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Why Are American Voters So Uninformed?
The sad fact is that it appears completely rational to be ignorant about politics. The cost of being an 'informed' voter - as opposed to a bigotted closed-minded ignoramus - is high, from the time spent following (and interpreting) the news in the paper, online, and on the television. As the following clip notes, "becoming an informed voter is competing with a lot of other needs in your life," from American Idol watching to eating Cheetos in the bath. Of course, the sad truth is that it has never been more important to be 'informed' and so the 'bread-and-circuses' will continue lest we stumble upon the truth - but perhaps this brief clip will sway a few more to the dark side of 'the informed' - though just because 'you' are better-informed does not mean politicians will do a better job - as the probability of your vote changing the outcome of an election is for all practical purposes, zero!
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It's a global problem. Why the hell do you think the EU still exists?
LOL
Panem et Circenses: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses
Thats why.
Have you ever questioned that these "inalienable rights" are alienated away by voting for some cock sucker in DC?
And voting is just another circus for the fucking clueless.
Oh boy, "voting Tyler" is in da house!
And I'm outta here, as this is stupid squared.
Or should I say HuffPo Light?
If you have inalienable rights... then maybe they should go hand in hand with inalienable responsibility. End centralized representation and bring about self-representation. The Founding Fathers wanted power themselves, although a lot smaller than a monarch but in the end still power. They had the best idea of the time... and it has room to be perfected.
WRONG.
They owned slaves.
Therefore, EVERY single thing they ever did is nullified, voided, invalidated, illegitimate.
And if you disagree then you are a racist as was America before 1969. Old America, along with everything that came out of it, is to be relegated to the trashheap of history.
Military choppers in Miami
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ri9ioCbqJCU
“Why Are American Voters So Uninformed?”
Because the same people that brought you this problem have been “educating” the American voter for the last 50 years..
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-01-29/student-loan-update-situation-simply-unsustainable
Gov't is violence.
Violence always achieves the opposite of it's intentions.
Public schools (check out Charlotte Izerbyt's "Dumbing down of America)
War on drugs, more drugs
war on terror, gov't sponsored terror
war on poverty, 50 million on food stamps
War is the health of the state
But they just went to war with our health(care). Oh...
Just kidding, we all knew what the result of that is going to be.
I totally disagree with Tyler here. There is good reason why we are so uninformed. The cost/benefit doesn't add up! And contrary to the jokey comments about cheetos, those of us that are still employed tend to have incredibly busy lives these days! My time is at a premium. I am supposed to care enough to invest in the choice between a D and an R? Not.
"Rational ignorance occurs when the cost of educating oneself on an issue exceeds the potential benefit that the knowledge would provide."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_ignorance
All well and good for the individual, but this creates the prisoner's dilemma of each of us acting in our self interest (not giving the system the time of day) in a manner that brings about a worse outcome (the status quo) than if enough of us act contrary to that direct interest (spend the time to research and think through issue, and of course vote the fuckers out) to cross the threshold or tipping point of accrued benefit for each of us.
I was gonna get informed but...
The NHL strike is over so...
maybe next time...
It just seems to me there are so many more effective ways of making a positive change in the world than heading out to vote. I mean vote at the state or national level. At the local level, it's worth it.
Voting is just a suggestion box for slaves.
No. Actually the cost/benefit adds up perfectly. Vote for this guy or that guy and get free shit that someone else will pay for.
Someone else bears the cost and I get the benefit.
Well, jimmytorpedo, I agreed with the other replies made to yours...
"Rational ignorance" is like being stuck inside the prisoners' dilemma!
You were obviously correct, in your overall statement of the situation.
War is the health of the state and success in war depends on deceit.
99% of the most important public powers have already been privatized.
That is why voting no longer matters, since all the most important powers of governments have already been given away to the banksters, for more than a Century. In that context, I agree with these great quotes regarding the THEORY of governments creating the money supply, to serve the general interests of the whole population.
Such as from President Lincoln:
"The government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of consumers. The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of the government but it is the government's greatest creative opportunity. By adoption of the these principles, the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity."
Or from the longest serving Prime Minister of Canada, William Lyon Mackenzie King:
"Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognized as its most conspicuous and sacred responsibility, all talk of the sovereignty of Parliament and of democracy is idle and futile."
Creating the money supply, as a public utility, in ways which strives to benefit everyone, should be government's supreme prerogative, and greatest creative opportunity, and its most conspicuous and sacred responsibility. That is what people should be voting upon, to decide how that is done. Instead, giving away the power to make money out of nothing to private banks was the most insane domestic policy that a government could ever adopt! However, it is easy to explain the history of how that actually happened. It was simply the history of the application of the methods of organized crime to take control over governments, in a runaway spiral of the success of fraud enabling those who did that to constantly be able to get away with even more frauds.
That was possible, and DID happen, due to the much longer history of militarism, which maintained the economic systems of slavery, throughout most of human history. The vast majority of people today are the survivors of those who adpated to being slaves. Those who did not do that tended to be discredited or destroyed. Therefore, the REAL social system has a tiny percentage of Vicious Wolves, who adapted to benefit from being dishonest, and backing that up with violence, in order to control the much larger population of Zombie Sheeple, who adapted to survive being slaves.
