Who's Stupid Now?

I know; a lot of posts lately and a lot of posts about politics. Bear with me; I'm going on vacation next week and need to clear my brain.

One could argue that the U.S. system of government, with all its checks and balances, assumes that politicians are stupid. It wants to prevent any one stupid person or group of stupid people from having too much power. The risk is that sometimes the leader, the house, and the senate are all stupid at the same time. Add to that a stupid population that passes an idiotic referendum or two, and you have stupidity run amok.

Equally, one could argue that the parliamentary system generally seems to assume that politicians are intelligent. Groups of people form parties and select a leader. Individual voters choose a representative and assume that party's leader is going to be good enough to run things. If he (usually he) turns out not to be so great, then the representatives from that party and involved members of the party have to find a new leader. Jane Eh Voter trusts people to make sure this happens. And the system seems to require Jane Eh Voter to know, more or less, what's going on.

I'm sure this theory is flawed. I'll say it again: generalizations always have exceptions. Including this one.

I just wish that voters and politicians on both sides of the border applied their intelligence to elections and today's issues more often than they do. I wish voters didn't trust elected officials quite so much. Paying closer attention to issues and elections would benefit all of us. Lives, in our country and abroad, are at stake.

But mostly I wish I could discuss these issues with my father. He would point out, gently, where I am the stupid one. Yet he would cheerfully continue to live in a state whose federal science-challenged senator has called global warming the biggest hoax perpetrated on the American public. Perhaps unsurprisingly--my father was a historian, after all--he saw history over a longer span of time than I am able to. He had confidence in the ability of the U.S. political system to correct its own excesses. I wish I shared his optimism.