Saturday, September 19, 2015

Why have elections?

Thomas Sowell

"In a country with more than 300 million people, it is remarkable how obsessed the media have become with just one -- Donald Trump. What is even more remarkable is that, after six years of repeated disasters, both domestically and internationally, under a glib egomaniac in the White House, so many potential voters are turning to another glib egomaniac to be his successor.

"No doubt much of the stampede of Republican voters toward Mr. Trump is based on their disgust with the Republican establishment. The fact that the next two biggest vote-getters in the polls are also complete outsiders -- Dr. Ben Carson and Ms. Carly Fiorina -- reinforces the idea that this is a protest.

"It is easy to understand why there would be pent-up resentments among Republican voters. But are elections held for the purpose of venting emotions?" . . .

This should tick some campus activists off:

. . . "Donald Trump is not the only obstacle to finding leaders of such character. The ultimate danger lies in the voting public themselves. All too many signs point to an electorate including many people who are grossly uninformed or, worse yet, misinformed.

"The very fact that the voting age was lowered to 18 shows the triumph of the vision of elections as participatory rituals, rather than times for fateful choices. If anything, the age might have been raised to 30, since today millions of people in their 20s have never even had the responsibility of being self-supporting, to give them some sense of reality." Ouch.

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