Does a workable democracy require a well-informed electorate?

[ugabuga]

Who really cares? If he was doing a decent job, I wouldn't care if he was all religions combined or none at all.

I couldn't agree with you more.

Maybe the confusion his religion comes from Obama himself. I watched one of his speeches when he said that he was Muslim, but then "corrected" his statement to say he was Christian.

Do you have a reference or citation for this?

If your thread is meant to say that the electorate are dumb, and that democracy cannot work with uninformed people, I think you are off point...the politicians, corporations and news media have been spoon-feeding us lies for a long time.

My thread was meant to pose the question of whether we should be concerned that the electorate seems to be poorly informed. If I understand correctly, you say "no, we shouldn't be concerned, 'cause we've been poorly-informed & misinformed for a long time."

 

[Koa]

When this country was founded, the electorate was uninformed more so that today. That is why they made it a representative form of democracy. You elect people from your area to make the rules for your area, representing you in the bigger picture (federal government). People busy working on establishing a farm didn't have time to worry about the legal workings of government.

 

[Koa]

Want to read something interesting about politicians -- go read the 27th Amendment to the US Constitution. Politicians have essentially blocked the people from having a say so in their government, when it comes to rules about politicians (salary in particular).

 

[ugabuga]

How many intelligent people do you know who answer those polls?

So, when you see a poll result like, say "President Obama's job approval rating dipped to 44% for the week of Aug. 9-15," you'd say that this result was distorted by the fact that most respondents were unintelligent?

 

[30ashopper]

So, when you see a poll result like, say "President Obama's job approval rating dipped to 44% for the week of Aug. 9-15," you'd say that this result was distorted by the fact that most respondents were unintelligent?

I don't know if I agree with scooter on this, but it does depend a lot on who did the polling and how the questions were asked. Popularity polls by companies like Gallup seem to be pretty accurate.

 

[30ashopper]

ugabuga, if you feel the electorate isn't well informed, how would you go about addressing the issue?

 

[scooterbug44]

So, when you see a poll result like, say "President Obama's job approval rating dipped to 44% for the week of Aug. 9-15," you'd say that this result was distorted by the fact that most respondents were unintelligent?

I think it varies by who is doing the polling and what their agenda is. Lots of polls ask questions phrased to get the results they want.

 

[AlphaCrab]

I think President Obama is just as religious as Ronald Reagan was actually--these poll numbers on this topic, coming after 8 yrs. Geo Bush Jr.'s very public and very pronounced Christianity doesn't really surprise me at all.

 

[ugabuga]

ugabuga, if you feel the electorate isn't well informed, how would you go about addressing the issue?

Well, I originally posed the question: "Does a workable democracy require a well-informed electorate?"

Amend that to "representative democracy", per Koa. Also, if I understand Koa's response correctly, he thinks the electorate in general has been poorly-informed & mis-informed since the beginning of the republic, & since the republic has been "working" since its inception, there's no need to do anything.

Yes, I think the electorate is poorly informed. Unlike Koa, my gut feeling (intuition) makes me think that somehow we'd be a better nation/society if we were better informed.

That said, I admit to being short on answers re how to make us better informed. I was hoping by posing the question that some interesting ideas might surface in the discussion.

It's obvious to say "better education," but that's a real brier patch when we start talking specifics.

Discussion boards like this one help inform; I've been made aware of facts I hadn't known before via SoWal.com. When someone on this forum misstates a "fact," he/she is corrected pretty quickly. But--the folks on this forum are interested & generally well-informed.

I make it a personal policy to respond to political/religious emails that distort facts. Many I know complain about them but don't respond. I take Edmund Burke's admonition seriously: "All that's necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing." If I get a twisted email, I don't want my silence to be misinterpreted as agreement.

I used the example of electorate ignorance about the Prez's religion as a vehicle to discuss this--perhaps I should have chosen a different issue, since you think it's trivial & Koa thinks it doesn't matter.

Perhaps I should be neither astounded nor saddened about the electorate's level of knowledge about any issue--but somehow I am--even if I don't know how to solve it.

 

[30ashopper]

I think the internet is doing a wonderful job of improving people's awareness of what goes on in Washington. Politics has changed in the last ten years because of it. People aren't relying on a one hour nightly newscast to get their fill anymore.