The reasons that voting is practically worthless are that the government has ALREADY been more than 99% privatized. Practically speaking, the only people to vote for are political puppets, working for the same puppet masters. None of them will do anything about the real ways that the powers of government have already been privatized. Voting does not matter much because we do NOT live in a democratic republic, we actually live inside a runaway fascist plutocracy juggernaut, operating on the basis of MORE legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, which are the only significant aspects of the sovereign powers of governments still left operating.
The overwhelming vast majority of people are sheep that are getting rountinely fleeced, and being set up to be slaughtered. Since they were selected to be those kinds of sheeple, they are ignorant, and want to stay that way. The already established systems do everything they can to make sure that things stay that way. ... There are no good reasons to doubt that there will be genocidal wars, along with democidal martial law, that will massively cull the population of those sheeple, and their lambs, in the foreseeable future. However, they will continue to be sheep, inside a system which is totally set up to make sure that they continue to be sheep, and so, THEY WILL BE SLAUGHTERED.
Waking up to those social facts is NO FUN, especially since there is really nothing which is practically possible to do about it. As far as I can tell, we can only watch and wait, as this gets way worse, far faster. After spending several decades worrying about that situation, and doing everything I could think of to try to change it, I have belatedly come to the nearly 100% objectively depressing conclusion that that is HOPELESS.
The international banksters have already been able to almost totally destroy the democratic republic. They are getting ready to consolidate that through imposing democidal martial law upon the few remaining American people who are not already Zombie Sheeple. The ruling classes will be able to count on the same old divide and conquer strategies that will see Zombie Sheeple police and military forces working to destroy themselves, because most of them will not understand, and will not want to understand, what they are doing.
I WISH that there was something that could be done about that! However, apart from a relatively tiny audience, such as some of the readers of Zero Hedge, and similar alternative news Web sites, the overwhelming vast majority of Americans have already been brainwashed to believe in bullshit, despite that them believing in those huge lies will have extremely bad consequences for them, and their children.
Of course, I do NOT LIKE being stuck inside the worst of boxes in the prisoners' dilemma matrix of possibilities. I continue to hold on to the irrational hope that we MIGHT be able to agree on some better outcomes, than financial frauds, backed by force, automatically getting worse, until they cause wars and martial law. However, as far as I can tell, I have wasted my time, for several decades, by worrying about that, and attempting to do something about it.
I know, and have PROVEN, from decades of direct political experiments, that more than 99% of the people act like Zombie Sheeple, and want to stay that way! Their short-term "rationality" will become suicidal in the longer term, but they do not want to think about that! Social slavery systems become surreal, since they depend upon the majority of people adapting to live inside systems based on Huge Lies, backed by Lots of Violence, which automatically become more and more INSANE, since EVERYTHING IS BASED ON LIES, and so, everything that civilization actually does becomes crazier and crazier.
America has become so totally controlled by LIES, that it is headed towards some martial law situation, to try to continue that system of control by LIES. It is nicer to day dream that enough of us might understand more radical truth, in order to respond to our real problems. However, our fake problems, based on triumphant frauds controlling everything we are doing, are becoming too overwhelming, and everything we try to do about that looks like it is way too little, way too late.
Martial law in the USA is going to be far more insane than we can imagine! However, that is the necessary consequence of the ways things are going now. That martial law is NOT going to work, since no greater amount of violence can ever make the lies become true. But nevertheless, that appears the only realistic thing that we have to look forward to ...
Ya know Rad MJ, they say the babylonians kept Marijuana away from the masses because it enhances the psychic energies of the humans mind. Truly, you are definitely an epic example of a real thinker and that which they feared the most. Here you have laid bare well the horrible truths, but will it change the coming future? Maybe not much, but somewhere the records of how it all went down like patients being shown the movie of the train going off the cliff and they still all sat there gawking out the windows of choo-choo oblivia and eating Cheetos while watching the drug TV.
You can start here
http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/01/texas-where-science-and-history-have-become-ideological-battlegrounds/
dude, NOBODY hates science more than liberals and progressives.
Evolution is THE TRUTH just up until it suggests that diversity is real instead of superficial. Then it cannot be mentioned.
RACE IS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT. Nevermind that there are blood tests and DNA analysis they do to determine if you are "native american" enough to get a casino or to assist police in determining a ton of the biological markers like skin color and skeletal composition of a DNA sample. That stuff isn't SCIENCE, it's BIGOTRY and RACISM, STEREOTYPES and PREJUDICE.
Nevermind logic and fact, such as "does gun control actually work?" These things are mere trivialities compared to the awesome weight of PROGRESS. IQ, for example, doesn't measure anything if it shows ACTUAL human biodiversity or tends to refute liberal axioms. However, it most certainly DOES measure something VERY important when it needs to save somebody with a low one from the electric chair, especially if they are of the right social construct, which doesn't actually exist except, again, when it's going to spare someone from the death penalty or fetch them some gov't bennies.
Trav, give it a fucking break...
Go play your bullshit game with someone who cares about that crap...
But, he isn't far off in his estimation.
