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Wrexasaur wrote:The funny part is that people are actually finding their own news now, and while they may not get the full scope on the interwebz, they can if they want.

No really, they aren't. The news is out there, you got that right, but people can't be bothered to do a simple Google search.

Cairnius wrote:The "tripe" I was referring to was, therefore, these sorts of statements made by some Republicans in Congress which then lead to these poll results. Comparing my choosing to read some value into those poll results with people doubting that their President is a citizen of the country he governs as Chief Executive as equivalent acts of stupidity is just a poor exercise in snark, to be sure...but that someone then cheers it on sort of proves my original point...

I think you're being a little bit melodramatic here. Sebster was pointing out that giving any validity to either scenario isn't worth anybody's time.

Cairnius wrote:That ANYONE would belief crap like this is why our politics don't work..."Democracy is dependent upon the education and participation of the citizenry," said Franklin. When we have voters THIS stupid so as to believe lines like these, it's a wonder that anything, ever, gets done.
<snip>

Seriously...the tripe that so many Americans seem to lap up like servile children should have ceased amazing me a long, long time ago, but I still find myself getting irritated when I read articles like the one I linked to. Just how stupid ARE people?

Link's dead, so I can't respond to the article. I will respond with this: United States citizens don't live in a Democracy; we live in a Republic.

The intelligence tests you seem to be clamoring for can be directly compared to the literacy tests US states administered to voters. They were struck down by the US Supreme Court as discriminatory during the Civil Rights movements of the 1960s.

Personally I think the test for voting rights should be not one of literacy but of contribution. If you pay taxes (I mean REALLY pay taxes, not suck off the public teat by filing and getting tax credits every year) or serve in the US military then you should have the right to vote. If you subsist on public funds and show no net input into the tax system you should not be allowed to vote on matters that may take monies out of the public coffers.

The media sucks but partisan politics is what really kills it. People care more about putting down the other party and "winning" than actually talking about issues and resolving them. Nowhere is this more apparent than online forums and this one is far from the exception.

Check this movie out in case you haven't seen it; relates to the topic and could be a glimpse of our future:

Cairnius wrote:Precisely...which is why I say "I wish" rather than actually create a fringe movement to implement this sort of thing. My wish implies that the test would be set up correctly, but because I know that to be an impossibility I just relegate it to the realm of waking dream rather than a pursuit in reality.

Mmm, but then consider the sorts of things you'd need that would allow a test to be set up correctly. They are the same conditions that would render such a test unnecessary.

When I first encounter a new person, the first thing I look for is whether they have the ability to think or not. I may not get the information at first, but the clipboard and paper are always ready to jot down the answer...and whether or not I continue having anything to do with them short of being mandated to do so by circumstance of employment or family has entirely to do with which box gets checked...and how well I get to know them, how much I share with them, etc. is highly truncated until after I have that answer.

Next comes whether they're moral and ethical or an a-hole, but that's question #2...and again, I don't always get the answer right away...but let's get back to question #1.

I don't ask WHAT people are thinking, but whether they can think at all. In the absence of empirical fact to back an argument it comes down to making logical connections between pieces of information that you think make your case, i.e. logic. You can use logic to construct very strong arguments on many different sides of an issue and have lots of people disagreeing vehemently with each other, but at least they're all thinking properly, i.e. logically, when they do it.

Not everything can be settled through logical discussion, of course. Emotions are sometimes the crux of an issue, and rightfully so...
but even then emotion becomes the decisive factor in which side of an issue you fall on, like in moral philosophy, but you STILL can exercise logical argument to make your point.


I find that where our government fails first and foremost is in the admission that SOMETHING needs to be done when it needs to be done, because they don't all know how to think.

Health care, for example. Something needs to be done. It is not working. Not enough of us have access to it. Lack of preventative care is costing us money. I fail to see how anyone could argue that we're doing okay as it is right now if they're thinking about what success would be. It's health care. It is not a no-brainer. "Health" should probably give it away - if your nation is healthy, i.e. if all its citizens can get the medical care they need, and if it isn't costing you a zillion dollars to pay for it, then your health care system is working.

