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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 11/11/2007 : 01:28:50
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Good question. In too many cases, I think, the answer is a resounding 'No!'.
I recently offended some people, quite unintentionally, with my modest suggestion that perhaps it wasn't in the best interests of the nation to hand over so much decision-making power to people who aren't informed about the issues and their own system of government. (Responses ranged from “thoughtful disagreement” to what I believe is referred to as a “galloping hissy fit.”) Honestly, I was a bit shocked by the reaction - when I penned those remarks it hardly occurred to me that I was saying something controversial. On the other hand, it seemed to me that I was merely stating common sense.
Since that post I've been ruminating about the assumption embedded in the premise - that a goodly number of Americans aren't intelligent enough to be safely entrusted with the vote. In order to bring a little more depth to this debate I thought I'd do some research to discover whether or not the nation's citizens are under-informed, and if so, to what degree. I thought about pulling together a laundry list of reports comparing US students to their counterparts in other nations, but that seemed too easy (and not entirely satisfying).
Instead, I decided to present some interesting poll results. After all, you can't really assess the intellect of the average man in the street by perusing a lot of egg-headed numbers on book-learning. Likewise, it's not fair to evaluate their media consumption habits, because a lot of what looks at a glance to be trivial is in fact in the public interest.
Here's what I discovered.
Over a third of the population believes in ghosts and UFOs
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Read on; it gets worse.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
 Posted - 11/11/2007 : 02:39:33 [Permalink]
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One of the sets of poll results is particularly interesting.
More than 40 percent of those polled said newspapers should not be allowed to freely criticize the U.S. military's strategy and performance.
Roughly half of those surveyed said the American press has been too aggressive in asking government officials for information about the war on terrorism.
More than four in 10 said they would limit the academic freedom of professors and bar criticism of government military policy.
About half of those surveyed said government should be able to monitor religious groups in the interest of national security, even if that means infringing upon religious freedom.
More than four in 10 said the government should have greater power to monitor the activities of Muslims living in the United States than it does other religious groups.
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At first, I thought that maybe people were just not understanding the questions asked, or maybe the poll was obviously biased. But here is a detailed list of the specific questions and a breakdown of the anwers given.
It would be interesting to see what % of people gave the same answers to some of the questions. Like how many people who think papers should not be allowed to freely criticise the military also think there should be limits on academic freedom that would bar professors from criticizing the military.
I'd like to see a 2007 version of the same questions, a comparison of the answers now vs 2002 would allow us to see if that ~40% (who gave the answers in my above quote) has grown or shrunk. If the poll numbers are trending back towards their 2000 results, that wouldn't be so bad. But if the % are the same, or higher (with regard, again, to the answers in my quote above), then that would be fairly discouraging news.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 11/11/2007 : 04:37:04 [Permalink]
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Something like 74 percent of Americans believe in Satan
Rather than intelligence levels, I think it has more to do with education. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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| Edited by - Gorgo on 11/11/2007 04:52:04 |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 11/11/2007 : 05:12:01 [Permalink]
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I tried to find something better than the Newsweek poll on Satan. The Barna poll only says that thirty percent disagree with the statement that Satan is ''not a living being, but is a symbol of evil.''
While researching this, what I realized is that they did not ask specifically what is meant by a "symbol of evil." I think a lot of people know that Satan is not a being that exists, but think that it is a kind of nebulous force that exists that influences humans. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 11/11/2007 : 06:11:21 [Permalink]
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| Gallup has belief in God at 86%, Satan at 70%, angels at 75%, Heaven at 81%, Hell at 69%, belief in "universal spirit" at 14%, creationism as "definitely true" at 39%, "probably true" at 27%. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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| Edited by - Gorgo on 11/11/2007 06:12:02 |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 11/11/2007 : 06:12:38 [Permalink]
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| The Morans guy really has become famous. I wonder if anyone's ever interviewed him. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 11/11/2007 : 07:03:31 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Gorgo
The Morans guy really has become famous. I wonder if anyone's ever interviewed him.
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They've probably tried but found that his speech was unintelligible due to his constant drooling.
If it'd been me caught in something that stupid, I'd have to go into seclusion until everybody forgot; join a monastary & do a vow of silence, or some, damned thing.
I'm not so sure about the education part. I rather think it's conditioning ("Daddy done it that way," & so forth). Intelligence shines through when reason overpowers the mindset.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 11/11/2007 : 11:03:27 [Permalink]
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This list of quotes comes from Quotations by Subject. I picked my favorites, but I'm sure there are many more quotes with similar if not the same sentiments expressed here.
Democracy:
Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. Sir Winston Churchill.
Democracy consists of choosing your dictators, after they've told you what you think it is you want to hear. Alan Corenk
The great thing about democracy is that it gives every voter a chance to do something stupid. Art Spander
Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve. George Bernard Shaw
The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeois. Gustave Flaubert
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard. H. L. Mencken
Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed, and are right. H. L. Mencken
On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does. Will Rogers
What to do…what to do? I can say this. I have absolutely no confidence in the initiative process. And yet, I have only a miniscule amount of confidence in our elected representatives although I don't know why I should. Perhaps it's because I live in what a city that is commonly referred to by our detractors as “The Peoples Republic of Santa Monica.” We didn't elect Bush. They did…
We are one of the best-educated cities in the country. So I suppose the solution to our problem is with education. But then, we are a wealthy city and kick in with our own city taxes to add dollars to our schools, which keeps expensive programs going and attracts better teachers. We are far from typical, because we can afford to be.