Bingo!
http://schoolsucks.podomatic.com/
and Army training in Houston
http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=8971311
What does all this mean?
acclimatization
All of the founding fathers owned slaves? No. For example, John Adams and his wife were opposed to slavery. When someone gave him a gift of a slave, he immediately manumitted her.
why you gotta go bring facts in to it.....no fun ranting then
You are correct, Trav.
I am an American racist.
The Old America was white America.
The New America is now and there is no turning back. Blacks have failed this country spectacularly; hispanics are overrunning it with crime, broken families, and Spanish. It's only going to get worse, not better.
Except I don't moan and groan about it. I accept the reality and am planning accordingly.
The country was racist against blacks back then.
The country is racist against whites right now.
Tell you what, let's have the two cancel and get rid of affirmative action already and stop blaming whitey for all of their ills.
fu Whitey
"latin american indians are overrunning it with crime, broken families," There, fixed it for you.
There are at least several million "hispanics" in the U.S. that have european origins and match Euro-American IQ averages.
Race differences between the Latin Americal elites and the laborers are glaringly obvious, although seldom mentioned, and the elite politicians will always claim they are mestizos with a drop or two of indian blood at election time.
Ya can't take race out of politics.
Thanks for the correction, MrPalladium. I was going with the US government designation.
"The Old America was white America"
and praytell, who sold out the "Old America" to the bankers? who put the Fed in place of the "constitution" and sold people into financial slavery? who creates wars for profit all around the world?
crafty ole blacks I guess. . .
Not only are you wrong, you're FUCKED UP wrong. Please call me a racist now.
That was Trav's harder edge version of MDB.
pods
"
WRONG.
They owned slaves.
Therefore, EVERY single thing they ever did is nullified, voided, invalidated, illegitimate.
And if you disagree then you are a racist as was America before 1969. Old America, along with everything that came out of it, is to be relegated to the trashheap of history."
Jeez Trav, poison the well much?
So if you are wrong on one thing, does that mean all future posts by you are null and void?
did your meds get cutoff?
my irish great grandfather was concripted by force by the british and jumped ship to get here.... and my family has whites mexicans, blacks and filipinos.....save your stereotypes and false information for your drinking buddies.
Wow. Just wow. It must be nice to be able to post an opinion, and then immediatly prevent any argument by saying anyone who disagrees with you is racist. Come on - have a little more courage than that.
Yes, some of the Founding Fathers had slaves. And some of the Founding Fathers were abolitionists. Listen to Dr. Cornel West sing the praises of John Adams. And there were many more - Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, etc. Certainly, those Founding Fathers who owned slaves took part in a deplorable act. But to say that because some of the FF were slaveowners, every single thing they did or said must be "nullified, voided, invalidated..." is just silly. What if Einstein had been a slave owner? By your logic, the theory of relativity would be void if it came from a slave owner.
Nevermind.
What? You think that there are no slaves today? So, people are not forced to work to be able to eat, wear clothes and have a roof over their heads? Oh, right, there are those that the system has abandoned and just provide with welfare... they are not dependent on the masters at all.
Fiat is the paper whip.
As opposed to the new Amerika, where everybody is equally enslaved.
Your typical American voter is 90% dumb as a picket fence and 10% confirmation bias, so why would anyone want informed voters?
Much better to have informed Enemies of the State
Precisely why I do not participate in such matters, and do as I please.
Alienation by law is one thing. Enforcement of said law is quite another.
TV and Hollywood's 24x7 propaganda including TV news. The NWO leftist have loads RINOs in the GOP. The NWO Left/Dems can rig elections now at will.
no doubt, why haven't we seen anything about a town that has mandatory gun-possession law to live there on any TV news?
http://www.cityrating.com/crime-statistics/georgia/kennesaw.html
and guess what, in 2010 there were NO murders in Kennesaw, Georgia.
In 2010 the city violent crime rate in Kennesaw was lower than the violent crime rate in Georgia by 85.15% and the city property crime rate in Kennesaw was lower than the property crime rate in Georgia by 56.74%.
According to the US Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 8.5 square miles (22 km2).
Spot on, spot on.
Why are Americans so uninformed?
Well, for starters many of them are Fox News viewers.
Minus 1 for being partially correct (because minus 0.5 isn't available). You must include all corporate media, then you are correct.
Don't at all disagree but give the guy a break, you do have to admit that Fux Noise is EXTRA stupid with a side of ridiculous.
More stupid than MSNBC? More stupid than CNN? Come on, let's be realistic here.
Or NPR, or DailyKos, or HuffPO......
I have seen many ignorant Fox new watchers but to be fair, in any stupidity contest democrat voters will win the battle. Of course they get free cell phones and food stamps. So perhaps midtowng was refering to the free junks that he is receiving from his dear president, that's why he thinks he is smarter.
"Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so."
"but to be fair" LOL.
You forgot "balanced" Sean.
FOX News went to court to defend their right to lie on the news (and won).
Has any other channel done anything in any way similar?
(Also FOX News is owned by Rupert Murdoch and it's pretty obvious in the UK, US and Australia that the man has an agenda to control politics using the MSM companies he owns for it).
Where did you hear that story? In the news? Can you personally verify that it actually happened?
You have made a judgement based on information that you don't even know to be fact.
Billions of people do this everyday all across the world and that scares the shit out of me.
