Voter Ignorance

About 2500 years ago the Greek philosopher Plato regarded public opinion as incompetent and incapable of directing policy for the state. He also held nothing but contempt for the politicians who maintained their hold on public office by truckling to the masses, who in turn were unfit to both govern themselves and to elect efficient governors. Through rampant misinformation, single issue voters, and general voter ignorance this only confirms that Plato's thoughts all those years ago still holds true today. I agree with Plato, that the average person is unfit to vote. 

The voters are bombarded by emails that the average person doesn't take the time to fact check for accuracy. Obama was misquoted as saying "I will stand with the Muslim' should the political winds shift in an ugly direction." This quote was taken out of context from one of his books, The Audacity of Hope, What he really said was "In the wake of 9/11, my meetings with Arab and Pakistani Americans, for example, have a more urgent quality, for the stories of detentions and FBI questioning and hard stares from neighbors have shaken their sense of security and belonging. They have been reminded that the history of immigration in this country has a dark underbelly; they need specific reassurances that their citizenship really means something that America has learned the right lessons from the Japanese internments during World War II, and that I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction." Senator John McCain also had a quote taken out of contexts, also from snopes.com, supposedly he said "I am a war criminal, I bombed innocent women and children." Once again this was taken out of context; He told Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes that he was forced to write a confession which stated that he was guilty of war crimes against the Vietnamese people and that he intentionally bombed women and children. Of 31 emails on Barack Obama and Hillary or Bill Clinton, two were completely accurate, a few had elements of truth but the vast majority of them were flat out false. David Emery the editor of about.com's Urban Legend page for 10 years, estimates that 10% of all emails are 100% true, about half may contain mixtures of fact and falsehoods and the rest are flat out lies. 

A percentage of voters are "single issue voters" who will only vote for a candidate base on his/her position on one given issue, which while this issue may be particularly important to that person, modern politics is full of complex issues. Approximately 13% of Americans will only vote for a candidate solely for the reason that they are against abortion. There are others, like Martin White, aself-proclaimed single issue voter, who will not support a candidate that doesn't support his views on the second amendment. Willis E. Elliot, who amongst other things is an author of 6 books, a minister, and consultant to Newsweek for 38 years he states that "…..I am deeply concerned about single-issue, anti-abortion voters. I consider them immoral. Given the multitude of complex problems the United States is facing, this presidential election may prove to be the most consequential since the Great Depression." 

The majority of Americans are ignorant of current events. Just before the invasion of Iraq, 60% of Americas believed that Saddam Hussein was behind September 11, 2001 attacks. Even after the 9/11 commission reported that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with the attacks, 50% still insisted that he did. Also, 2003 poll showed that 70 percent of Americans didn't know Congress passed a prescription drug benefit for senior citizens, even though it was the largest new government program in forty years and is expected to cost more than a trillion dollars over the next ten years. In a Joint Study, The Washington Post and Harvard University found that more than 50% of Americans agreed with the statement "Politics and government are so complicated that a person like me can't really understand what is going on." 

The average American is unfit to vote. The majority of Americans are guilty of believing the flood of chain emails, being guilty of single issue politics, or being ignorant of current issues. John F. Kennedy at a speech given at Vanderbilt University in May of1963 stated "The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all." So the next time you open a suspicious email or think that your one issue is more important that everything else, or if perhaps you just don't know the facts, think of Plato and his philosophy. Perhaps one day we can all prove Plato wrong that we are qualified to elect our leaders.