Scientists say America is too dumb for democracy to thrive

Started Jan 28, 2013 | Discussions thread
Senior MemberPosts: 1,727
In reply to Mentor_1, Jan 29, 2013

Intelligence is good for democracy because it makes it harder to deceive people, but democracy does not particularly fail because of a lack of intelligence of people.

What enables democracy to function is not the ability to vote government IN, its the ability to vote government OUT.

Take universal social health care as was brought up in the link. It has always been treated with deep and considerable initial skepticism and distrust by the general public in every 'people elect government' nation it has ever been implemented in.

Why? Because if you picked up a sack and leaned over to your next door neighbor and said 'I want to give you whats in this sack, its good for you.' they would be skeptical of both you and your sack. If its new to them, if they cant grasp what it means.. whats inside... they are doubly distrustful.

Only a close personal friend could do something like that and be welcomed, anyone else tries that, person or government, guard immediately goes up... 'what is this... what do you want from me... why do you think my life needs changing'. All of that. Thats not a stupid response, that's a human response.

In nations where social health care was introduced there were always plenty of politicians prepared to speak AGAINST it prior to its introduction. Down the track, after it got off the ground, those same politicians either conveniently changed their minds or kept their mouths forever shut, because to do otherwise would be to commit political suicide. Why? Because it was successfully implemented and the general public realized it was a Good Thing as they lived the experience of it. If the general populace had, collectively, experienced it as a Bad Thing the coin would have flipped the other way and those same politicians hating on social health care would have had others flock to their ranks.

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