I get my information from multiple information sources, most of which not MSM, in more than one language and from more than one country. I keep an eye out for any agenda being pushed and try and avoid falling into the trap of Groupthink so I do frequent forums and websites with quite different audiences so I don't just hear the same ideas parroted over and over.
It's the best I can do since it is physically impossible to be present at all major events to witness them personally or even to verify them directly from first hand witnesses. That said, my opinions are stronger in areas where I worked in (for example, investment banking) or in places were I live or lived.
You, on the other hand, don't seem to have thought through the process by which one would obtain and filter information in a world awash with propaganda, spin and people pushing agendas ...
what ????
english , bro , english
Hey Mr PC, Krugmanite, brainwashed, do tell us where YOU go to stay "informed" then?
Yeah, cause those 90%+ turnout voters in philly and cleveland "black wards" were so informed by someone or something? Really? I'm pretty sure it was the obama phone...
your right.. for faux news devotees are worse.. for this reason.. they are the most arrogant.. they, like limbaugh listeners.. imagine they are so really really infomed so much better.. they in practice have the most closed minds to truth I have ever met,,
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
s
"fox news viewers are uninformed"
You are totally correct 'midtow', those viewers of Fox news are uninformed. The real problem is with all those who watch CNN and especially MSNBC. Those viewers are misinformed. Now I ask you a question. Which is worse? Or better yet, which is more dangerous? To be uninformed or misinformed?
Well, I could tell you how and why which is worst and most dangerous from here to the moon, but a simple paraphrasing of Mark Twain will suffice:
'It ain't what people don't know that causes the most trouble in the world, it's the things people already know that just aint so.'
Top 10 reasons voters are uninformed:
1-porn
2-NFL
3-NBA
4-WWF
5-American Idol
6-Jersey Shore
7-Nancy Grace
8-Oprah
9-National ENquirer
10-porn (I know....but it deserves two spots)
Number one reason why people don't vote:
Because they are informed.
pods
This is the age of the "low information voter" and the crap stinking up DC is perfectly illustrating the downstream effects.
Welcome to Idiocracy.
Hey! I consider myself reasonably informed, and I only indulge in one of the listed distractions! (well, two if you count numbers 1 and 10 separately)
pods nailed it with:
Exactly.
Uninformed voter is a tautology.
Let me get this right, lazy, apathetic and/or stupid people vote on my rights and iiberty and how much my hard work should contribute to their welfare...I'd prefer natural law.
Jersey Shore is off the air........
"Jersey Shore is off the air........"
Speaking of the devil........
Ha ha heard a funny thing today. The Swiss franc falls and now they are asking for their gold back from the ny banksters too? ROTFLMAO!!! Knowing all those fancy folks that put their money in Swiss banksters hands thinking it was safe were basing those claims on the gold the Swiss thought the ny banksters had and actually do not have anymore because the bush mob stole it all? Ha-ha. Do say mr account holder, how about a container full of hundred dollar bills or any other worthless paper you choose to fiat in, instead of some of the red hoard smuggling in for the great surprise?
Got food?
Then replace jersey shore with CNBC.
They don't teach the chicks jack shit in school anymore. Flat out illiterate. So she can't hardly read or write. So what? What matters with a fox is nice tits.
it is a globally-evoked design expressing similar patterns because we are all just human after all
the enemy has spent decades learning to know us better than we know ourselves, the media is owned by 3 multinational borg beehives and we find ourselves today behind the ideological 8ball - we are literally in Bernays meets Buck Rogers land here
meanwhile the THX-1138 macro beehive is emerging
1.8 gigapixel ARGUS-IS. World's highest resolution video surveillance platform by DARPAhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGxNyaXfJsA
who needs to even chip people, they will volunatrily self-insert into the grid because its fashionable
conciousness through a tube and a panotipcon plantation prison planet?
its like huxley's wet dream (because it is)
"Why the hell do you think the EU still exists?" you mean besides giving the Brits a headache? though I have to admit that this would be reason enough, after a few beers..
speaking as one that was there, because we still believe in peaceful cooperation and in the building of a confederation of free nations
something where you can be both a national citizen and an european one - all based on freedom
of course we were also slightly fed up of being the "war continent"
though I have to admit that a certain fear of a possible currency war (they happen, from time to time) led us to set up the eurozone club
and a certain fear of a possible trade war (they also happen, from time to time) led us to set up the EU club
oh, and we found out a trick out of the bag of the US Founding Fathers: the best way to watch over a thief is to set another thief on him - in the US case it was a balance between states and federation - in our case nations and EU
Avoiding war is a noble reason for bringing the EU together, but there current structure of The Euro and the way is impoverishes it's people may bring around the war you wish to avoid the most.
and yet they are different clubs. where for example the UK is not part of one and is seriously thinking about leaving the other one
you know, freedom to choose/join/leave?
and if the EUR impoverishes it's people because it's too hard - is not being debased enough, what would happen with a gold standard?
you can't print gold - and you would have the exact same effect, just more of it, without the fabled "elasticity"
"you know, freedom to choose/join/leave?"
That's only possible with panarchism.
Otherwise, you're just kidding yourself.
like giving up your French citizenship and getting a Russian one, like the famous actor just did? Yes. It's not a very popular request, but on principle, yes.
