Just How Stupid Are We?

[oldsquid]

Facing the Truth About the American People

The book by Rick Shenkman bring some scary truths to the front regarding the American voters.
http://hnn.us/HowStupidAreWe/book.html


Only 2 out of 5 citizens can name the three branches of the federal government.

Only 1 in 7 can find Iraq on a map.

Only 1 in 5 know that we have 100 US senators.

Although more than 50% of Americans can identify at least two members of the Simpsons Family, only 25% can name more than one right guaranteed by the First Amendment.

Only 20% of young Americans between the ages 18-34 read a newspaper daily. An astonishingly low 11% report surfing Internet news sites.

A Washington Post poll in September 2003 found that 70% of Americans believed Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11. A majority continued to believe this even after the 9/11 Commission reported that the claim was groundless.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqDi1Vi-2qo

THE THOUGHT occurs to almost everybody, I would suppose, that politics today is conducted at a lower level than it used to be. Not many voted against William Howard Taft because he was fat or Abraham Lincoln because he was thin. One can't imagine Franklin Roosevelt being judged by how badly he bowled or how convincingly he knocked back a tumble of scotch. Indeed, studies show that the speeches presidents gave a half-century ago were pitched at the 12th-grade level - five grades above the level of speeches given by presidents over the last generation.

Which brings up a paradox. Decade by decade Americans are getting smarter and smarter, and decade by decade our politics is getting dumber and dumber. How can we explain it?

In 1940 six in 10 Americans hadn't gone past the eighth grade. Today, most Americans have attended college. Partly as a result of their added schooling, Americans today are more tolerant of dissent and less racist. But surveys show that increased schooling doesn't correspond to a higher aptitude for civics. To put this bluntly: Americans today are no better informed about politics than their grade-school educated grandparents. With respect to some subjects they are less well-informed.

[providencecrow]

Are any of those statistics surprising to you? I mean this was broadcast on live tv http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww

[Philly Mike]

I would like to know how Political smarts converts to intelligence. So what if people don't know who Dick Chainey is, or Condi Rice. How is knowing that the members of the electoral college are the actual people who vote for president going to really help you get by in life. Just because you have some political savy doesn't mean everyone that lacks this knowledge is stupid.
There are people who would think someone is stupid because a person doesn't know that milk is an acid, or that in chess there is a move called en pesant, or would say someone is dumb because they don't know what a terrabyte is. I can go on about this. Politics is just one miniscule thing out of everything we can learn. Unless someone can explain every single thing that exists I don't think anyone should be saying someone is stupid.

Yes speaches in the past used to be written differently, but that was at a different time when it was easier to stay in one place and listen to one person speak for a couple of hours. Now people can't do that. The general person feels they have a lot of other things to take care of in todays world, this leads to the "sound clip" politics that so many have used as of late.
Another thing is by giving speaches at a lower grade level of understanding it will bring out people to vote for that person as oppose to being intimidated by more complicated words and sentinces.

Regardless of any of this, intelligence is a vague thing. You may understand all of the inner workings of politics but I am sure that there will be a time in which someone will have to teach you something. So because you don't understand it without being shown about it does that make you dumber than them?

[born2bone]

I think that if are government had less a-holes Americans would care to know more about them

[zig]

Speeches are written according to their audience. Nowadays, televised speeches have created a much wider audience than the comparatively select few people who would have taken the time to personally attend speeches back then. I'd bet you could find equally troubling statistics for the people as a whole back then, but only more educated people tended to be involved in things, so the candidates could afford to write speeches at a higher grade level.

Politics have always been dumb; now we are simply exposed to more of the stupidity.

[captaincrunch]

I think that, more than any of the other factors, it has to do with a piss poor education system run by liberals who think that they can throw a ton of money at the problem and it will disappear. I can go on and on about this but I don't feel like cramping up my fingers because I'll end up with a complete reformation of the education system.

[Queenie]

What is most amazing to me is the fact that votes can be bought. Not necessarily with money, but with the passage of legislation that is not judged on its merit, but on how much money was contributed to your campaign for office.

[fistor!@#]

Only 2 out of 5 citizens can name the three branches of the federal government.

Legislative, Executive.........


gimme a minute.....

[plungerhand]

we're the dumbest alright. Our world is changing for the worst. As an alcoholic pilot fighting blue collar man once said..." you can't fix stupid."

[fistor!@#]

we're the dumbest alright. Our world is changing for the worst.

I don't think we're necessarily dumber than generations prior. There's just more of us now, and pretty much anyone with internet access is free to display their stupidity to the world now.

[Wiener Poopie]

[Queenie]

how do you post a url that will show up as a picture?

[plungerhand]

I don't think we're necessarily dumber than generations prior. There's just more of us now, and pretty much anyone with internet access is free to display their stupidity to the world now.

Not to forget all the brain box inspiring choices on TV..oops got to go...Jackass is on

[silvermelinda]

how do you post a url that will show up as a picture?

When you go to post there's a button at the top that looks like a picture (between the files and the mail). It'll put "img" "/img" in your post (but with brackets instead of quotations). Post the image url between those two.

[Wiener Poopie]

how do you post a url that will show up as a picture?

Did you get it?

[Queenie]