Wednesday, October 15, 2008

The most powerful force in ANY election

"Half of the American people never read a newspaper. Half never vote for president. One hopes it is the same half!" - Gore Vidal

We would like to think that as Americans we are intelligent enough to chose our own president. We believe we "know" what America needs and we understand the issues and where we want our country to go. I submit to you that the American Voting Public is a bunch of idiots. As you may recall from my previous blog - we continuously vote for people who will cut taxes when it is borderline immoral to do so and pass the expense of our national debt continuously on to future generations like a credit card we plan to pay off "someday".

So how will I prove that the American voting public is a bunch of idiots? I submit to you a thought experiment that regardless of the issues of the economy or a politicians stance on foreign affairs or how to win the war on terror - that the single most powerful force in ANY election is this hat.

This Seemingly innocent hat has more power than either political party, the "liberal media" or any number of swift-boat attacks. This hat can make the majority of the voting public change their stances on politicians.

I submit to you that regardless of the character of the politicians, their record, or their stance on the issues, whoever wears this hat for an entire campaign will lose. Every time. Let's look at the evidence. Would you vote for either of these two men?

Now this is a race even Nader could win (assuming he didn't wear the hat). It's a joke - really that our entire opinion of a politician could be based on such a superficial thing like a hat.

Now to get even deeper on you - maybe it's not a hat. Maybe the metaphorical hat is an African American (or bi-racial) candidate. Maybe the hat is a "strange" name like Barak. Or maybe the hat is a Catholic (JFK). Or maybe the hat is someone who is "an Arab" as that women at the McCain rally mentioned as to why she was so afraid of Obama. I think it is great that our country is almost at the point where we could have our first black (or bi-racial) president. Wouldn't it be an even greater testament to have a Muslim President soon as Campbell Brown discusses in her Commentary "So what if Obama were a Muslim or an Arab?"

So what? It scares me that ignorance has enough of a voice to make silly things like this an issue. And - in my humble opinion - for John McCain and Sarah Palin to even suggest that a US Senator such as Barak Obama is in any way a terrorist or sympathizes with terrorists is just fear mongering at it's worst. What's the implication? Does anyone really believe that once Barak Obama becomes President he will hand over America to terrorists? It's more than just irrational it's idiotic. Almost as idiotic as saying that if Sarah Palin became the VP, on her 1st day in office she would announce that her Husband is now the President of the independant country of Alaska (see Palin's Attack On Obama's Patriotism Legitimizes Questions About The Palins' Association With Group Founded By America-Hating Secessionist).

4 comments:

Martha said...

A) It's not immoral to cut taxes if spending is also cut. How is it immoral to cut taxes anyway? Unless you're robbing peter to pay paul, and that's not immoral, except for the robbing part.
B) Apparently people really do believe Obama is going to hand America over to the terrorist. It's the same type of ignorant people that McCain had to cut off at his own rally.
C) Who cares if we might have our first "black or biracial" president? Color has no affect on ability to lead the country. Just the same, gender has no affect, either. It is just as wrong and pathetic for people to vote for, as it is to vote against, based on race, gender, religion, etc.

Tom said...

The reason I think it is immoral to cut taxes is because the projections are that in 2030 ALL taxes collected won't cover social security and medicare (see previous blog). So you can't "cut spending" enough to cover this, we either have to raise taxes OR cut spending on social security and medicare - but is that breaking our promise to seniors who have paid in for 35+ years? I think history has shown we are in a relatively LOW tax period right now.

Dale said...

Funny... there's partisan and bi-partisan... I think Tom is un-partisan.

Katharine said...

Slightly related story...
At work last week, my coworkers were discussing factors like a race, gender, and age(interestingly though, not experience...at either the Pres of VP positions) etc...and how those factors were controlling their decisions on who to vote for- or not vote for (with the exception of myself, not a single person in the room of 8 is basing their decision on candidates ideals and their stance on various issues)

A little while later, after a period of actual work productivity, another coworker was discussing that in her gov't class they were learning that our founding fathers found most people too stupid to be capable of electing someone as important as president of the US...hence the development of the electoral college. The other coworkers were naturally offended (also, all but the coworker who brought it up and myself thought our gov't is a democracy, not a democratic republic), and I had to hold back my laughter as I spoke up to point out that if that was their reasoning, our room demonstrated that they were correct...and went around the room reminding every person of their emotional and not logical reason why they chose to vote for the candidate they mentioned...