I fall into the same catagory as you (check out my website). I am a Christian and a libertarian.
What most people fail to realize is that the idea of seperation of church and state is there to protect the church just as much as it is to protect the state. Look in history when the church and state were either one in the same or very close to one another. It wasn't good for the church, nor was it good for the state. Think Rome, Britian, Spain...
Also, I think that we have to remember that under no circumstances should we attempt to impose our moralities on others via legislation/regulation. The reasoning behind this is that if/when we become a minority in this country then we don't want someone imposing their morals on us. The best way to avoid this is to ensure that the gov doesn't have power to legislate morality.
Now of course this takes into account the ideas that your rights end where mine begin (ie - you can't infringe on my rights by killing, stealing, raping etc...).
A couple of final thoughts: 1) I wish my fellow Christians would pull their heads out of their rear ends and think about things critically. The faith is spiritual but the world is intellectual - most Christians only get the first half of that.
and
2) I wish all of these athiest/secular humanists/agnostics (whoever) would quit labeling all Christians as prudes and mental cave men. Those are extreme gross generalizations.
And to everyone out there reading this I drink every once in a while, I listen to Metallica (the old stuff), I watch R rated movies, I have a high IQ, I believe evolution is a viable theory, I also happen to worship the Lord and love Jesus. People can still have their faith and enjoy life too!
Guess I wasn't the first post
on
A New Elena Story
·
· Score: -1, Redundant
DOH! Guess I wasn't the first post after all... what a shame... It's on my list of things to accomplish before I kick the bucket in 70 years or so.
BWT = BTW in case you didn't figure it out. I was in such a hurry to get the first post in I had a typo.
Well... I was born in Memphis, lived there for like 5 years, and then lived in Orlando for about 15.
I got my 2 year AA degree at Valencia (a cc in Orlando) and then decided to move upto Nashville to attend MTSU http://mtsu.edu/~record/ for a BS in the Recording Industry. I chose MTSU over FS because I wanted a 4 year degree in case I ever wanted to do something besides audio work.
The truth of the matter is that I am going to go into business as a synthetic oil distributor here in the Nashville area once I graduate and then keep my audio stuff as a supplimentary/hobby sort of income. I think the industry is too volatile at the moment for me to do it full time and expect to earn a decent living.
As a matter of fact I just flew down to OTown this weekend to mix monitors for two of my favorite Christian acts - Skillet and Disciple at a club down there (Last Wave).
Anyway man feel free to give me an e-mail next time or something. Good luck to ya.
Well the idea of the EC is that you have scholars and professionals that are not supposed to be swayed by the public opinion or political climate of the moment.
I am sure it isn't 100% foolproof but it is simply one of multiple checks and balances which help ensure the foundations of this country are maintained.
Unfortunately I am not privy to the specs of how the EC works and if it is based upon individual state law or federal law. If you want to read it (it isn't that long) visit here: http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/con stituti on.overview.html
another great read is: http://www.law.emory.edu/FEDERAL/independ/dec lar.h tml
Both of which had the ideals of John Locke's Social Contract (consent of the goverened): http://radicalacademy.com/hcdffilehom e5b.htm
I voted for him - I don't expect him to win though. I voted for him because I think Bush is the lesser of 2 evils and I would rather have Bush win than Kerry.
I live in TN so I am willing to bet that Bush will win here and thus able to chance voting for the canididate I think is best - this way my vote is still not "wasted" but yet I ensure the lesser of the two oligopolistic evils wins the state. I also get to send a message to the Libertarians that they have my support!
I never said anything about an intelligence test or that foolish people should be legally prevented from making a vote. I think one makes a terrible decision as a human being to participate in a process that you really don't understand, but I definately don't think anyone should legally prevent people from voting on account of 'intelligence.'
My statement wasn't a call for legal action to prevent people who don't know what's going on from voting, it was a call to people to stop encouraging everyone to go out and vote.
I am not suggesting anything about anybody being elite.
The ignorants should inform themselves and make their own decisions. With personal freedoms come individual responsibility. No one said it would be easy - life isn't fair.
It is also not the responsibility of anyone to do anything for anyone else. I happen to have a high IQ (as do many others on/.) but that doesn't mean I should be forced to go teach school or write opinions and publish them. The burden is on each and every individual.
About people that work 14 hours a day - if the government was smaller and took less tax from the people then Americans wouldn't have to spend nearly 1/4 of their day working to pay Uncle Sam instead of keeping the money they have earned for themselves.
