How Much Longer Can America Survive an Ignorant Electorate?

NewsBull ^ | August 9, 2007 | JB Williams

[PlainOleAmerican]

Can any representative republic survive a progressively ignorant electorate? Can freedom be sustained in any society hell-bent upon taxing its productive members out of existence, for benefit of its non-productive? Can people unable to successfully govern their own lives be entrusted with the power to govern others?

Not to be unkind, but we need to face facts here. So long as a republic represents the will of the brave, it will remain the home of the free. When it’s run by the productive members of society, it will remain prosperous. When it’s governed by the independent minded, it will not be dependent upon anyone. When run by those with a healthy respect for individual rights, special interests will no longer need special consideration.

But when cowards, thieves and thugs run things, those who believe that some progressive form of socialism is better than individual freedom and personal achievement, freedom is diminished. When those seeking to rob the rich in the name of the poor while stuffing their own pockets and growing their own political power run things, then the republic represents cowardly thieves, not the people.

[Lancey Howard]

I think the founders had it right in the first place. Only male property owners who could demonstrate that they could read, write and understand the Constitution were allowed to vote.

I agree 100%.

[Age of Reason]

How Much Longer Can America Survive an Ignorant Electorate?

Does a fisherman say the reason he didn't catch enough fish is because the fish were too ignorant to appreciate his bait?

In other words, a candidate and his backers should not blame the people when their candidate fails to persuade the people.

That burden of leadership is the candidate's to bear.

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, "But in ourselves . . . "

[VermiciousKnid]

"Bread and Circuses is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader--the barbarians enter Rome."
(Robert Heinlein, To Sail Beyond the Sunset, pg. 227)

Regards,

[ExSES]

Can any representative republic survive a progressively ignorant electorate?

At exactly what point have we ever had an informed electorate (outside of sugar-coated textbook illusions)?

There has always existed a small cadre of "opinion makers" who, with sufficient charisma (or booze and dollars) have led forth the voters needed to swing elections (local/state/ or federal).

[Centurion2000]

swwet .,.... thanks for the tagline

[Centurion2000]

swwet .,.... thanks for the tagline

[Dr.Zoidberg]

“Vote for the liar. He promises more!”

These days, your vote could be cast at random and you'd still get the same promises.

All politician are liars, it's in the job description right below power hungry and self aggrandizing, but is he MY kind of liar?

That's the only outstanding question.

[Hazwaste]

I don’t subscribe to the “America is doomed” argument. The American electorate has proven to be not just ignorant, but downright stupid more often than not since our country’s birth.

Somehow we just keep ticking.

[Theodore R.]

Actually, I don’t think any of the GOP candidates can defeat HRC. The people just want another Clinton, and I don’t think we can do much about it.

[pierstroll]

Thanx, no kitten scratches, yet. LOL!

[upcountryhorseman]

The Founding Fathers didn’t trust a democracy of the masses,
witness the French Revolution. That’s the reason for a
representative government; However, the controls have been weakened over time: Senators were supposed to be appointed
by state legislatures.

[wardaddy]

I doubt we will survive period.

No nation ever does.

We are going to allow the third world to consume our culture because we are too guilty to stop them.

[brityank]

BFLR Bump

[ashtanga]

When was the last time we had a President who had an IQ of 120 or higher, had read more than five novels, and was not an internationalist?

[BamaAndy]

Wow! Nice writing! And on point—it’s pretty much what we have in the congress now.

[RipSawyer]

How Much Longer Can America Survive an Ignorant Electorate?

Does a fisherman say the reason he didn’t catch enough fish is because the fish were too ignorant to appreciate his bait?

In other words, a candidate and his backers should not blame the people when their candidate fails to persuade the people.

That burden of leadership is the candidate’s to bear.

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, “But in ourselves . . .
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

All that is great rhetoric but the fact remains that it is pretty much impossible to win over an idiot by reasoned discourse and there is really no parrallel between fish and voters except that we have too many voters who are biting the plastic worm of totalitarianism. We allow people to vote even when they don’t have the ability to find the polling place on their own. The vast majority of our young voters have had no proper instruction in how this nation came to be or how it is supposed to function. Bill Clinton convinced me that most people who are voting should not be.

There are those who understand the meaning of freedom and responsibility and those who don’t. This nation cannot survive indefinitely when those who don’t even understand the meaning of freedom and who think this is supposed to be a democracy are in charge. This is supposed to be a government of the people, by the people and for the people as Lincoln said in Gettysburg. In the end the people will get the government they deserve. I suspect that Thomas Jefferson or George Washington would have zero chance of winning a nomination for president today.

[PlainOleAmerican]

In a Democracy, men are elected to lead the people.

In a Republic, men are elected to represent the people.

In the first, they lead.

In the second, we lead.

What we have today is what happens when nobody leads...

[Mr. Jeeves]

Considering how most people nowadays only make an effort to remember things in cute, catchy sound bites, this is gonna go straight over their heads. Unless you can condense the above into something that the uninformed among us can easily remember, you might as well not bother.

"If you take the government's money, it owns you."

[PlainOleAmerican]

In 1776...

We remained in pretty good shape until the period 1913 through 1946 or so.

But I would agree with others on this thread, certain events were serious tipping points.

1 - the 17th Amendment ended Washington representation of “states rights”.

2 - The 16th Amendment gave the fed the right to plunder the productive against their will.

3 - FRD’s Raw Deal taught a previously free independent individual to look to the fed as a solution rather than a problem.

So, 19th century America still functioned on the founding principles. Since the early 1900’s, those principles have been tossed overboard for a greater communal good.

Now, the nation is run by parasites to the ultimate death of the productive.

[PlainOleAmerican]

Like a time-bomb...