Bad News for Bush Haters

TerryRC wrote:
Eighth graders learn to do it. You really think the expectations are too high?

Your neighbors were once 8th Graders, ...... give them a a quadratic equation to solve.




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Your neighbors were once 8th Graders, ...... give them a a quadratic equation to solve.

I know at least three of them can. We take turns helping the neighbor kids with their schoolwork.

Your point?

Mine is that, if as Aaron assures us, Americans are too ignorant to balance their checkbook without help, they are likely too ignorant to vote responsibly.

TerryRC wrote:Your neighbors were once 8th Graders, ...... give them a a quadratic equation to solve.

I know at least three of them can. We take turns helping the neighbor kids with their schoolwork.

Your point?

Mine is that, if as Aaron assures us, Americans are too ignorant to balance their checkbook without help, they are likely too ignorant to vote responsibly.

Interesting, TRC, ..... "We take turns helping", ...... mighty interesting.

It has nothing to do with ignorance. An idiot savant can could possibly solve every known math problem in the world but couldn't spell "it". It proves nothing very little.

Interesting, TRC, ..... "We take turns helping", ...... mighty interesting.

What is interesting about it? They come up and knock on the door. If I or my wife aren't home, they run down the road.

As to my own kids, I don't need to send them to the neighbors for help.

Spit it out, Sammy.

It has nothing to do with ignorance. An idiot savant can could possibly solve every known math problem in the world but couldn't spell "it". It proves nothing very little.

And they are how rare, Aaron? I doubt the 1 in 100,000 (I'm guessing at that number) is going to throw off the election much.

Sorry, if you can't balance a checkbook without help, you ARE ignorant.

How can you responsibly vote for people that will be overseeing government finance when you can't oversee your own?

I have no idea how rare they are. All I know is they exist. And by the same token, there are many, many people who 'get' math, just as there are those who don't. And you want to use a test that the vast majority of adults never use after learning it in high school as a means to determine if they should be allowed to vote or not. That just doesn't make very much sense to me.

I have no idea how rare they are. All I know is they exist. And by the same token, there are many, many people who 'get' math, just as there are those who don't. And you want to use a test that the vast majority of adults never use after learning it in high school as a means to determine if they should be allowed to vote or not. That just doesn't make very much sense to me.

Well, I disagree that quadratics have no use in adult life.

Regardless, if one can forget how to do one of the simplest and fundamental basics of mathematics, perhaps they shouldn't be voting, either.

So, how about my statement concerning your assertion that many Americans can't balance a checkbook without help: How can you responsibly vote for people that will be overseeing government finance when you can't oversee your own?

Meh, if you can't make sense of it, let's just go with the property owners, then.

I didn't say they have no use, I said the vast majority of people DON'T use them. There's a huge difference.

And just like everything else, if you don't use something, over time, your memory will fail you. That's a plain simple fact.

You seem to have some sort of thinking that if someone doesn't get math, they're stupid. I don't agree with that.

I also don't agree with property owners deciding. As today's housing situation proves, there are truely a lot of stupid people that would be allowed to vote by your standards that have no business voting. Seems anymore the only skill required in owning property is finding the right bank.

I didn't say they have no use, I said the vast majority of people DON'T use them. There's a huge difference.

You didn't read the page I posted, did you. It also had a linked Part 1. People use the quadratic formula all of the time. If you are late and want to calculate how much faster you will need to go to get to your destination on time, you are using quadratics.

You seem to have some sort of thinking that if someone doesn't get math, they're stupid. I don't agree with that.

You not agreeing doesn't make me uncorrect. If you can't figure out that, if a=b and b=c than a=c, then you ARE stupid or, at the very least, ignorant.

I also don't agree with property owners deciding. As today's housing situation proves, there are truely a lot of stupid people that would be allowed to vote by your standards that have no business voting. Seems anymore the only skill required in owning property is finding the right bank.

At least they have a vested interest in the community, state and country.

So, we should let the populace just continue voting for their bread and circuses?

I must assume so as you have offered no solutions, just criticism.

Terry,

At the risk of agreeing with you:) I think that our present "get out the vote" efforts are terribly misguided. While I would not disenfranchise the stupid, I certainly think that encouraging them to vote is not good practice. Working in academia, this amounts to heresy. Fortunately they don't pay me enough to even tempt me not to tell them what I think.

I would say that in place of the current get out the vote efforts, our media and our government should actually try to educate people on the issues in which the Dems and Reps disagree (and the alternatives presented by the minor parties) and then encourage people to make informed and non-manipulated choices of their own. I think it would behoove us then to discourage votes made in ignorance.

TerryRC wrote:
I must assume so as you have offered no solutions, just criticism.

We have that in common then, don't we Terry!!!

We have that in common then, don't we Terry!!!

No, we don't. I proposed some solutions to the problem of ignorant voters.

You proposed none.

How does that put us in common?

Once again Terry, you are mistaken. I made the first proposal, before you came up with your poor selection.

A general knowledge test all voters must take and pass before casting their vote would weed out those with little or no knowledge of the current events and also would be the most fair.

As I correctly pointed out, just because one knows mathmetics doesn't mean they have a clear grasp on politics or the political climate. You yourself are living proof of that.

As I correctly pointed out, just because one knows mathmetics doesn't mean they have a clear grasp on politics or the political climate. You yourself are living proof of that.

I know you don't know how to spell.

The fact is that you have no idea of what I grasp about politics or "the political climate".

Nice ad hom, though. Been taking debate lessons from Sam C.?

So, what "general knowledge" would be on your test? How would you keep from disenfranchising certain areas of the countries or groups? How would you even define "general knowledge"?

At least math or property ownership are objective rather than subjective.

You made a statement that I proposed none.

I proved you wrong.

Again.

And I even spelled all the words corect in doing so.