In the Middle Ages it was "voting with your feet" - leaving your autocratic lord for the bourgeois freedom of the Imperial Cities
we would definitely need more of that - though again, please note how only very few people think in those terms
Almost certainly the most bizarre article, video, and thread I have ever read on ZH. What the hell is going on?
What's the point of being informed past this:
100% of politicians are sociapaths, and thieves. They all get rich some way, and we don't pay them as much as they wind up with.
Your only choice is between 2 people that fit the above description, one wearing blue, the other red, and both carefully vetted by their parties to toe the corruption line before you get any input at all.
So, there is no point. There is no real choice. Third party candidates have their votes tossed over the shoulders of the republocrat poll watchers en masse - they cannot win. Who counts the votes matters much more than the votes themselves anyway.
Never tried cheetos in the bath...
got a call from the NRA over the weekend looking for me to renew my membership early, and to make a donation to "stop feinstein, schumer, reid, etc..."
I said you arent thinking rationally; a box of .308 ammo cost only $20. For that price you can solve all your problems, and could take the weekend off.
So there's rational, and there's reality
LOL
...The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to down dissent and originality.”
"The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, and intolerable"...
H. L. Mencken
The American Mercury, April 1924 (Google Books)
"Why Are American Voters So Uninformed?"
~~~
Because they watch TV... Next question...
quick: what is the upside and downside of the voting system peculiar to the US and UK?
which leads to the question: to what party did President Washington belong to?
Q1 Answer: DIEBOLD
Q2 Answer: What difference does it make?
~~~
In the land of the blind, the ONE EYED SNAKE is king... [They wanted to make GW a "king" in the beginning, but he refused]...
sorry, failed. I understand that ZH is not a place where congressional redistricting is discussed, but "Diebold" is only a marginal "intervention". think about it, most - not all, but most - districts are either "solid blue" or "solid red". try again, please
Oh yeah, that's right I forgot... They only operate in that tiny 'sliver' of SWING VOTES... No need to bother with the avalanche Red or Blue areas...
~~~
While we're at it...The PPT can't POSSIBLY be in there intervening 24/7, with every nano-tick of the markets... So ~ By conclusion, the PPT has nothing to do with anything with regards to equity or credit markets...
thanks, +1. and why are there so many solid areas?
(Computer assisted) gerrymandering!
In most states politicians get to (re)draw electoral districs and with the help of income, education and other statistics (and above all, registered voter records) they can design the electoral districts such that they're 70+% for one party.
This is why mosty electoral districts have wierd, irregular shapes.
This has been made even worse by the introduction of computers.
Having a relative representation on Country, State and County level is total nonsense - HSA would certainly agree.
We cannot risk to have only 1% familiar faces in Washington after elections. Is it better to return 94% of the morons back. The newcomers might have IQ's above 90 and might even vote as they please!
Because for the last 30 years our public schools have been increasingly focused on behavior modification. Critical thinking, complex reasoning and written communication skills have severely eroded over the years, and now we are left with a complete mentally conditioned, uniformed, narcissistic, gluttonous, materialistic populace who, like Pavlov's dogs, only react when the Bernaysian bell is rung.
You forgot "Brought to you by Carl's Jr."
pods
The reason for that is that the vast majority of humanity is unable to engage in critical thinking, complex reasoning and written communication skills. In the old days the vast majority of humans did without any type of education, they spent most of their lives doing manual labor. The only people that got an education were those who's family could afford one. By WWII most Americans had at most a rudimentary 8th grade education. By now, most students are lucky to graduate with a 6th grade education.
Moral of the story: Johnny is not only stupid, there's really not much you can do to improve his IQ. How much edumacation do you need to push buttons on the cash register at Mickey-D's?
In fact, as things become more and more automated, there's really no incentive to be smarter than a 5th grader.
"a rudimentary 8th grade education."
Have you ever looked at the tests that were administered to, taken, and passed by eighth graders, Kansas, circa 1900? I doubt that even 1% of today's college graduates (even the smart, reasonably dedicated ones at quality schools) could.
8th Grade Final Exam: Salina , KS – 1895
Grammar (Time, one hour)
1. Give nine rules for the use of capital letters.
2. Name the parts of speech and define those that have no modifications.
3. Define verse, stanza and paragraph
4. What are the principal parts of a verb? Give principal parts of ‘lie,’ ‘play,’ and ‘run.’
5. Define case; illustrate each case.
6 What is punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of punctuation.
7 – 10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.
Arithmetic (Time,1 hour 15 minutes)
1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
2. A wagon box is 2 ft. Deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. Wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?
3. If a load of wheat weighs 3,942 lbs., what is it worth at 50cts/bushel, deducting 1,050 lbs. For tare?
4. District No 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?
5. Find the cost of 6,720 lbs. Coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.
7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. Long at $20 per metre?
8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.
9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance of which is 640 rods?
10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt.
U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)
1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided
2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus.
3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
4. Show the territorial growth of the United States.
5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas.
6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.
7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln, Penn, and Howe?
8. Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, 1865.
Orthography (Time, one hour) [Do we even know what this is??]
1. What is meant by the following: alphabet, phonetic, orthography, etymology, syllabication
2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?