We live in a democratic republic - not a socialistic charity state.
I am not suggesting anything about anybody being elite.
In this country we have a right to vote but we also have a responsibility to understand the issues and the canididates.
Unfortunately a lot of people tend to forget the second part of this.
My argument is that mass ignorance is very damaging to the democratic process and that if you don't understand how things work, then don't vote and quit screwing up the country for those of us who take the time to educate ourselves on the issues.
It is also not the responsibility of anyone to do anything for anyone else. I happen to have a high IQ (as do many others on/.) but that doesn't mean I should be forced to go teach school or write opinions and publish them. The burden is on each and every individual - that's the idea of personal responsibility; it comes with democracy and individual freedoms.
And I'm libertarian not a Republican. for more info check out http://www.lp.org
I am not suggesting anything about anybody being elite.
In this country we have a right to vote but we also have a responsibility to understand the issues and the canididates.
Unfortunately a lot of people tend to forget the second part of this.
My argument is that mass ignorance is very damaging to the democratic process and that if you don't understand how things work, then don't vote and quit screwing up the country for those of us who take the time to educate ourselves on the issues.
It is also not the responsibility of anyone to do anything for anyone else. I happen to have a high IQ (as do many others on/.) but that doesn't mean I should go teach school or write opinions and publish them. The burden is on each and every individual - that's the idea of personal responsibility; it comes with democracy and individual freedoms.
And I'm libertarian not a Republican. for more info check out http://www.lp.org
And that's EXACTLY how Hitler got in power! It kills me when people think the EC is unfair because that very system is designed to be a final fail-safe/proxy in case times are desperate.
Just imagine if some Arab detonates a nuke in one of our cities during an election year! Well if a canididate rises up and says that the US will now make it its duty to destroy all Arabs on the face of the planet and completely abolish their existance, a good portion of the US would vote for that guy based on his ideas at the time. The cry for blood (and rightly so) would be so large that it would outweigh reason and logic and would probably end up trampling the Constitution. The EC is here to prevent this.
The EC is there to prevent exactly that sort of thing from happining.
That's why libertarians think that government schools should be abolished. A large portion (but not the only reason) of why ignorance is so rampant is because the government likes to keep the populace uninformed. Couple this with the fact that government schools are largely incompetent and do a poor job at educating people anyway.
Not everything above is absolute but I most would probably agree with the above statements.
Actually the Cato Institute isn't conservative - they are libertarian - says it right on their front page:
Individual Liberty Limited Government Free Markets Peace
Conservatives don't generally approve of 100% of individual liberties and they also think that the markets should be regulated slightly. Recently though conservatives seem to be wanting more BIG government which is why I am voting for Badnarik http://www.Badnarik.org the Libertarian canididate.
If you are confused about what constitutes the 4 corners of the political spectrum visit this site: http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html
You have authortarian and libertarian at opposite ends (diagnoally), and then there are personal conservative and liberal ends on the same chart.
Mass ignorance is easy to exploit and sway many opinions based on nothing more than emotions. The fact that the government educated a large potion of the populace doesn't help the issue either! With government schools, people get a government quality education.:-(
I personally do not think that everyone should be voting. In fact I think a lot of people SHOULDN'T be voting!
Ignorance is rampant and I would rather have an intelligent informed nation choosing their leader based on facts, logic, and rationale rather than emotional responses, self-interest, and personality marketing/propoganda.
The Cato Institute published a report which is here: http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-525es.html [Cato.org] and it details its findings on the study of voter ignorance. Here is an excerpt:
"Overall, close to one-third of Americans can be categorized as 'know-nothings' almost completely ignorant of relevant political information," writes Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University, in "When Ignorance Isn't Bliss: How Political Ignorance Threatens Democracy."
"Most of the time," Somin notes," only bare majorities know which party has control of the Senate, some 70 percent cannot name either of their state's senators and the vast majority cannot name any congressional candidate in their district at the height of a campaign."
Overall, voters tend to be "abysmally ignorant of even very basic political information... the sheer depth of most individual voters' ignorance is shocking to observers not familiar with the research."
A few examples from many in the report:
* The Patriot Act? What's that? Three-fourths of Americans say they know little or nothing about it. 58 percent say they've heard "nothing" or "not much" about it.
* Seventy percent don't know about the $500 billion new drug benefit added this year to Medicare, which Somin describes as "probably the most significant domestic legislation passed during the Bush administration."
