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SedanChair posted:Stupidity is not the main factor at work here. You do have some genuinely stupid yokels like Virginia Foxx and Louie Gohmert out there, sure, but for the most part politicians are acting exactly as stupid as their base wants them to act. They know that climate change is man made and Obama was born in the US. Hell they probably even know that funding programs adequately leads to better outcomes. They just don't care, because they're evil. They don't care about anything but fundraising and winning elections. Stupid people want them to say stupid things and so they do. You can also understand a topic very well and still reach the "wrong" conclusions. Most of the more conservative people I know are actually pretty smart and have a good understanding of the topics that we butt heads over, they just managed to take that information and come to wildly different conclusions. There are plenty of people who believe the science on climate change and simply don't care because they're more interested in short term economic concerns. There are people who acknowledge the benefits of raising the minimum wage and don't care because they believe entry level workers don't deserve a living wage. Testing politicians on knowledge is pointless because anyone entering politics has already formed their political opinions and is likely to dismiss out of hand evidence against those opinions, even if they have to memorize it for some stupid test.
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Dec 2, 2015 06:56
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PT6A posted:Again, why are you artificially restricting this to presidents or presidential candidates? Even senators tend to not be outright stupid. Representatives or state politicians, though... holy gently caress, there's some knuckle-draggers. It's not that I disagree with their opinions, it's that they're literally working off a completely distinct set of "facts" from reality itself. I said "national politics". I'm only giving numbers for presidential candidates because journalists don't usually bother to steal House candidates' SAT scores. And do you have anything to back up your assertion that reps are stupid, beyond "they disagree with me so they're dumb and stupid"? Working off a different set of fundamental assumptions from you (not "from reality" - do you honestly think that everything you believe is objectively correct?) doesn't make them stupid, and in fact, what would be stupid is working off a different set of fundamental assumptions from the people who actually voted for them. Of course, it's difficult to know whether they actually hold those beliefs or are just acting in order to better reap the enormous benefits involved in being a successful politician.
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Dec 2, 2015 15:01
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Main Paineframe posted:And do you have anything to back up your assertion that reps are stupid, beyond "they disagree with me so they're dumb and stupid"? Working off a different set of fundamental assumptions from you (not "from reality" - do you honestly think that everything you believe is objectively correct?) doesn't make them stupid, and in fact, what would be stupid is working off a different set of fundamental assumptions from the people who actually voted for them. Of course, it's difficult to know whether they actually hold those beliefs or are just acting in order to better reap the enormous benefits involved in being a successful politician. I don't know, I think it's safe to say that statements like this come from a place that's at least a little bit divorced from reality. Obviously it's impossible to know whether he believes what he's saying, but it also doesn't really matter too much. Reps really do say the darnedest things.
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Dec 2, 2015 15:53
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If you could force every national politician to do anything, testing them is probably at the bottom of the list. I'd rather mandate their only healthcare is tricare, medicare, or medicaid even if they have options from a spouses income or other source. If you had to test them with something standardized, I'd rather have a wonderlic personally. SAT knowledge sets gets lost pretty quick and it takes way too long.
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Dec 2, 2015 16:41
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Main Paineframe posted:I said "national politics". I'm only giving numbers for presidential candidates because journalists don't usually bother to steal House candidates' SAT scores. No. Claiming the earth is 4000 years old, or that the pyramids were built as granaries, or that a body can stop a pregnancy that's the result of a "legitimate rape" are not matters of opinion, they are things which literally contradict reality itself. There is no grey area involved. I'm not saying everything I believe is objectively correct by any means, nor that people who disagree with my beliefs are wrong.
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Dec 2, 2015 19:39
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Paradoxish posted:I don't know, I think it's safe to say that statements like this come from a place that's at least a little bit divorced from reality. Obviously it's impossible to know whether he believes what he's saying, but it also doesn't really matter too much. Reps really do say the darnedest things. Honestly, I think the writer of that article is dumber than the statement it's about. Mexico's not going to go to war with the US, even if US troops are attacking Mexican nationals in Mexican territory. They'd just lodge loud diplomatic protests while actually doing nothing about it (and secretly thanking the US), just like Pakistan and Iraq and every other ally whose territory we bomb in the pursuit of undesirables that neither our country nor theirs actually wants to have around. Also, the fact that he made reference to weapons that don't exist in practical form yet should show just how serious and committed he is to his military plans. Does he actually believe in doing it? Unlikely. Would he have the power to actually do it (or even influence things toward it in any meaningful way) if elected? Nope. But you know what? Those aren't really important questions either. The really important question is this. What did the audience of likely voters that he was trying to appeal to think of it? I don't have time to watch the video, but he's a Republican who said those things to a Tea Party group in a deep-red district in the Southern state of North Carolina, so I bet the crowd loving loved it, which makes it a pretty drat smart thing to say! The ultimate and foremost job of a campaigning politician is to appeal to the voters. And a large number of voters are stupid. Because of geographical concentrations, regional politics, smaller election sizes, and heavy gerrymandering, the potential stupidity level of the voters in a particular election is much higher in a House race. Given that, it's no surprise that House reps say stupid things a lot! You don't get elected by saying smart, sensitive, scientific things if you're running for a seat in Bumfuckia, Mississippi, and there's plenty of "uneducated rural Southern shithole" districts. Is it really fair to complain about creationist politicians when a pretty good percentage of the population doesn't believe in evolution? It's only natural for politicians to gravitate toward endorsing the beliefs of large parts of the electorate, whether they actually agree with it or not. Main Paineframe fucked around with this message at 14:34 on Dec 3, 2015 |
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Dec 3, 2015 14:32
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