No Numbskulls Allowed

Police seek man with
sexual fetish for slashing
exercise balls.

Should some kind of credentials be required before running for public office? I mean, you know, you have to take a test just to get a driver’s license, and many jobs require either oral or written tests. It seems there is nothing required of those who aspire to public office. Unfortunately, this shows. The Sotomayor confirmation hearings offered glimpses at Senators who seem to be truly dim bulbs. Senator Sessions is a good case in point, and Inhofe has repeatedly revealed his apparent lack of contact with reality. Just now some ten Congresspersons have signed on to some ridiculous “birther” statement. Obama has done everything necessary to prove he was born in Honolulu, part of the United States, but these dimwits refuse to believe it, claiming his birth certificate, certified by the State of Hawaii, must be a fake, and so on. In short, nothing anyone can do or say can make these people believe Obama is a bona fide citizen of the United States. This reveals, to me at least, an absence of common sense, if not the ability to reason. There are probably thousands of examples of our Senators or Representatives saying and doing absolutely boneheaded things. Many of them do not believe in evolution, an indication of genuine ignorance. Even our past President said he wasn’t sure about it. Michelle Bachman comes out every day with some new absurd claim that makes you wonder how in the world she was ever elected to high office. Of course even bright people occasionally make some stupid mistake, but in some cases this is a consistent pattern that indicates something is missing when it comes to brains.

Nothing is required for someone to be elected to office other than just the ability to get elected. Thus our elected officials can have all kinds of backgrounds: haberdashers, schoolteachers, pest controllers, and what have you. Many elected officials come from legal backgrounds, sometimes having never actually practiced law, and still others may be doctors who for whatever reason became politicians. Some of these turn out to be effective public servants, but some do not. The question becomes, how do we screen out the occasional loonies who manage to get elected to high office, then prove themselves over time to be stupid and/or incompetent, but for some reason continue to be elected? I do not know the answer to this question, but I believe it is an important issue we should consider more carefully. I would not suggest that having a college degree necessarily helps, nor is there necessarily anything wrong with having been a comedian, plumber, exterminator, or even governor. But how in the world does someone like Bachman get elected? Or Inhofe? Or Sessions? I confess that watching the performance of these individuals, and others, during the recent confirmation hearings, was an embarrassment, virtually too painful to watch. I do not believe my feelings about this have merely to do with the fact that I disagree with them. There are many people I disagree with that I still admire, but some individuals just do not inspire admiration at any level. They are, in my judgment, truly “dim bulbs.”

Could we not at least consider mandatory classes for anyone who aspires to high public office? That is, once someone decides to become a politician and run for office might they not have to take some courses in politics, current events, the Constitution, things like that, just basic information they should need to know, or is it enough they can see Russia from their front porch? Of course many candidates already possess such knowledge and could be exempt from tutorials. Sarah Palin is a good example of someone who was running for very high office with virtually no qualifications at all, other than a brief governorship of a sparsely populated state, where she has been accused of multiple ethics violations. She knows far less about the world and world affairs and the functions of government than most of my acquaintances and friends. That she could be considered a serious candidate for President of the most powerful country on the planet is not only shocking, it’s terrifying. I’m not certain that in Palin’s case tutorials would make much difference as she shows no inclination to learn or be told anything. But did we learn nothing from eight years of know-nothing Bush? Is that something we should be eager to repeat? If wanting to have someone as President who is intelligent, reasonably well educated, and well-informed, with at least, ideally, some relevant experience as well, makes me an elitist, so-be-it. I do not want my future dependent upon Joe the (non) Plumber, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Bachman, Sarah Palin or even Sessions and Inhofe. We seem to have evolved a system in which politics has been completely divorced from both common sense and responsibility, and certainly from any sense of trying to improve the public well-being. Perhaps it might help if there was a sign over the entrance to the Senate: “No Numbskulls Allowed.”

LKBIQ:
“…the level of American elementary school education in America is not high enough for her immense possibilities and her limitless aspiration…The insufficiency of the American common school is a danger to the peace of the world.”
H. G. Wells (in the 1920’s)

TILT:
Walter Cronkite died today. He was 92. There will never be another one like him, not even close.