#1 Stupidemocracy
Posted: Sat Sep 16, 2006 4:37 am
First off, I'd like to point out this thread is not an attack on a specific group of individuals or a general attack on democracy in general, but rather one of the system's flaws. I want to reiterate, this is not a democracy or America bashing thread. This is a discussion of a specific flaw in the system and possibilities of how to fix it.
Anyway, one of the key tenants of democracy is for the people by the people. The citizens have considerable say in how the government works. However, as I have noticed in my years, a lot of people are stupid, or at the very least, unattentive of certain things. I'm not immune from this myself, I often find myself ignoring things because I have no interest in them or don't want to deal with bullshit. Still, even with that, there are some really stupid people in the world. Either education failed them, or they deliberately failed education. Now, I may not have hard figures at this moment, but I believe it's at least fairly accepted that stupid people have more children than smart people, on average (this is NOT saying that people with lots of children are stupid - all of John McCormick are dead, but not all dead people are John McCormick).
This being the case, how long until this country is controlled entirely by idiots (yes, yes, obvious jokes inbound, but seriously)? What can we do about it? Demanding limits on having multiple kids won't work (look at China), so the only fix I can think of is Education - but the problem that solution is that if the stupid people have enough control, they can control education into the ground (or dig it a grave).
So is this right? Should we let this happen? How can we stop it? I mean, imagine if it wasn't stupid people, but immigrants. The country is designed to change to best suit the needs of the majority of people living here, with a handful of laws that would always remain the same. If the majority of people living here are unforgivably stupid and run the country in to the ground, should we just accept that, or do what we can to save the nation (and perhaps the world)?
Anyway, one of the key tenants of democracy is for the people by the people. The citizens have considerable say in how the government works. However, as I have noticed in my years, a lot of people are stupid, or at the very least, unattentive of certain things. I'm not immune from this myself, I often find myself ignoring things because I have no interest in them or don't want to deal with bullshit. Still, even with that, there are some really stupid people in the world. Either education failed them, or they deliberately failed education. Now, I may not have hard figures at this moment, but I believe it's at least fairly accepted that stupid people have more children than smart people, on average (this is NOT saying that people with lots of children are stupid - all of John McCormick are dead, but not all dead people are John McCormick).
This being the case, how long until this country is controlled entirely by idiots (yes, yes, obvious jokes inbound, but seriously)? What can we do about it? Demanding limits on having multiple kids won't work (look at China), so the only fix I can think of is Education - but the problem that solution is that if the stupid people have enough control, they can control education into the ground (or dig it a grave).
So is this right? Should we let this happen? How can we stop it? I mean, imagine if it wasn't stupid people, but immigrants. The country is designed to change to best suit the needs of the majority of people living here, with a handful of laws that would always remain the same. If the majority of people living here are unforgivably stupid and run the country in to the ground, should we just accept that, or do what we can to save the nation (and perhaps the world)?