Polls Show Many Americans
are Simply Dumber Than Bush

From CounterPunch:

Despite the media's failure, about half the population has managed to discern that the US invasion of Iraq has not made them safer and that the Bush administration's assault on civil liberties is not a necessary component of the war on terror. The problem, thus, lies with the absence of due diligence on the part of the other half of the population.

Consider the New York Times/CBS poll. Sixty-four percent of the respondents have concerns about losing civil liberties as a result of anti-terrorism measures put in place by President Bush. Yet, 53 percent approve of spying without obtaining court warrants "in order to reduce the threat of terrorism."

Why does any American think that spying without a warrant has any more effect in reducing the threat of terrorism than spying with a warrant? The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which Bush is disobeying, requires the executive to obtain from a secret panel of federal judges a warrant for spying on Americans. The purpose of the law is to prevent a president from spying for partisan political reasons. The law permits the president to spy first (for 72 hours) and then come to the court for permission. As the court meets in secret, spying without a warrant is no more effective in reducing the threat of terrorism than spying with a warrant.

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Really, the ignorance of the general US population is only a symptom of the overall problem: Americans, for whatever reasons, simply have no understanding of their responsibilities as citizens. Ideally, all Americans would, by their own initiative, already fully understand the problems of media bias and the astounding misdirection of political debate, and factor all that into their overall analysis of important issues. Ideally, all Americans would see the concept of seeking out the truth as a patriotic imperative, and would fully realize that they cannot simply sit on their couches watching CNN to get an honest picture of the world: ideal Americans would devote a significant portion of their lives to studying politics and the ins and outs of how information is created and shaped by forces that have a stake in how voters perceive them and what they do.

Obviously, we don't live in the ideal America. Being an ideal American isn't easy, and most people don't even understand what an ideal citizen is, anyway. Most people don't understand that democracy is much more difficult for the average citizen than, say, dictatorship. Democracy means individual responsibility for the nation's direction. Democracy means work. Democracy means that the people rule, and you can't do that by ceding your leadership responsibilty to guys in suits who may or may not have your best interests at heart. Democracy is waaay more than simply voting. Of course, most people don't do that, either.

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