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Why stop there? We could require people to take a test before they vote, too, just like in good old 1868!
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Nov 30, 2015 16:19
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blowfish posted:there is a difference between saying people should not be allowed to express what their interests are and making sure the functionaries charged with actually implementing what the populace needs are smart enough to do their jobs. So...SAT tests for mid-level bureaucratic functionaries? Politicians don't implement anything except Senate rule changes and committee reshufflings; their role is to act as representatives of the public in making the decisions for someone else to implement, and to choose the people to choose the people to do the implementing. guidoanselmi posted:I can't see this for Reagan or Dubya. Bush's SAT score (which we know, thanks to the invasiveness of journalists) was above average - somewhat low for Yale, supposedly, but significantly above the mean. Comparing it to our current scores is somewhat meaningless since the SAT scoring mechanism has gone through several rounds of rescaling and inflation since GWB was in high school, so I'm not giving the raw number, but his overall score was probably in about the 80th percentile, or a bit higher.
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Nov 30, 2015 20:41
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Jestah posted:I mean granted, governance doesn't require most of the tangible and measurable branches of the concept of intelligence. History proves that time and again. I just think the public should have a system that explicitly outs objectively stupid people. What makes you think there's a significant number of objectively stupid people in national politics? I think you've fallen into the partisan trap of "I disagree with what this person says, therefore they are dumb and stupid" and now you're just searching for solid proof to validate that your partisan beliefs are objectively more intelligent (something that conservatives sometimes do as well), as well as an excuse to exclude those who oppose those beliefs from politics on the grounds of the intellectual inferiority you believe them to possess. It's also typical to overestimate the degree that politicians believe what they say, and attribute real belief to what's actually a carefully focus-grouped statement that has been meticulously calibrated to the exact sensibilities of a large and enthusiastic group of likely voters, lobbyists, and donors. Sure, the popular conception is that Bush II was dumb and stupid. But his SAT scores were in the top 20% of test takers that year, and he scored higher than Kerry on the SAT (and possibly Bill Clinton, but I can't find even a mention of where the score I found for him supposedly came from). And while Romney's SAT score isn't known, his grades at Harvard were supposedly extremely good.
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Dec 1, 2015 18:16
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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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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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