3. What are the following, and give examples of each: trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals
4. Give four substitutes for caret ‘u.’ (HUH?)
5. Give two rules for spelling words with final ‘e.’ Name two exceptions under each rule.
6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.
7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: bi, dis, mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, sup.
8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.
9. Use the following correctly in sentences: cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane , vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.
10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.
Geography (Time, one hour)
1 What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas ?
3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
4. Describe the mountains of North America.
5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia, Odessa, Denver, Manitoba,
Hecla, Yukon, St. Helena, Juan Fernandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco.
6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S.
7. Name all the republics of Europe and give the capital of each.
8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?
9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers.
10. Describe the movements of the earth. Give the inclination of the earth.
Some have suggested that this test may actually have been intended for teacher applicants, but that might draw even greater focus on some of today's problems. Snopes - not always a reliable source - pronounces it false; however, unlike their usual practice, they just say, "No, not true." Maybe not. Who knows? But I don't think there's much room for argument that education has declined dramatically, if not from Dorothy's Kansas, then just in the last decade or few.
Wow. Just realized that I've never even seen the word "fane" before. The others I know well, but fane?
We are on the way: "Total loyalty is possible only when fidelity is emptied of all concrete content, from which changes of mind might naturally arise."
Actually, it appears as if the reason why American voters are so uninformed is because they don't want to be informed, or just don't care to be informed, otherwise they wouldn't be watching controlled and captured tv and other mainstream media for their information, news, and "entertainment".
Or, they suppose they are informed by the likes of Jon Stewart, NPR, MSNBC, etc. Those outlets that provide no information, but instead ladle on the "attitudes" towards issues that should be adopted in order to be accepted by the herd. Stewart does not know that we have a national debt, and therefore it is uncool to talk about spending. NPR executives who are homosexual have lunch with members of the Muslim Brotherhood and whine about their fears of Sarah Palin. President Clinton commits serial crimes (including perjury, subornation, payoffs, etc.) and he is cute and rougue-ish. As Reagan once quipped, socialists aren't a problem because they know nothing, rather they are a problem because so much of what they "know" is not true. We live in an ocean of lies, and that is cool, apparently. After all, nothing bad can happen here. We are superior to all other humans in history where bad things happened.
If you are going to troll, you will have to do better...
Check the rating for JS vs Faux news and get back to us...
zero references to bezmenov :(
and no open statement about sheeple being the ultimate NWO political weapon - thus, foreground analysis
well served all the same lass - because it maps the baseline phenom (however, no statement is made about this being Deliberate)
alas, if we were only slightly more brave or foolish, we could overturn our enemy's philosophies with the blink of an eye
we are vast and powerful, if only we truly could get people to understand their power and shake the spell of false histories
the math is very clear though and the conclusion should shake us to our depths about the mechanical nature of the probability here - the resultant is obvious
DEFINE "New World Order". it has something to do with the world, doesn't it? the thread is about an US domestic affair
TLDR. Back to Honey Boo-boo.
A better question would be, "Given their one-party system, why do Americans still vote?".
Because you still don't have to vote for the two major parties. You can vote for a range of 3rd party candidates.
Think about it: what would the two parties want more than for you to NOT vote? The win by you not voting, almost as much as by you voting for one of them.
The only way they don't win is if you vote for a 3rd party candidate.
Still drinking that kool ade, I see. What third party candidate ever wins? Votes for them don't make it through the system.
I don't agree. I once did... for a number of years, actually. It's pointless. If a third party ever did create enough traction to be considered a threat to the one party system we have currently, that third party would either be co-opted or destroyed. save your energy.
The only way to win is to NOT have "the will of the people" override the rules set up for the government.
Every single argument I hear almost without fail is something that has two valid sides, but the feral (yes, on purpose) government has NO authority to regulate in these matters.
There is a reason why voting is the utmost important issue in life.
Because the feral governemnt has too much damn power.
Our feral elections should have minimal effects on our everyday life.
Why don't we stop digging instead of argue about how to best dig our way out of this hole?
pods
Good luck with the 3rd party voting and their diebold machine. Na it's not rigged, they'd never cheat or lie. Na bro, vote it's all good.
Just Ask Frank Zappa " I Am the Slime"
I am gross and perverted
Im obsessed n deranged
I have existed for years
But very little had changed
I am the tool of the government
And industry too
For I am destined to rule
And regulate you
I may be vile and pernicious
But you can't look away
I make you think Im delicious
With the stuff that I say
I am the best you can get
Have you guessed me yet?
I am the slime oozin out
From your tv set
You will obey me while I lead you
And eat the garbage that I feed you
Until the day that we don't need you
Don't got for help...no one will heed you
Your mind is totally controlled
It has been stuffed into my mold
And you will do as you are told
Until the rights to you are sold
That's right, folks..
Don't touch that dial
Well, I am the slime from your video
Oozin along on your livinroom floor
I am the slime from your video
Cant stop the slime, people, lookit me go
Only citizens that own land should be allowed to vote. Land owners have a vested interest in the community and are less inclined to give away their hard earned resources to the perpetually unemployed. Many of our problems stem from people continuing to vote themselves benefits while not contributing to the pie being sliced and diced. Those people are not ignorant...they are democrats.
