more fair, but I think these questions would be a good start.  I'm not so concerned about who people are voting for.  My concern is that people are voting based on 30 second TV ads and then doing no further research on the issues.

My brother has a theory that our democracy is the very thing that is making our society so collectively stupid.  His theory goes that because we have so much freedom, we are free to be lazy, apathetic and uninformed.  I think he may be right. 

Am I saying we should go to an all-out dictatorship? Not necessarily.  That would only work if I were the dictator.  But maybe we should invest a little more in public information on government.  We are doing a terrible job of teaching basic civics to our children, and it has made us a more divided, divisive society, which makes me fear for our future.

Best and Brightest

I was listening to MPR the other day and former Minnesota Governor Arne Carlson was being interviewed.  For those who don't know, Arne Carlson was our Governor in the 90's (pre - Jesse "the Body") and he was one of those old-school Republicans who actually seemed to believe in limited government, fiscal responsibility and, god-forbid, compromise with Democrats.  During the interview he was expressing some disappointment with the current field of Republicans (or Republi"can'ts" as I'm going to start calling them). 

He said that the idea of government used to be "putting up your best and brightest to run for public office."  These days as we all know, stupidity has become an ever-increasing virtue when it comes to being a viable candidate for public office, at least where the Republican'ts are concerned.

Take for example Mike LeMieur.  He was the Republican candidate running for the state House in my neighboring town of Little Falls.  I watched this man speak in a tea-party sponsored debate last year, and I swear to god he was dumb as a box of rocks.  He was asked many fairly simple questions to which he responded, "I don't know, I'm just a plumber."  When asked whether Shariah Law was a threat to the US, he actually answered by saying "I don't know what that is."  And this guy won!!  He was anti-choice and anti-gay and that was enough for the voters apparently.

In that same debate, the Democratic candidate running for the state Senate seat in my district was Taylor Stevenson.  He's in his early twenties and just graduated from Dartmouth with a political science degree.  He's young, sure, but he's a brilliant guy!  You can speak to him on basically any topic and have a very intelligent conversation with him.  He knows his shit, so to speak.  But of course, he lost to anti-choice, anti-gay Paul Gazelka, who went to Oral Roberts University.

I really can't understand why people are so eager to send idiots into public office.  I like to think I'm somewhat intelligent, but I want someone much, much smarter than me running the government.  When did that go out of fashion?