Conservatives like to say that throwing money at a problem will not fix it. And to some extent that's true. But without the money, the situation is hopeless. 
Sigh…
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 11/11/2007 : 11:30:54 [Permalink]
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Great quotes, right in the, er, money!
For some reason that I can't explain, they put me in mind of this:
Hear the sledges with the bells -
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
II
Hear the mellow wedding bells -
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight!
From the molten-golden notes,
And all in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future! -how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!
III
Hear the loud alarum bells -
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor
Now -now to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of despair!
How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,
By the twanging
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells -
Of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!
IV
Hear the tolling of the bells -
Iron bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.
And the people -ah, the people -
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,
And who tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone -
They are neither man nor woman -
They are neither brute nor human -
They are Ghouls:
And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A paean from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the paean of the bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the paean of the bells,
Of the bells -
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the throbbing of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells -
To the sobbing of the bells;
Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells -
To the tolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells. ~~ Poe
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 11/11/2007 : 12:06:24 [Permalink]
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| I think it was Jonathan Kozol who tells how his rich friends would tell him that it was foolish of him to want to "throw money" at the problem of poor public schools. These were often the same people who would throw money at the problem by sending their kids to private schools, or to wealthy public schools. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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verlch
SFN Regular
781 Posts |
Posted - 11/20/2007 : 12:12:53 [Permalink]
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Only the successful class should vote. If you want to remain free, have low taxes and limited government. This would allow the most possible freedoms to be expressed!
I once spoke with a homeless man that was 100% Democrat. I know exactly why he was so titanically democrat, social services and welfare. He gets free health care with no cap on it, and he gets all the free morphine he can handle off of it. He mentioned that he sells his food stamps for drugs.
I think all able bodied men should work, and taxes should be lowered via paying out less in social services to those who have no intent on living standards like your average poor (middle) class person does. |
What came first the chicken or the egg?
How do plants exist without bugs in the soil, and bugs in the soil without plants producing oxygen?
There are no atheists in foxholes
Underlying the evolutionary theory is not just the classic "stuff" of science — conclusions arrived at through prolonged observation and experimentation. Evolution is first an atheistic, materialistic world view. In other words, the primary reason for its acceptance has little to do with the evidence for or against it. Evolution is accepted because men are atheists by faith and thus interpret the evidence to cor-respond to their naturalistic philosophy.
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. II Timothy 4:3,4
II Thess. 2:11 And for this cause God shall
send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
You can not see the 'wind', but you can see its effect!!!!
Evolution was caused by genetic mistakes at each stage?
Radical Evolution has 500 million years to find fossils of fictional drawings of (hard core)missing links, yet they find none.
We have not seen such moral darkness since the dark ages, coencides with
teaching evolution in schools. (Moral darkness)
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places, EPH 6:12.
"Thus, many scientists embracing naturalism find themselves in the seeming dilemma recently articulated by biochemist Franklin Harold: "We should reject, as a matter of principle, the substitution of intelligent design for the dialogue of chance and necessity [i.e., Darwinian evolution]; but we must concede that there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical system, only a variety of wishful speculations."
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 11/20/2007 : 12:21:24 [Permalink]
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Verlch, man!
Long time no see...
We've been missing you.
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 11/20/2007 : 12:29:02 [Permalink]
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I think all able bodied men should work, and taxes should be lowered via paying out less in social services to those who have no intent on living standards like your average poor (middle) class person does.
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Why not just shoot everyone who isn't in the Forbes 400? |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 11/20/2007 : 12:47:42 [Permalink]
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verlch wrote: | I think all able bodied men should work, |
That's sexist. Unless you were using the gender neutral "men" as in "mankind". But then, that would mean you're against housewives. Unless you think unpaid work is real work. And certainly there are many people, both men and women, who do unpaid work. They're not just called housewives. Also community service volunteers and most writers, artists, and activists.
Have you actually thought through what you mean by work?
As for your homeless democrat, first of all that's a anecdotal argument and not very valid. I could tell you (and it is true) that my parents and all my aunts and uncles are 100% democrat, and they're all solid middle and upper middle class people who pay hefty taxes.
Second of all, to quote an old Hobo's traditional poem:
The bum on the rod is hunted down
As the enemy of mankind;
The other is driven around to his club
And feted, wined and dined.
And they who curse the bum on the rods
As the essence of all that is bad
Will greet the other with a winning smile
And extend him the hand so glad.
The bum on the rods is a social flea
Who gets an occasional bite;
The bum on the plush is a social leech,
Blood-sucking day and night.
The bum on the rods is a load so light
That his weight we scarcely feel,
But it takes the labor of dozens of men
To furnish the other a meal.
As long as you sanction the bum on the plush,
The other will always be there,
But rid yourself of the bum on the plush
And the other will disappear.
Then make an intelligent, organized kick,
Get rid of the weights that crush;
Don't worry about the bum on the rods,
Get rid of the bum on the plush! |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 11/20/2007 : 14:19:55 [Permalink]
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Hey V! Good to see you're still kickin' & glad to see you back!
How goes the Masonic Wars; anybody winning yet?
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Are Americans smart enough to vote?