Ours is not; yet it doesn't feel to me as though our government has acknowledged this simple fact yet. IT ISN'T WORKING.

Once you make that admission, you then need to start asking yourself what, precisely, our health care system IS.

Then you would look at things like insurance companies, and have to admit that they are part of the system and hence part of the problem and hence need to be addressed. There would be no one advocating for the insurance companies because they are clearly part of, but not all, of the problem - so they need to sit back and let what happens to them happen.

Then you could look at things like access, and have to admit that people getting emergency care in emergency rooms that they cannot pay for and which the State has to take care of is much more expensive than granting access to preventative care, and then there's an argument for getting everyone insured.

Etc.


So, if we could devise a test by which someone can illustrate that they know HOW to think, not WHAT to think, that would be a step in the right direction...and surely we can get together a council with equal representation of every different kind of American we can think of to devise such a test such that it is gender, race, cultural, and sexual-orientation neutral...

Just prove that you CAN think. Then you can vote. Is that so hard?

Cairnius wrote:
Attempts at wit are always appreciated. Thanks both for playing, and for setting up a proof of my argument.

There is a marked difference between a poll and direct statements made by politicians to the media.

What direct statement are you referring to? Because you never actually mentioned them in your original post, nor even alluded to them. Could it be that you're making a poor attempt at back-pedaling? I though that was something only the dirty politicians did.

Cairnius wrote:
Any graduate student who has taken a Research Methods course knows better than to take a poll at face value, but he or she also knows better than to entirely invalidate the results automatically just because they come from a poll. This is a fairly simple question - "Do you think Obama is a United States citizen?" There's not a whole lot of room for interpretation. This isn't some 100-question survey such that we need to look seriously into its design to verify the veracity of the results, or whether we want to look at them at all.

Any first year graduate student would also know that the sample of "Republicans" providing information for a poll conducted by a decidedly Liberal source is exceedingly likely to be subject to bias via self-selection.

Its also nowhere near as simple as you are attempting to make it. Despite historical precedent, citizenship is not a cut-and-dry matter in this country. Throw in the implicit complications of natural born citizenship vis a vis the Presidency, and you have a reasonably complex issue which was likely treated in an overly simplistic manner so as to artificially affect the result.

Cairnius wrote:
56% is too high a percentage to just blow off. Anything above 10% is well beyond "just the lunatic fringe," and clearly is indicative of a tremendous amount of just plain stupidity. In this case it may actually be more an indicator of servility, in the sense of Republicans lapping up what they are being told by some of their leaders that Obama has never produced his birth certificate which is an out-and-out lie.

In brief: What constitutes a Republican? And what was the sample of "Republicans" in this poll?

Cairnius wrote:
The "tripe" I was referring to was, therefore, these sorts of statements made by some Republicans in Congress which then lead to these poll results. Comparing my choosing to read some value into those poll results with people doubting that their President is a citizen of the country he governs as Chief Executive as equivalent acts of stupidity is just a poor exercise in snark, to be sure...but that someone then cheers it on sort of proves my original point...

You really have no understanding of confirmation bias, do you?

Cairnius wrote:
When I graduated from college with my B.A. my first job as a 20-year-old was working at a company that sold their products through telemarketing. Benefits of a film degree when you don't move out to NYC or LA.

I was a telemarketer for a month, then an appointment confirmer for a few weeks, then asst. manager of the office, and then got promoted out of the telemarketing room into the corporate office working in the finance department. It was a pretty odd leap.

When they offered me the job I took it right away, but then I asked why had they offered it to me? I was only working in the telemarketing office after all, and hadn't demonstrated any of the skills they were going to need me to exercise on a regular basis, I thought. Hence the question.

The owner, a huge 6' 5" Aryan-looking guy, classical percussionist, very sharp and very demanding, looked at me and said "It's a matter of intelligence recognizing intelligence."

