Candidate 1: In an effort to help the economy, my plan calls for a certain decrease in these certain areas of spending so that core programs of importance, such as welfare and education, can be more strongly funded without raising taxes. We hope to alleviate tax burdens while raising our level of support for the needy.
(No reaction from the Audience. Crickets are heard. The deafening roar of fluorescent lights fills every ear.)
Candidate 2: Last week, I met with an inner city school teacher who holds class in a large closet and teaches her students with outdated books. It's time we gave back. It's time we put students first. (Crowd goes wild.) LET'S STOP TAKING AND START GIVING!
TV Pundit: America is shocked today to discover that Candidate 1 does not care about school teachers or underprivileged children. In other news, the school teacher that Candidate 2 met with has become the star of a reality TV show centered around her dating life. Her agent says that this is a 'big day for American politics.'
(No, those candidates don't correspond to any actual parties. If I wanted to make fun of someone I would do so without smoke screens.)
Anyway, that's about my entire take on politics. Years ago, I noticed that many conservatives were in favor of supporting Gen. Colin Powell, but they were horrified when I told them that he was pro-choice. You see, the only thing they knew about him was he reminded them of James Earl Jones in a military suit. (I'm not saying he would have been a bad president, but the reasoning for supporting him didn't go past his speech making ability.) Unfortunately, people can be so impressed with the charisma of a good speaker that that they won't bother to understand the actual convictions and political ideals of that person.
"It is my opinion that this man is dead."
"Wow, he's a genius!"
Will it always be this way? I'm skeptical, but I need to believe that one day my fellow Americans will judge a candidate by the content of their words and not just their presentation style. Maybe we should have debates through email so that when they are published people will have to read them. I can always dream, I suppose.
4 comments:
The candidates are always free to do a real, substantive, reasonable debate, complete with premises and conclions. They could put it on You Tube and let voters who want more than sound bites watch.
One glimmer of hope, I thought, was Rick Warren's forum in 2008. Another is online written analysis of candidates on National Review and the like--or old-school newspaper editorials.
Goodost, Adam.
Sorry:
"complete with PREMISES AND CONCLUSIONS."
"GOOD POST, Adam."
I wish we lived in that type of society, but I feel (and mind you I haven't given this a TON of thought, so it is merely my opinion based on observation) that we do not teach people in our country how to think, and then we inundate them with so much information that they are basically mentally crippled. Unless someone makes an effort to teach himself how to think, he is simply overwhelmed and unable to critically evaluate complex issues. And even when someone is a great thinker, we are run so ragged with our scheduled society, that it is nearly impossible to sit and pour over all the details of, for example, the voting record of a candidate. Couple this with the convoluted speeches and general untruthfulness of most candidates, and it is nearly impossible to gauge what someone might actually do when he/she is in office. So, we vote for the candidate that looks like a movie star, or who seems most different, or who promotes "change" (whatever that may be). Sigh. I'm sure this is just one tiny piece of the problem.
Good points, especially about not having a way to check the claims being thrown at us unless we know how to think. Candidate 1 doesn't engage in slogan-making, but makes assertions using college words like "alleviate." Candidate 2 uses slogans like "it's time..." and emotive rhetoric like "let's stop xyz and start abc!" and gets a crowd to yell. And back in history looms that rhetorician Adolf Hitler who put crowds into a frenzy with various rhetorical tricks.
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