* A majority cannot make even a rough estimate of how many Americans soldiers have been killed in Iraq.
* 61 percent believe that there has been a net loss of U.S. jobs in 2004.
* Over 60 per cent don't know that, during President Bush's term, there has been an explosion in domestic spending (about 25 percent above previous levels) that has enormously increased the national debt.
* Last year, 58 percent of Americans could not name a single federal Cabinet department.
And such voter ignorance is, alas, nothing new:
* In 1964, at the height of Cold War tensions, only 38 percent of the public knew that the Soviet Union was not a member of NATO.
* In 1994, after Republicans took control of Congress under the highly-publicized leadership of Rep. Newt Gingrich, 57 percent of Americans said they'd never heard of Gingrich, despite the avalanche of press coverage.
* In 1996, 67 percent couldn't name their congressman, and only 26 percent knew that senators serve six-year terms.
* In the 2002 elections, only 32 percent of voters knew that the Republican Party controlled the House.
In 1816, Thomas Jefferson wrote: "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Mass ignorance is easy to exploit and sway opinions based on nothing more than emotions.
And in conclusion I say that if you do not truly understand the issues, have a good concept of how the government and the world works, and grasp the ideals and principles of what this government was founded on and it's history - then stay the hell out of the voting booth!
Not everyone should be voting! Here's Why
on
Pre-Election Discussion
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I personally do not think that everyone should be voting. In fact I think a lot of people SHOULDN'T be voting!
Ignorance is rampant and I would rather have an intelligent informed nation choosing their leader based on facts, logic, and rationale rather than emotional responses, self-interest, and personality marketing/propoganda.
The Cato Institute published a report which is here: http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-525es.html [Cato.org] and it details its findings on the study of voter ignorance. Here is an excerpt:
"Overall, close to one-third of Americans can be categorized as 'know-nothings' almost completely ignorant of relevant political information," writes Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University, in "When Ignorance Isn't Bliss: How Political Ignorance Threatens Democracy."
"Most of the time," Somin notes," only bare majorities know which party has control of the Senate, some 70 percent cannot name either of their state's senators and the vast majority cannot name any congressional candidate in their district at the height of a campaign."
Overall, voters tend to be "abysmally ignorant of even very basic political information... the sheer depth of most individual voters' ignorance is shocking to observers not familiar with the research."
A few examples from many in the report:
* The Patriot Act? What's that? Three-fourths of Americans say they know little or nothing about it. 58 percent say they've heard "nothing" or "not much" about it.
* Seventy percent don't know about the $500 billion new drug benefit added this year to Medicare, which Somin describes as "probably the most significant domestic legislation passed during the Bush administration."
* A majority cannot make even a rough estimate of how many Americans soldiers have been killed in Iraq.
* 61 percent believe that there has been a net loss of U.S. jobs in 2004.
* Over 60 per cent don't know that, during President Bush's term, there has been an explosion in domestic spending (about 25 percent above previous levels) that has enormously increased the national debt.
* Last year, 58 percent of Americans could not name a single federal Cabinet department.
And such voter ignorance is, alas, nothing new:
* In 1964, at the height of Cold War tensions, only 38 percent of the public knew that the Soviet Union was not a member of NATO.
* In 1994, after Republicans took control of Congress under the highly-publicized leadership of Rep. Newt Gingrich, 57 percent of Americans said they'd never heard of Gingrich, despite the avalanche of press coverage.
* In 1996, 67 percent couldn't name their congressman, and only 26 percent knew that senators serve six-year terms.
* In the 2002 elections, only 32 percent of voters knew that the Republican Party controlled the House.
In 1816, Thomas Jefferson wrote: "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
And in conclusion I say that if you do not truly understand the issues, have a good concept of how the government and the world works, and grasp the ideals and principles of what this government was founded on and it's history - then stay the hell out of the voting booth!
Yeah... I was reading this on my laptop going through the toll plaza of the interstate on the way to work and nearly dropped my razor into my corn flakes!
Can you believe people were flicking ME off!?!? I tell ya people need to learn how to drive these days... geesh!
Slashdot Mirror
"This post brought to you by Big Rosie O's Clamshack! All you can eat with no hands.... they also have crabs!"
I fall into the same catagory as you (check out my website). I am a Christian and a libertarian.
What most people fail to realize is that the idea of seperation of church and state is there to protect the church just as much as it is to protect the state. Look in history when the church and state were either one in the same or very close to one another. It wasn't good for the church, nor was it good for the state. Think Rome, Britian, Spain...