Ignorance is bliss and an uniformed voter.
did you not learn anything, Jews were not allowed to own land, they became merchants and politicos then merchant bankers, who loaned to the trite land owners to fight for more land. Don’t you see what is happening around us? Only the rich can own land*, the governments and the Queen 'own' the most. It brings about Feudalism.
*and if you own land, the mineral rights are not yours, even the rain that falls on your said land belongs to the greater aquifer (see http://cnsnews.com/news/article/oregon-man-sentenced-30-days-jail-collecting-rainwater-his-property)
So career soldiers or others who often move should be denied the franchise? For many years my father was politically active but decided it was in his own interest to rent instead of purchase. Find a different standard for determining a respectable citizen.
given your handle, we are looking forward to your insightful and blissful answer. - Ned
That sounds a lot like Feudalism.
Very popular during the Middle Ages, also known as the Dark Age.
Maybe they're just selfish, greedy, institutionalized, lazy, easily distracted morons........
Ever thought of that??
With the last election, of the worst Presdent ever, the ship has sailed. We are a mob rule democracy consisting of superficial nincompoops. The idiots gave Congress a 91% disapproval rating and then re-elected 94% of them. There is no coming back. I can't wait for the implosion. Fuck em- they deserve this.
Agreed. Willful ignorance shall not go unpunished.
Um, yeah, this time it's different.................
The sooner the reset, the better in my opinion. Will be ugly though.
I read at least 7,300 F'n ZH articles over the last Fuckin year and I'm so Fuckin informed I've Fuckin almost informed on my Fuckin self.
I gave ya a down arrow for being a smart ass.
I gave you a down arrow for not finding humor in smart asses.
I gave ya an up arrow cause my mouse stuck. The world has no shortage of smart asses. I don't even find them amusing anymore.
i gave you an up arrow for no particular reason.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e06_1359380173
one would not argue that it is a plants fault for growing poorly in a desert
but how many will then understand that the environment is Intentional - so as to produce a sort of ultimate political weapon: the sheeple and Goethe's idiot who believes himself free despite being in chains so vast he cannot perceive their structure
there is no new world order, just a planet full of brainwashed selfish sheeple (daniel dennett and chomsky-esque foreground tartarus mazery imo)
i prefer to think extant formulations of liberty are atavistic
i believe that humans are inherently disposed towards good at a cellular level as all organic life strives for equilibrium... organic life is just elementary game theory (RAND Corp. is full of simpletons)
you should watch the video the guy above you posted.
i tend to think humans strive to be nothing in particular. and that only through a drive to achieve for themselves will moral structures be instilled within them, whether good or evil... but whatever.
chaotic neutral all the way.
Nature knows no mercy, the latter being a concept derived by/through/of sentience, and is created/learned through a process of socialisation which is acknowledged as/and leads to, a workable society. When such knowledge is attempted to be imparted through force, the very nature of it's real positive effects are negated.
Society here used to denote a state of independant beings working under common principles of self interest with the understanding that voluntary cooperation(law) is necessarry for the positive effects of compassion to outweigh those of involuntary subservience, dependance, and eventually servitude.
The common name for a structure of basic law which sets out these principles of a society, which wishes to be less than illusion, and instead exist not just in writing for the singular time it was completed, but to be a document which is followed by and adhered to by all social classes, for the benefit of all life, in negation of the principles of abject nature; whose only statement is "victor", is usually called a constitution..
Once the fomulation of law is distorted to the point beyond recognition of justice in it's most simple sense, that of no one having the right to anothers independence being infringed unless in the case of due penalty awarded for actual crimes of the individual under same such "law", then the society in question ceases to be in any real sense beyond what those who hold sway over the perverted structure can enforce, freeing those of good conscinece to depart.
The true cruelty in poverty is that in structures of involuntary servitude, it itself is a crime.
/ramble off
Too much information and almost all of it inaccurate? Hell I use tequila but I can see where "The Bachelorette" would be just as numbing.
If you REALLY want to disconnect, you've gotta combine the two.
Wait a minute...does posting/playing that clip here suggest that we fringe ZH lowbrows are uniformed?
does suggest that some of us can't spell for shit ;-)
From the upcoming Chapter Two of my "Perhaps a Crumble Rather than a Collapse".
"Once we ‘know’ something, it is now ours to own and deal with. Since we cannot un-know something, only deny it, we would much rather not know it in the first place. This leads directly to believing anything but the truth, which helps explain some of the incredible lies the authorities seem to get away with. Simply put a lie is a deliberate distortion applied to a perceived reality and the lie is always used to maintain or buttress faith and belief in whatever we want to believe in, be it our spouse, children, employer, friends, neighbors, government etc. Or in this case the very socioeconomic system that has offered a direct and continuing promise to enable our health, wealth and wellbeing."
Chapter One can be found here.
While I think that's generally true, I don't think it applies to this specific situation... here, people are incentivized to be oblivious, not because of a desperate desire to keep the status quo, but because they realistically assess the situation and choose not to know because it has no practical effect. When people ask me whether or not I voted yet, I often say "No, I'm too poor to vote." In short, the physical act of voting is nothing short of a charade.