I've never forgotten that moment because it explained a whole lot of things I'd borne witness to until then and has continued to explain a lot of things thereafter.

So, in addition to defending a point which was poorly made, and foolishly biased you decided to include an anecdote designed to affirm your own ego? Where are you hiding your squid-monster?

Cairnius wrote:Arrogant Self Aggrandizement

Wow, that was literally painful to read.

Cairnius wrote:
I find that where our government fails first and foremost is in the admission that SOMETHING needs to be done when it needs to be done, because they don't all know how to think.

Or perhaps they know exactly how to think, but simply prefer to think in terms of the constituency they represent.

Cairnius wrote:
Ours is not; yet it doesn't feel to me as though our government has acknowledged this simple fact yet. IT ISN'T WORKING.

Really? Because I'm seeing an awful lot of time and attention being paid to that very issue.

Cairnius wrote:
So, if we could devise a test by which someone can illustrate that they know HOW to think, not WHAT to think, that would be a step in the right direction...and surely we can get together a council with equal representation of every different kind of American we can think of to devise such a test such that it is gender, race, cultural, and sexual-orientation neutral...

Just prove that you CAN think. Then you can vote. Is that so hard?

Cogito Ergo Sum. Unless you're the self-generating source of reality, everyone around you thinks.

Cairnius wrote:I find that where our government fails first and foremost is in the admission that SOMETHING needs to be done when it needs to be done, because they don't all know how to think.

There is a lack of critical thinking among people generally. I don’t think too many people will dispute that. However, I think the difference is that you’re saying the solution is to exclude those people, I'm saying the solution is to get more people thinking.

Health care, for example. Something needs to be done. It is not working. Not enough of us have access to it. Lack of preventative care is costing us money. I fail to see how anyone could argue that we're doing okay as it is right now if they're thinking about what success would be. It's health care. It is not a no-brainer. "Health" should probably give it away - if your nation is healthy, i.e. if all its citizens can get the medical care they need, and if it isn't costing you a zillion dollars to pay for it, then your health care system is working.

Ours is not; yet it doesn't feel to me as though our government has acknowledged this simple fact yet. IT ISN'T WORKING.

No, people acknowledge it isn’t working. Reform is being attempted because people acknowledge it isn’t working. The Republicans and astro-turf groups resisting reform acknowledge that it isn’t working. They oppose the plan because they disagree on the best course of improvement, or because it’s an easy issue to score points on Obama on the Democrats.

But everyone acknowledges there is a problem.

So, if we could devise a test by which someone can illustrate that they know HOW to think, not WHAT to think, that would be a step in the right direction...and surely we can get together a council with equal representation of every different kind of American we can think of to devise such a test such that it is gender, race, cultural, and sexual-orientation neutral...

Just prove that you CAN think. Then you can vote. Is that so hard?

Yes, it is hard. Because you want to measure the ability to think, not knowledge. A test developed to study the ability to think that was not only objective, but that also had every possible group satisified with its level of objectivity is just about impossible.

Then consider the risk of the major parties coaching their dutiful true believers in how to pass the test. Resulting in voter numbers skewing towards true believers, and away from those cynical about the process and the major parties.

Well, well, well... The last bastion of intelligent US citizens. Blasting away at the ignorant masses from atop the ivory tower of enlightenment that is the Dakkadakka gamer forum.

utan wrote:Well, well, well... The last bastion of intelligent US citizens. Blasting away at the ignorant masses from atop the ivory tower of enlightenment that is the Dakkadakka gamer forum.

True That.

utan wrote:Well, well, well... The last bastion of intelligent US citizens. Blasting away at the ignorant masses from atop the ivory tower of enlightenment that is the Dakkadakka gamer forum.

Ah yes, and that makes you......someone that didn't contribute anything useful to the thread.

I don't know Whitedragon, sometimes it's a good thing to point out that air is getting a little rarefied.