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Politics Blog: Scientists say America is too dumb for democracy to thrive
San Francisco Chronicle / SFGate.com ^ | Mar 09 2012 at 9:29 am | Posted By: Mike Moffitt

Posted on 03/09/2012 7:38:01 PM PST by thecodont

The United States may be a republic, but it’s democracy that Americans cherish. After all, that’s why we got into Iraq, right? To take out a dictator and spread democracy.

“Government of the people, by the people, for the people.” “One person, one vote.” We are an egalitarian society that treasures the mandate of its citizenry.

But more than a decade’s worth research suggests that the citizenry is too dumb to pick the best leaders.

They know what's best for the country.

Work by Cornell University psychologist David Dunning and then-colleague Justin Kruger found that “incompetent people are inherently unable to judge the competence of other people, or the quality of those people’s ideas,” according to a report by Life’s Little Mysteries on the blog LiveScience.

“Very smart ideas are going to be hard for people to adopt, because most people don’t have the sophistication to recognize how good an idea is,” Dunning told Life’s Little Mysteries.

What’s worse is that with incompetence comes the illusion of superiority.

Let’s say a politician comes up with an ingenious plan that would ensure universal health care while decreasing health care costs.

According to Dunning-Kruger, no matter how much information is provided, the unsophisticated would 1) be incapable of recognizing the wisdom of such a plan; 2) assume they know better; and 3) have no idea of the extent of their inadequacy.

In other words, stupid people are too stupid to know how stupid they are.

(Excerpt) Read more at blog.sfgate.com ...


TOPICS: Education; Government; Hobbies; Politics
KEYWORDS: democracy; dumbeddown; education; republic
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I think this article is a trial balloon to prepare the populace for the idea of a dictatorship.
1 posted on 03/09/2012 7:38:07 PM PST by thecodont
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To: thecodont

Looking at the source it is easy to guess who they think is too stupid toknow what’s good for them


2 posted on 03/09/2012 7:41:26 PM PST by dangerdoc (see post #6)
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To: thecodont

And it’s folks like this writer that elected the most incompetent leader in the nation’s history.


3 posted on 03/09/2012 7:42:59 PM PST by Some Fat Guy in L.A. (Hope springs eternal - maybe the Bucs will break .500 this year)
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To: thecodont

This has long been the opinion of progressives. There is nothing democratic in the cries to disenfranchise the Tea Party.


4 posted on 03/09/2012 7:43:06 PM PST by JimSEA
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To: thecodont

How do they get through doors with heads that big?


5 posted on 03/09/2012 7:51:46 PM PST by Shadowstrike (Be polite, Be professional, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet.)
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To: thecodont

“Let’s say a politician comes up with an ingenious plan that would ensure universal health care while decreasing health care costs”

LOL


6 posted on 03/09/2012 7:55:13 PM PST by MNDude
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To: thecodont

And just who are these stupid people? Anyone want to bet the authors would consider conservatives to be the stupid ones?


7 posted on 03/09/2012 7:56:59 PM PST by randita
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To: thecodont

San Francisco Chronicle, Cornell, livescience.com.

eyeroll, eyeroll, eyeroll.


8 posted on 03/09/2012 8:01:01 PM PST by denydenydeny (The more a system is all about equality in theory the more it's an aristocracy in practice.)
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To: thecodont
"Scientists say America is too dumb for democracy to thrive"

If the 2008 election is an indicator, I'd have to agree with them.

9 posted on 03/09/2012 8:04:08 PM PST by Savage Beast ("Improving" on truth is contempt for truth: hubris and denial--the stuff of tragedy.)
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To: thecodont

They may be right

I have been trying to talk to some actual socialists lately- the brainwashing is incredible


10 posted on 03/09/2012 8:04:11 PM PST by Mr. K (Were the Soviet-Era propagandists as gleefully willing as our Lame-stream Media?)
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To: thecodont
This isn't supposed to be a pure democracy. The Constitution was intended to limit both the excesses of government AND the excesses of democracy.

A democracy with universal suffrage has one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel and the founders were well aware of it.

America isn't failing by design, it is failing because the design has been thwarted.

11 posted on 03/09/2012 8:04:25 PM PST by SWAMPSNIPER (The Second Amendment, a Matter of Fact, Not a Matter of Opinion)
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To: thecodont

He’s right! After all 54% voted for 0bama.


12 posted on 03/09/2012 8:05:09 PM PST by reg45 (Barack 0bama: Implementing class warfare by having no class!)
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To: randita

The author is right.

After all, this once great nation elected a communist sympathizer raised in a Muslim country. No one in their right mind 10 years ago would have thought that America could even think of electing a COC with a name like Barack Hussein Obama after 9/11.


13 posted on 03/09/2012 8:05:57 PM PST by phoneman08 (Reagan conservative union member. Not a s rare as you think!)
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To: Some Fat Guy in L.A.

[ And it’s folks like this writer that elected the most incompetent leader in the nation’s history. ]

exactly!


14 posted on 03/09/2012 8:08:36 PM PST by KansasGirl
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To: phoneman08

I believe we (FR-thinkers) are outnumbered. 08 is proof.

If BS gets re-elected America’s toast.


15 posted on 03/09/2012 8:11:01 PM PST by bicyclerepair ( REPLACE D-W-S ! http://www.karenforcongress.com)
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To: thecodont
A nanny state is not sustainable.

Photobucket

16 posted on 03/09/2012 8:15:40 PM PST by BobP (The piss-stream media - Never to be watched again in my house)
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To: thecodont
Spoiledbratocracy

These clowns and there ilk can state Marxist ideology in their own words and that makes them intellectuals and qualified for high-level government positions.

They are still spoiled brats. In most cases.

Take Dr. Thomas Sowell's description of how intelligence is often recognized early, the child is treated special, given breaks, great education, inside track to great opportunities -- the works. Spoiled brats. (My words)

Take former Secret Service agent Dan Emmett's book “Within Arms’s Length.” He writes of during the course of his duties to protect the Clintons and staff "patient attempts to reason were met with childlike emotion born of a past where no one in authority--probably beginning with her parents--had ever said no to [the staffer] about anything.”

Pretty intelligent, recognized early, good schools, the left ideology, spoiled brat.

See: Secret Service agent: Clinton’s staff rude, Hillary aloof

And how about the book "Unlimited Access : An FBI Agent Inside the Clinton White House" by Gary Aldrich. I will always remember how potential Clinton staffers responded to loyalty clearance questions: "I am totally loyal to the Clintons!" The spoiled brats just don't get it.

17 posted on 03/09/2012 8:16:00 PM PST by WilliamofCarmichael (If modern America's Man on Horseback is out there, Get on the damn horse already!)
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To: thecodont
The United States may be a republic, but it’s democracy that Americans cherish

No, that is not what we cherish. They just don't get it.
18 posted on 03/09/2012 9:02:50 PM PST by andyk (Tax credits == Welfare)
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To: thecodont

http://www.socialsciences.cornell.edu/0912/Dunning.html


19 posted on 03/09/2012 9:14:45 PM PST by rstark56
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To: thecodont
the unsophisticated would 1) be incapable of recognizing the wisdom of such a plan; 2) assume they know better; and 3) have no idea of the extent of their inadequacy.

Are the sophisticated allowed to view it as an assault in individual liberty?
20 posted on 03/09/2012 9:17:23 PM PST by andyk (Tax credits == Welfare)
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