Also, I think that we have to remember that under no circumstances should we attempt to impose our moralities on others via legislation/regulation. The reasoning behind this is that if/when we become a minority in this country then we don't want someone imposing their morals on us. The best way to avoid this is to ensure that the gov doesn't have power to legislate morality.
Now of course this takes into account the ideas that your rights end where mine begin (ie - you can't infringe on my rights by killing, stealing, raping etc...).
A couple of final thoughts:
1) I wish my fellow Christians would pull their heads out of their rear ends and think about things critically. The faith is spiritual but the world is intellectual - most Christians only get the first half of that.
and
2) I wish all of these athiest/secular humanists/agnostics (whoever) would quit labeling all Christians as prudes and mental cave men. Those are extreme gross generalizations.
And to everyone out there reading this I drink every once in a while, I listen to Metallica (the old stuff), I watch R rated movies, I have a high IQ, I believe evolution is a viable theory, I also happen to worship the Lord and love Jesus. People can still have their faith and enjoy life too!
DOH! Guess I wasn't the first post after all... what a shame... It's on my list of things to accomplish before I kick the bucket in 70 years or so.
BWT = BTW in case you didn't figure it out. I was in such a hurry to get the first post in I had a typo.
I think she is hot - I wish I was the bicycle seat. Of course with all that radiation she rides through she might really be "hot" :-(
First Post BWT!
If you are looking for an older or more specific version of WinAmp visit this site:
http://www.winampheaven.net/
Dude... your post was so funny and it caused me to laugh so hard I nearly crapped my pants!
Question) What will go 100 MPH and blow you in the back seat?
Answer:)A hurricane!
Well... I was born in Memphis, lived there for like 5 years, and then lived in Orlando for about 15.
I got my 2 year AA degree at Valencia (a cc in Orlando) and then decided to move upto Nashville to attend MTSU http://mtsu.edu/~record/ for a BS in the Recording Industry. I chose MTSU over FS because I wanted a 4 year degree in case I ever wanted to do something besides audio work.
The truth of the matter is that I am going to go into business as a synthetic oil distributor here in the Nashville area once I graduate and then keep my audio stuff as a supplimentary/hobby sort of income. I think the industry is too volatile at the moment for me to do it full time and expect to earn a decent living.
As a matter of fact I just flew down to OTown this weekend to mix monitors for two of my favorite Christian acts - Skillet and Disciple at a club down there (Last Wave).
Anyway man feel free to give me an e-mail next time or something. Good luck to ya.
Hey - what kind of live audio work do you do? Where are you based out of?
Check out my site -
http://www.UltraSonicDesigns.com
Well the idea of the EC is that you have scholars and professionals that are not supposed to be swayed by the public opinion or political climate of the moment.
n stituti on.overview.html
c lar.h tml
m e5b.htm
I am sure it isn't 100% foolproof but it is simply one of multiple checks and balances which help ensure the foundations of this country are maintained.
Unfortunately I am not privy to the specs of how the EC works and if it is based upon individual state law or federal law. If you want to read it (it isn't that long) visit here:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/co
another great read is:
http://www.law.emory.edu/FEDERAL/independ/de
Both of which had the ideals of John Locke's Social Contract (consent of the goverened):
http://radicalacademy.com/hcdffileho
I voted for him - I don't expect him to win though. I voted for him because I think Bush is the lesser of 2 evils and I would rather have Bush win than Kerry.
I live in TN so I am willing to bet that Bush will win here and thus able to chance voting for the canididate I think is best - this way my vote is still not "wasted" but yet I ensure the lesser of the two oligopolistic evils wins the state. I also get to send a message to the Libertarians that they have my support!
Yes I completely agree with you! It is ashame that balance was removed.
:-(
Also I think this measure was passed around the same era as the income tax wasn't it?
I never said anything about an intelligence test or that foolish people should be legally prevented from making a vote. I think one makes a terrible decision as a human being to participate in a process that you really don't understand, but I definately don't think anyone should legally prevent people from voting on account of 'intelligence.'
My statement wasn't a call for legal action to prevent people who don't know what's going on from voting, it was a call to people to stop encouraging everyone to go out and vote.
Yes the Cato Institute is libertarian in nature
I am not suggesting anything about anybody being elite.
/.) but that doesn't mean I should be forced to go teach school or write opinions and publish them. The burden is on each and every individual.
The ignorants should inform themselves and make their own decisions. With personal freedoms come individual responsibility. No one said it would be easy - life isn't fair.
