Letters to the Editor
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Democracy is Flawed
I'm convinced that if Clinton was ahead in the race for the nomination the numbers would be flipped. More Americans would say we're ready for a woman than a black president. There is a lesson to be learned here for sociologists. People will tell you what they think you want to hear.
What I find more troubling about these polls are the fickleness of the American people. Why are attack ads so effective? Why did the US elect GW Bush when his opponent was clearly far more intelligent, far more capable...twice? These are questions that still trouble me. Part of the answer is that more and more people are getting involved in our democracy but in a dogmatic, uninformed and capricious way.
I know what the Democrats were thinking when they invented superdelegates. It's the same thing the founding fathers were thinking when they invented the electoral college. They wanted to protect the people from themselves, a kind of check on democracy.
I know it's in fashion these days to hype the wisdom and good instincts of the American people. Well, I think that's all a bunch of crap. We have a long way to go before we reach our own idea of who/what we are as Americans. We are only just barely civilized.
"What is the ape to man? A laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. And man shall be just that for the overman: a laughingstock or a painful embarrassment."