At the very least, the cause of our apathy is vague and much more complicated than a general "denial" stereotype... as my wife (therapist) always says, "everything isn't symptomatic."
Hi MachoMan,
I understand your point, but I was careful to specify exclude denial.
"Since we cannot un-know something, only deny it, we would much rather not know it in the first place."
I was discussing an outright desire not to know because knowing has direct and often quantifiable consequences, at least from the perspective of the person trying to avoid knowing. However, my excerpt was pulled from a much larger discussion about faith and belief, so I agree it wasn't directly applicable to the situation highlighted in this article.
But it is pretty close. :)
Again, there are other, more practical explanations for voter apathy (or not being sufficiently informed). For example, in this pressure cooker called the american economy, many people have literally not a moments worth of free time to do proper research. And, even if you could, you would still be stuck with voting for the lesser evil... who probably has nothing to do with your own personal platform or, at best, loosely resembles it.
Further, is there really some sea change when we suspect politicians are crooked (inherently) and then later find out our suspicions were correct all along? People simply hold their noses and go vote... for the least rank of the lot. Are you suggesting that knowing that the democratic process doesn't work is going to somehow necessarily call us to other action? (I'd like to see this expanded upon because I think it is a leap at best and a false dilemma at worse).
I don't think there is this huge desire not to know... I don't think there is some massive "consequence" from knowing... instead, there is simply a direct correlation between how much we know about our politicians and how much voting will actually affect our personal situation... given that voter apathy (not voting) is the recipe of the day, due to the fact that it has no material impact on anything (other than perhaps the tiniest of change to how quickly we blow ourselves up), people needn't pay any attention... so they don't...
Again, everything isn't symptomatic.
I disagree with many of your premises. That does not make you or me right or wrong. We simply have extremely different perspectives of the world.
Over the years I have had long involved conversations with many highly educated and intelligent people. And while they can give long and extremely logical explanations for why they did this or that, when they decide to be brutally honest with either me or just with themselves, very often they made an emotional decision and then justified it with all kinds of mental gymnastics.
I tend to disbelieve what someone is telling me, particularly if that person tends to be triggered by ideology, religion or even just a strong sense of their correctness, because often they just don't understand that they are dishonest with themselves and with others. To some extent or another we all hide from the world and ourselves under many layers of self deceit and subterfuge. And our ego shields us from that self knowledge.
The world is mad, insane, bonkers. Why would I expect the average Joe, especially the Joe who is highly adapted to the insanity (read that as educated, intelligent and "successful") to be capable of seeing his/her own madness.
Another comment Cd if I may, I have great respect for your intellect, when you gave your prediction of the future, and then said; of course it won't be like that, I saw you have the humility of an exceptional thinker, surely before a man could be considered intelligent he has to know, (He really doesn't know anything, and possibly, neither does anybody else). I think; all life on earth from the single cell creature to the most complex is directed by instinct, Human intellect, (Consciousness) is mainly concerned with creating rational senarios to explain our behavior, after the fact, Instinct supplies the (unconscious) stimulus for action, intellect attempts to provide a rational explaination, The problem with this, from a species survival point of view is; instinct is only concerned with survival, rationality perhaps not so much so.
We spend so much time trying to deny who and what we are that we have all gone mad. We then condition our children in the proper form of madness and the perfect circle closes for another generation. I prefer to believe this rather than to accept that we are born insane.
I can do little to nothing about everyone else's madness until I can come to grips with my own. I expect my (self) therapy session to last several lifetimes. Good thing I'm coming back for another round as a fly on the wall.
<But before I leave this cycle I shall outlaw fly swatters.> :)
Of course you are right CD, many people would rather not know too much, there seems to be so much we could know, and a lot of what we know we could know, if we knew it, might disturb our sleep even more than it has been disturbed already, so no, the rational thing to do, if you have been conditioned that, "The Power is in YOUR hands", even though you know you are powerless to affect anything, you might as well mouth comforting platitudes, eat comfort food, and turn the TV up really loud, and watch your favorite shows, this is the behavior we (collectively) have been conditioned to, and this is the behavior we will exhibit.
Welcome to the insane asylum.
<Pass the chips please and flip it over to HBO.> :)
Alice Cooper - Welcome to my nightmare (On Muppet Show)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71hVIGjvuVY (3:01)
The least-common sense is common sense.
Damn that reminds me. College starts in a week. Better get my woody ready.
Why are voters mis- or uninformed? Easy. The Progressive Marxist union takeover of the schools in the mid 70s. No more civics and gov't classes in high school; replaced by "social" issues, especially in the last 2 decades.
Parroting the McCarthist spiel doesn't exactly mark you as informed.
The modern Consumer Society, which is as far from Communism as it can be, would not be possible without the impulse-driven, uncritical, low self-control, shallow and materialistic sheep that the modern education system produces.
It's Statists that made sure the US school system sucks, both from the Left-wing and Right-wing variety. Blaming the pinkos for it just displays a weak mind that is incapable of original thinking, so it parrots someone else's propaganda.
Conversely, the return on disinformation has never been higher.
Why so uninformed you ask?
Because it is a nation of consumers, not citizens. Now, spoon-feed me some of that juicy policy-stuff that I already know I like!