It is also not the responsibility of anyone to do anything for anyone else. I happen to have a high IQ (as do many others on
About people that work 14 hours a day - if the government was smaller and took less tax from the people then Americans wouldn't have to spend nearly 1/4 of their day working to pay Uncle Sam instead of keeping the money they have earned for themselves.
We live in a democratic republic - not a socialistic charity state.
I am not suggesting anything about anybody being elite.
/.) but that doesn't mean I should be forced to go teach school or write opinions and publish them. The burden is on each and every individual - that's the idea of personal responsibility; it comes with democracy and individual freedoms.
In this country we have a right to vote but we also have a responsibility to understand the issues and the canididates.
Unfortunately a lot of people tend to forget the second part of this.
My argument is that mass ignorance is very damaging to the democratic process and that if you don't understand how things work, then don't vote and quit screwing up the country for those of us who take the time to educate ourselves on the issues.
It is also not the responsibility of anyone to do anything for anyone else. I happen to have a high IQ (as do many others on
And I'm libertarian not a Republican. for more info check out http://www.lp.org
I am not suggesting anything about anybody being elite.
/.) but that doesn't mean I should go teach school or write opinions and publish them. The burden is on each and every individual - that's the idea of personal responsibility; it comes with democracy and individual freedoms.
In this country we have a right to vote but we also have a responsibility to understand the issues and the canididates.
Unfortunately a lot of people tend to forget the second part of this.
My argument is that mass ignorance is very damaging to the democratic process and that if you don't understand how things work, then don't vote and quit screwing up the country for those of us who take the time to educate ourselves on the issues.
It is also not the responsibility of anyone to do anything for anyone else. I happen to have a high IQ (as do many others on
And I'm libertarian not a Republican. for more info check out http://www.lp.org
And that's EXACTLY how Hitler got in power! It kills me when people think the EC is unfair because that very system is designed to be a final fail-safe/proxy in case times are desperate.
Just imagine if some Arab detonates a nuke in one of our cities during an election year! Well if a canididate rises up and says that the US will now make it its duty to destroy all Arabs on the face of the planet and completely abolish their existance, a good portion of the US would vote for that guy based on his ideas at the time. The cry for blood (and rightly so) would be so large that it would outweigh reason and logic and would probably end up trampling the Constitution. The EC is here to prevent this.
The EC is there to prevent exactly that sort of thing from happining.
That's why libertarians think that government schools should be abolished. A large portion (but not the only reason) of why ignorance is so rampant is because the government likes to keep the populace uninformed. Couple this with the fact that government schools are largely incompetent and do a poor job at educating people anyway.
Not everything above is absolute but I most would probably agree with the above statements.
Actually the Cato Institute isn't conservative - they are libertarian - says it right on their front page:
Individual Liberty
Limited Government
Free Markets
Peace
Conservatives don't generally approve of 100% of individual liberties and they also think that the markets should be regulated slightly. Recently though conservatives seem to be wanting more BIG government which is why I am voting for Badnarik http://www.Badnarik.org the Libertarian canididate.
If you are confused about what constitutes the 4 corners of the political spectrum visit this site:
http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html
You have authortarian and libertarian at opposite ends (diagnoally), and then there are personal conservative and liberal ends on the same chart.
Mass ignorance is easy to exploit and sway many opinions based on nothing more than emotions. The fact that the government educated a large potion of the populace doesn't help the issue either! With government schools, people get a government quality education. :-(
I personally do not think that everyone should be voting. In fact I think a lot of people SHOULDN'T be voting!
Ignorance is rampant and I would rather have an intelligent informed nation choosing their leader based on facts, logic, and rationale rather than emotional responses, self-interest, and personality marketing/propoganda.
The Cato Institute published a report which is here: http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-525es.html [Cato.org] and it details its findings on the study of voter ignorance. Here is an excerpt:
"Overall, close to one-third of Americans can be categorized as 'know-nothings' almost completely ignorant of relevant political information," writes Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University, in "When Ignorance Isn't Bliss: How Political Ignorance Threatens Democracy."
"Most of the time," Somin notes," only bare majorities know which party has control of the Senate, some 70 percent cannot name either of their state's senators and the vast majority cannot name any congressional candidate in their district at the height of a campaign."
Overall, voters tend to be "abysmally ignorant of even very basic political information... the sheer depth of most individual voters' ignorance is shocking to observers not familiar with the research."
