I'm an elitist?

I'm beginning to suspect I might be a bit of an elitist.

I've been avoiding writing about the current political campaigns, although I've been following the process closely since the early days of the primaries. But lately things have reached such a low point that I'm starting to tune out. The increasingly negative tone of both campaigns is really getting old, and it only seems sillier in light of current affairs. They're both guilty of a little pointless mudslinging lately, although I have to say that the level of dishonesty and downright nastiness coming from the McCain camp lately has been particularly shocking and offensive (isn't this the guy who swore to run a clean and honorable campaign after getting shit-stormed himself by Bush in 2000? Seems like he of all people ought to know better).

But, as frustrating as it is, I'm enough of a realist to know that all of this is, to a certain extent, just politics. What has been deeply troubling me over the past week or two has been the responses of "normal" people around the country, many of whom seem only too willing to gleefully accept whatever their candidate throws out there, even in the face of clear contrary evidence, just because they like how it feels. Take, as an example, McCain's constant insistence that Obama plans to raise taxes on American families. It happened again in the last debate. McCain mentioned in passing Obama's plan to raise taxes, and during his 2 minutes Obama once again laid out very clear his proposed tax plan (tax cuts for 90% of families and small business tax credits/loans, with raised taxes on families making over $250,000 a year, as well as on coorporate income). Not too long after, McCain was talking about how Barrack plans to raise taxes on middle class families....what??

Now, if McCain has a legitimate issue with Obama's stated tax agenda, that's just fine. He should explain what it is and what he proposes as an alternative. But I am getting SO TIRED of his apparent belief that he gets to make up whatever facts he likes, as long as he just never acknowledges contrary evidence and keeps acting like they're true.

Another small rant along a similar vein, I was stunned when McCain criticized Obama for "voting against the funding of our troops in Iraq", (Barrack voted against a funding bill that had no stated time table for troop withdrawls) when he did the exact same thing himself on a similar funding bill that did stipulate time limits. Now again, if he wants to criticize Obama for insisting on a time table, that's just fine, go right ahead and make that case. But this overblown charge of "lack of patriotism", as if someone Barrack actually wants to cut off funding for our soldiers in Iraq, is just ridiculous. And what's worse, McCain knows it.

So....what does my little tirade have to do with being an elitist? Haha, that's a good question, I got a little sidetracked. The reason I started with that observation is that I've been getting increasingly frustrated that so many people seem content to just accept all this garbage without doing the slightest bit of research or fact checking for themselves (which is so easy to do these days). It honestly pisses me off that this kind of stuff really sticks for a large number of people, people who actually have little to no real information about the candiate they are supporting. The "elitist" part is that I'm getting really frustrated that my life is so intricately tied to the choices of a lot of stupid or lazy people.

I know that sounds really strong, but the funny thing is that I'm actually a strong supporter of the democratic process. It's just that in my mind, the ideal of the "democratic process" is based on informed citizens making difficult choices. And just to be clear, I'm not at all saying that somehow I want everyone to vote like I do, not in the least. I'm totally comfortable with people voting based on opinions and ideologies that I totally disagree with. I just want them to do it based on real information and some considered reflection, not this stupid knee-jerk, name calling political farce.

I've been thinking lately that it would be a really good idea to mandate a short, 5 or 6 question quiz about the actual policies of the candidate they want to vote for. I'm thinking of very general, multiple choice kinds of questions about the candidate's major foreign and domestic policy proposals. Frankly, if someone can't do that then I don't really think they have the right to cast a vote. As an added benefit, the canditates would be highly motivated to very clearly lay out their positions and use their resources to educate their supporters, or risk losing votes.

There was a good reason that classical democracies (including ours when it was founded) restricted the right to vote to those who owned property. They wanted votes to be based on sound consideration by citizens who had a real stake in the outcome, not on political manipulation of a large mass of un-informed people. And yes, I know that that kind of classism carries its own set of ugly problems (more than its worth I think), so I'm not proposing a return to feudalism or anything. I just think that we would all benfit from treating the right to vote as something precious and important, both a gift and a serious obligation.

See...I told you I'm an elitist ;-)

This is definitely one of those posts where I would love to hear people's thoughts.