Something that strangely does seem to be an American phenomenon is the wilfully ignorant politician. [Please wait until I have defined the term before you explode]. It seems to me that we are justified in expecting our national leaders and government representatives, whatever we choose to label them, to be abreast of a multitude of issues. A politician must be capable of discoursing with both the public and the press on a wide variety of topics from breast cancer to global warming and encompassing school meals, alternative energy sources, immigration policy, evolution, recycling technology, the age of consent, water purification and education along the way. We can’t possibly expect them to be expert in each of those topics, and many more, which is why we have government departments for many of those specific issues. But surely we can at least expect them to know the limit of their own knowledge of the subject.

For example, at this year’s Republican presidential debate at the beginning of June, the moderator asked nine candidates to raise their hand if they did not believe in evolution. Unbelievably, three hands went up.

You can read about it here.

Like I said, we cannot expect our leaders to be experts in everything. But don’t we have a right to expect that they do at least know what it is that they do not know. That they know the limits of their own knowledge?

To my mind, that Senator Brownback does not know what evolution is really about is, in the current climate in the US of A, inexcusable. Has he actually heard of Dover?

Any one can be unaware. To be unaware is not to be ignorant. Lack of awareness can be corrected by study and learning. To refuse to study and learn and yet still to profess to know is to be ignorant. That Senator Brownback compounded his lack of awareness by publishing it in a newspaper without prior study and learning is what makes him wilfully ignorant.

But according to the article quoted above, Senator Brownback is far from being alone in his ignorance. More than half of all Americans reject evolution. The same number don’t know that the Earth orbits the Sun once a year, and almost the same number think that humans once walked with dinosaurs. I don’t know about you, but I think it absolutely beggars belief that that is the level of general understanding of science in what we regularly refer to as one of the most technologically advanced nations on Earth.

In another thread I made the point that a person cannot hope to participate in a meaningful debate without knowledge of at least two sides of the fence. Without knowledge of a subject your opinion on it is worthless, and so through ignorance we cede our voice at the debating table and our right to free speech is no more than the shadow of the wind. So if half of all Americans are essentially scientifically illiterate, where is their voice in the national debate, who speaks for them who have no voice of their own?

Their elected representatives the politicians, of course. But as Erich’s essay to open this thread discusses, and as Jerry Coyne’s article lays bare, they really are no better. Educated Americans are fleeing the role of the public servant in droves, and the public are left to squabble over those who are willing rather than those who are able.

The educated American knows that were she to become a public servant she would have to spend a large proportion of her time not only doing all those disagreeable things that Erich has detailed above, but also discussing the important issues of the day with a voting public who have, through their almost wilful ignorance, lost the right to be at the debating table in the first place. Imagine trying to educate 150 million Americans about evolution. To me that sounds almost as agreeable as simultaneously debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin while dancing barefoot on a nest of African fire ants, and I totally sympathise with any person who chooses not to have to do that for a living.

But isn’t public service supposed to be a noble cause. Are great men and women not supposed to be attracted to it by the lure of what they can do for others, by the idealism of helping the downtrodden and the oppressed?

Obviously only up to a point. It seems to me that there are three causes at work here. The first is that so much of what is important to us today depends upon science for a proper explanation that a politician who is not well-read scientifically is going to be struggling most of the time to be staying afloat. Scoring points requires even greater dedication. This also means that even when the public servant is genuinely acting in the best interest of her voters, they may not be able to appreciate that fact simply because the science is beyond their understanding, or, as is so often the case in America, outside their belief system.

A second contributory factor is that modern life is so diverse, not just in terms of science and technology but also education level, race and many other factors that the standard two-party system is no longer capable of representing the views of much more than a minority of voters. A candidate can no longer align himself with his party across a whole raft of issues because there are many more than two ways of looking at everything. Isn’t it at least possible that some potentially brilliant candidates have been put off from trying for public office because they are not able to pigeonhole themselves in the way your democracy demands?

My third suggestion is that that there are many more rewarding ways of earning a living in America than being a public servant. In another forum I had a discussion with a young man at a crossroads in his life. Should he choose more education, or going out and getting a job. I told him that within reason almost anyone can get a job. What is much harder to do is to find someone who is willing to pay you for something worth devoting your life to. Getting the highest education you possibly can opens the doors to careers as potentially rewarding as being a heart surgeon, a maths teacher or an astronaut, a career that is going to touch peoples lives in a way that stacking shelves in a Piggly Wiggly store is not. Seems to me that educated Americans should be queuing up to do those jobs rather than pandering to the whims of the ignorant masses and fiddling their tax returns in Washington. And who can blame them?

You need to find out about Ron Paul. He is different. He has made a career of supporting the Consitution and fighting tyranny, and TPTB hate his guts.

“Congressman Ron Paul is the leading advocate for freedom in our nation’s capital. As a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Dr. Paul tirelessly works for limited constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, and a return to sound monetary policies. He is known among his congressional colleagues and his constituents for his consistent voting record. Dr. Paul never votes for legislation unless the proposed measure is expressly authorized by the Constitution.”

http://www.dailypaul.com

http://www.goldismoney.info/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=155

http://www.ronpaul2008.com