A few examples from many in the report:
* The Patriot Act? What's that? Three-fourths of Americans say they know little or nothing about it. 58 percent say they've heard "nothing" or "not much" about it.
* Seventy percent don't know about the $500 billion new drug benefit added this year to Medicare, which Somin describes as "probably the most significant domestic legislation passed during the Bush administration."
* A majority cannot make even a rough estimate of how many Americans soldiers have been killed in Iraq.
* 61 percent believe that there has been a net loss of U.S. jobs in 2004.
* Over 60 per cent don't know that, during President Bush's term, there has been an explosion in domestic spending (about 25 percent above previous levels) that has enormously increased the national debt.
* Last year, 58 percent of Americans could not name a single federal Cabinet department.
And such voter ignorance is, alas, nothing new:
* In 1964, at the height of Cold War tensions, only 38 percent of the public knew that the Soviet Union was not a member of NATO.
* In 1994, after Republicans took control of Congress under the highly-publicized leadership of Rep. Newt Gingrich, 57 percent of Americans said they'd never heard of Gingrich, despite the avalanche of press coverage.
* In 1996, 67 percent couldn't name their congressman, and only 26 percent knew that senators serve six-year terms.
* In the 2002 elections, only 32 percent of voters knew that the Republican Party controlled the House.
In 1816, Thomas Jefferson wrote: "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Mass ignorance is easy to exploit and sway opinions based on nothing more than emotions.
And in conclusion I say that if you do not truly understand the issues, have a good concept of how the government and the world works, and grasp the ideals and principles of what this government was founded on and it's history - then stay the hell out of the voting booth!
I personally do not think that everyone should be voting. In fact I think a lot of people SHOULDN'T be voting!
Ignorance is rampant and I would rather have an intelligent informed nation choosing their leader based on facts, logic, and rationale rather than emotional responses, self-interest, and personality marketing/propoganda.
The Cato Institute published a report which is here: http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-525es.html [Cato.org] and it details its findings on the study of voter ignorance. Here is an excerpt:
"Overall, close to one-third of Americans can be categorized as 'know-nothings' almost completely ignorant of relevant political information," writes Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University, in "When Ignorance Isn't Bliss: How Political Ignorance Threatens Democracy."
"Most of the time," Somin notes," only bare majorities know which party has control of the Senate, some 70 percent cannot name either of their state's senators and the vast majority cannot name any congressional candidate in their district at the height of a campaign."
Overall, voters tend to be "abysmally ignorant of even very basic political information... the sheer depth of most individual voters' ignorance is shocking to observers not familiar with the research."
A few examples from many in the report:
* The Patriot Act? What's that? Three-fourths of Americans say they know little or nothing about it. 58 percent say they've heard "nothing" or "not much" about it.
* Seventy percent don't know about the $500 billion new drug benefit added this year to Medicare, which Somin describes as "probably the most significant domestic legislation passed during the Bush administration."
* A majority cannot make even a rough estimate of how many Americans soldiers have been killed in Iraq.
* 61 percent believe that there has been a net loss of U.S. jobs in 2004.
* Over 60 per cent don't know that, during President Bush's term, there has been an explosion in domestic spending (about 25 percent above previous levels) that has enormously increased the national debt.
* Last year, 58 percent of Americans could not name a single federal Cabinet department.
And such voter ignorance is, alas, nothing new:
* In 1964, at the height of Cold War tensions, only 38 percent of the public knew that the Soviet Union was not a member of NATO.
* In 1994, after Republicans took control of Congress under the highly-publicized leadership of Rep. Newt Gingrich, 57 percent of Americans said they'd never heard of Gingrich, despite the avalanche of press coverage.
* In 1996, 67 percent couldn't name their congressman, and only 26 percent knew that senators serve six-year terms.
* In the 2002 elections, only 32 percent of voters knew that the Republican Party controlled the House.
In 1816, Thomas Jefferson wrote: "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
And in conclusion I say that if you do not truly understand the issues, have a good concept of how the government and the world works, and grasp the ideals and principles of what this government was founded on and it's history - then stay the hell out of the voting booth!
Yeah... I was reading this on my laptop going through the toll plaza of the interstate on the way to work and nearly dropped my razor into my corn flakes!
Can you believe people were flicking ME off!?!? I tell ya people need to learn how to drive these days... geesh!
"All I know about Bush is I had a job when Clinton was president."
Allow me to translate: "I have no understanding of how economics and policy interact"
Is this Dave?!?!?!