and pet peeve. We are a Republic, not a Democracy. So we can't have "Democracy as we know it". You'd think someone who works at Salon would know that.

Nuff said

The state of California and it's horrible prison system needs to release 40,000 prisoners to have a healthy functioning operation as noted by a federal overseer, who is responsible for remedying the current dysfuntional mess. The voters of my state has seen it fit to pass laws that can incarcerate people for up to thirty years for stealing a piece of pizza from a standing bystander. You may say I being hyperbolic, the public and the legislature have been in frenzied paranoia to stop crime, at the expense of contemplating it's effect on the state budget and it's 80% prison recidivism rate. Our society needs to be educated on the dynamics of crime.Twenty second sound, bites on the news and political campaign ads, hardly bring any lucidity to the crime issue.

Thinking back to my high school government courses, the thesis of Louis Bayard's article is the reason the founding fathers set up the electoral college, isn't it? They knew that it was best to elect people who would make a reasoned vote for the actual candidate, rather than a "one person, one vote" type of arrangement.

The level of discourse is very low in most of politics and I agree that many people can't deal with very complex decisions that *require* trade-offs... everyone is looking to be outraged by the other party or playing "gotcha" at every turn.

Leadership is really hard when you can't "reason" with the people you represent... :-/

Bayard's responses to Shenkman's arguments skirt the issues at hand rather than confronting them. For example, his flip comment about the Simpsons completely ignores the point, which is that ignorance about the constitution is a problem, not that it's bad to know the names of cartoon characters. He's right that the lists are not comparable, but the point is that most Americans don't know their rights (or the rights of others) as enumerated in the constitution. That's a big big problem, especially since judicial interpretation of those rights depends in part on public perception of them.

Likewise the comments about not knowing a party's platform to the word are accurate, but irrelevant. Few would argue that one needs to know every detail of a candidate's positions to vote for them. The points are that people A) don't know the BASICS of many party platforms, and B) Don't understand what they do know. Picking policy based on how it makes you feel is foolish, since all policies are aimed at making people feel good. Corporate welfare is pitched as job retention. Draconian drug laws are pitched as fighting crime in general, and reducing the scourge of addiction, even if study after study proves that they do neither. People accept extremely simplistic claims about how policies will affect their lives and do little analysis or digging about what the actual likely outcome is. The fact that judging a candidate's trustworthiness (often an emotional process) may also be a valid element of voting doesn't change the need for more intellectual rigor in the booth.

As for Bayard's claims that we can't reverse democracy's advance, and that the good old days were seriously flawed, he's exactly right. White men aren't more intelligent or rational than black women. Legislators and electors can be just as ignorant and short sighted as general voters (Ted Stevens LEAPS to mind) But we can push for better education and a culture that doesn't look down on intellectualism. We can demand better from our media than Britney Spears and Ashton Kutcher. There's where the fight is.

Anyone who voted for McCain, Clinton, or Obama and didn't have plans to make lots of money with the war against our dread enemies, the IRANIANS, is probably both stupid and ignorant.

Only stupid people believe politicians and journalists today.

You gotta have FAITH!