B
Bill Sloman
Guest
Fred Bloggs <nospam@nospam.com> wrote in message news:<41969D39.3060606@nospam.com>...
99.99999% of the legislators and executives as well. This of itself
isn't a real problem - as in every other walk of life, the really
complex problems are dealt with obsessive-compulsive nerds, who
haven't got time for anything except maintaining their grasp of their
particular narrow field.
Part of the expertise of these nerds lies in recognising those aspects
of their problem area which are going to worry the general population
- and thus their bosses - and giving their bosses a suitably
over-simplified picture of the choices available, and the consequences
of these choices.
The real problems comes up when the bosses don't like the choices that
they have been given, and proceed to ignore the nerds who do know what
they are talking about and go shopping for pseudo-experts who will
offer them choices that they do like, and some sort of invented
justification for a course of action that isn't actualy going to have
the desired effect.
Dubbya's approach to global warming, tax cuts and the invasion of Irak
are three classic examples of this sort of self-indulgent ignorance,
and this is obvious to a lot more than 0.00001% of the population, who
all voted against him.
The rest of the voting population, who weren't interested enough to
work this out, shouldn't have been interested enough to vote.
Unfortunately, your sloppy electoral expenditure laws give campaigners
the chance to spend enormous amounts of money on TV advertising,
feeding the uninterested non-voter some vacuous line of twaddle aimed
at persuading them that Dubbya (or whoever) is a righteous God-fearing
person who deserves their vote. This gets to precisely the sort of
uncritical sucker who believes what they are told in TV ads.
If you improved your electoral expenditure laws to the point where the
politicians can't buy TV spots - which seem to be about the only way
of pushing a message into the face of the essentially uninterested
public - this uncritical bunch of non-thinking ciphers will stay at
home (where they belong) and leave the election to be decided by
people who are interested enough to go out and find out what is really
going on.
I was brought up with compulsory voting in Australia, and know about
the dismal consequences of forcing people to the ballot box - if your
name is at the top of the ballot in Australia, you've got a 2 to 3%
advantage over the other candidates due to the "donkey vote"
http://www.australianpolitics.com/elections/2001/sharp/01-10-21.shtml
I'm all for giving everybody the right to vote, but I want the people
who do vote to be interested enough in what they are voting for to
actively seek out information about the people they are voting for and
against.
TV spots aimed at the couch potatoes make life a bit too easy for
demagogues.
---------
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen
<snip>
The complexity of government has also outpaced the capacity of
99.99999% of the legislators and executives as well. This of itself
isn't a real problem - as in every other walk of life, the really
complex problems are dealt with obsessive-compulsive nerds, who
haven't got time for anything except maintaining their grasp of their
particular narrow field.
Part of the expertise of these nerds lies in recognising those aspects
of their problem area which are going to worry the general population
- and thus their bosses - and giving their bosses a suitably
over-simplified picture of the choices available, and the consequences
of these choices.
The real problems comes up when the bosses don't like the choices that
they have been given, and proceed to ignore the nerds who do know what
they are talking about and go shopping for pseudo-experts who will
offer them choices that they do like, and some sort of invented
justification for a course of action that isn't actualy going to have
the desired effect.
Dubbya's approach to global warming, tax cuts and the invasion of Irak
are three classic examples of this sort of self-indulgent ignorance,
and this is obvious to a lot more than 0.00001% of the population, who
all voted against him.
The rest of the voting population, who weren't interested enough to
work this out, shouldn't have been interested enough to vote.
Unfortunately, your sloppy electoral expenditure laws give campaigners
the chance to spend enormous amounts of money on TV advertising,
feeding the uninterested non-voter some vacuous line of twaddle aimed
at persuading them that Dubbya (or whoever) is a righteous God-fearing
person who deserves their vote. This gets to precisely the sort of
uncritical sucker who believes what they are told in TV ads.
If you improved your electoral expenditure laws to the point where the
politicians can't buy TV spots - which seem to be about the only way
of pushing a message into the face of the essentially uninterested
public - this uncritical bunch of non-thinking ciphers will stay at
home (where they belong) and leave the election to be decided by
people who are interested enough to go out and find out what is really
going on.
I was brought up with compulsory voting in Australia, and know about
the dismal consequences of forcing people to the ballot box - if your
name is at the top of the ballot in Australia, you've got a 2 to 3%
advantage over the other candidates due to the "donkey vote"
http://www.australianpolitics.com/elections/2001/sharp/01-10-21.shtml
I'm all for giving everybody the right to vote, but I want the people
who do vote to be interested enough in what they are voting for to
actively seek out information about the people they are voting for and
against.
TV spots aimed at the couch potatoes make life a bit too easy for
demagogues.
---------
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen
.