We've sat through three "debates" now and come away with the usual sports-type reaction about who "won" and who "lost" and who landed the best "punches" or who "bobbed and weaved" or "scored." My opinion is that the only ones who lost are us.
In the land of appearances, the candidate who impresses with externals is generally the person who gets elected. We then end up with George W. Bushes as well as John F. Kennedys while those who muffed a photo op or bobbled a sound bite foes off to lick his/her wounds and hope for another chance.
But who asks the biggest question: Why do we (the people) put up with this kind of crap?
Maybe we should look in the mirror before we answer this.
How many people reading this column can name the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court? How many can name their congressional representative? How many can find Afghanistan on a blank map of the world? For that matter, how many can locate Oklahoma? How many know the articles of the Bill of Rights?
A report from the University of Pennsylvania, reprinted by the Annenberg School of Communications, states that only about one-quarter of Americans can answer 50% of basic questions about our government. Pew Research in 2010 compiled eleven questions embracing general knowledge of politics and world events. Among the young, about 80% couldn't name the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Only five percent of all respondents answered all eleven questions on the quiz correctly. Is this the reason we don't hear about any real, honest-to-goodness issues in the "debates?" Maybe we woujldn't know one if we fell over it.
Every industrialized nation in the world requires courses in citizenship (civics) in their schools. Except one. In the U.S., there is no national curriculum and education is basically in the hands of state governments. How many readers of this diary know whether their schools have courses in American history, government or the Constitution?
With an election coming up that may well determine the future of the country, what kind of issues are we hearing about? Folders of women? Unidentified Five Point Plans? Every misspelled word or bumbled speech? Romnesia?
Why in hell are we settling for being treated like babies? Why don't we rise up and demand that Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney give us steak instead of pablum? How can we vote for people who don't tell us what we're voting for?
It's been said that we get the kind of government we deserve. I agree. As an old man, I probably won't be around to see the awful results, but most of the readers will.
So what are you going to do about it?