The best college course I ever took was a philosophy class at Modesto Junior College called “Philosophy 105: Logic and Reasoning.” The instructor was a depressingly intelligent person, the sort of man who had a lot of patience but very little tolerance for dime story values and regurgitated opinions. I remember being shocked when simple exercises in logical sequencing would stump huge swaths of the class. I was erroneously under the impression that reasoning was an ability that any person could call upon in times of decision. Instead, I learned that clear thinking is a skill that must be practiced and developed just like any other talent and some people possess more innate ability than others. The laziness that allows a person to go through life without ever running a mile, reading a novel, or thoroughly bathing is also lethal to the thought process that democracy relies upon. Intelligence, the ability to understand and process information, takes effort. I sometimes think that the Republican Party is in control of the Federal government because they understand and are better able to exploit this.
Political debate in this country is non-existent because political loyalty is not won and maintained through rational persuasion and quantifiable performance. Rather, political affiliation is ingrained through marketing and emotional extortion. A person is a Democrat or Republican first, and a thoughtful civic actor second—or not at all. I liken it to sports fandom; the average knucklehead football fan decides how he feels about something by first looking at how it affects his team. You don’t have to see the unwashed jersey to know that the blowhard at the end of the bar likes the Jets; you can hear it in every inarticulate shout at the refs. Every call that goes against his team is a bad one, and a call that does the opposite is a good one. This sort of absolutism is not rare, but think about how absurd it is. Shouldn’t someone interested in excellent athletic prowess and fairness want the correct call to be made regardless of who may benefit? What point is there to a game in which bias of the official affects the outcome? What joy can there be in victory to a rigged game?
As annoying as sports fans and commentators are, they pale when placed next to political zealots and commentators. Remember the childish gloating of conservatives when Bush was awarded the 2000 election over the man who received more votes in Florida and overall? How can supposed patriotic Christians support such a rigged outcome? The answer is that Republicans are not patriotic or Christian. They are Republicans. Rush Limbaugh fans refer to themselves as Dittoheads, the idea being that they say “Ditto” to any opinion the man has. Again, how absurd is this? How can a system that is meant to be rule of majority hope to work when the majority of civic actors have abdicated their opinion to a talking monkey that hosts a news show.
How many voters follow the “party line” on a ballot? How many Democrats have never voted for a Republican? And vice versa? It isn’t even that people have such strong views on issues, since the issues shift and change anytime the incumbent’s lips move—much like a pro sports team will change cities, players, and jersey designs, a political party will switch its stance as the wind blows. Republicans used to be a party against foreign intervention, deficit spending, and big government. Democrats used to care about the environment, social justice, and education. Kerry campaigned under a platform of extending troop deployment and spending in Iraq. Bush illegally wiretaps and wants something like 99 percent of the federal budget dedicated to spying on U.S. citizens. Has there even been a one percent shift in party enrollment?
What do you care about? What do you want the world to be like? Our system and our leaders have failed us. More so, we have failed ourselves. Intelligence and democracy take hard work and autonomous thinking.
