How dumb are we?

[vy65]

It doesn’t help that the United States has one of the highest levels of income inequality in the developed world, with the top 400 households raking in more money than the bottom 60 percent combined. As Dalton Conley, an NYU sociologist, explains, “it’s like comparing apples and oranges. Unlike Denmark, we have a lot of very poor people without access to good education, and a huge immigrant population that doesn’t even speak English.” When surveys focus on well-off, native-born respondents, the U.S. actually holds its own against Europe.

Other factors exacerbate the situation. A big one, Hacker argues, is the decentralized U.S. education system, which is run mostly by individual states: “When you have more centrally managed curricula, you have more common knowledge and a stronger civic culture.” Another hitch is our reliance on market-driven programming rather than public broadcasting, which, according to the EJC study, “devotes more attention to public affairs and international news, and fosters greater knowledge in these areas.”

For more than two centuries, Americans have gotten away with not knowing much about the world around them. But times have changed—and they’ve changed in ways that make civic ignorance a big problem going forward. While isolationism is fine in an isolated society, we can no longer afford to mind our own business. What happens in China and India (or at a Japanese nuclear plant) affects the autoworker in Detroit; what happens in the statehouse and the White House affects the compe ion in China and India. Before the Internet, brawn was enough; now the information economy demands brains instead. And where we once relied on political ins utions (like organized labor) to school the middle classes and give them leverage, we now have nothing. “The issue isn’t that people in the past knew a lot more and know less now,” says Hacker. “It’s that their ignorance was counterbalanced by denser political organizations.” The result is a society in which wired activists at either end of the spectrum dominate the debate—and lead politicians astray at precisely the wrong moment.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/dailybeast/2...sehugeproblems

[Oh, Gee!!]

pretty dumb

[MannyIsGod]

I took the quiz and didn't miss a single question. That is easy.

[boutons_deux]

VRWC wants the sheeple to be ignorant, uneducated, uninformed, unscientific, irrational, and highly inflammable, fed only the VRWC worldview. That facilitates the VRWC objectives of fleecing the sheeple, and other crimes and predations, in total secrecy, uninterrupted, unimpeded by any non-VRWC power.

[ElNono]

Who needs education when you can just keep an eye on Russia from your backyard?

[Marcus Bryant]

While isolationism is fine in an isolated society...

It's fine most of the time, even in an a pretentiously pseudo-urbane, sophisticated, and internationalist one.

Also, I wouldn't mind living in a country in which it really doesn't matter if anyone is aware of who the various national governmental figureheads happen to be, because it is of little consequence to their lives.

[Marcus Bryant]

Further, perhaps at some point the prevalence of ignorance, credulity, and gullibility of the general public might be understood as an indictment of the American K-12 educational system as it exists.

The notion that greater federalization would do anything to improve that is absurd.

[Marcus Bryant]

The only things involving Uncle Sam to a greater extent would accomplish are that schooling would become even more expensive and the people even more stupid.

[Wild Cobra]

VRWC wants the sheeple to be ignorant, uneducated, uninformed, unscientific, irrational, and highly inflammable, fed only the VRWC worldview. That facilitates the VRWC objectives of fleecing the sheeple, and other crimes and predations, in total secrecy, uninterrupted, unimpeded by any non-VRWC power.

If that's what you want to believe, nobody can take you out of that box but yourself.

The VRWC radio hosts would disagree with you and they blame the dumbing down of the liberal education system. I already heard plenty on this topic.

Yes....

The test is pretty easy.

[Wild Cobra]

Who needs education when you can just keep an eye on Russia from your backyard?

Did you forget the blue, or fail geography?

Palin never said no such thing. Tina Fey did impersonating her. Palin made a factual statement that you can see Russia from Alaska.

[clambake]

Palin never said no such thing.

good grammar. where is the designated oregon area for hicks?

[George Gervin's Afro]

Did you forget the blue, or fail geography?

Palin never said no such thing. Tina Fey did impersonating her. Palin made a factual statement that you can see Russia from Alaska.

you're dumb

[boutons_deux]

What She Said:

"'We have trade missions back and forth. We-- we do-- it's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where-- where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is-- from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to-- to our state." - Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska and Republican vice-presidential nominee.

ergo, pitbull 's Alaska experience qualifies her for national office. But it's pretty damn hard to know really what her fractured, run-on jibberish means.

[ChumpDumper]

Thanks for posting that quote to remind us all how stupid that answer was.

[Stringer_Bell]

What She Said:

"'We have trade missions back and forth. We-- we do-- it's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where-- where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is-- from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to-- to our state." - Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska and Republican vice-presidential nominee.

ergo, pitbull 's Alaska experience qualifies her for national office. But it's pretty damn hard to know really what her fractured, run-on jibberish means.

Ergo, you are unable to find a SINGLE quote about Palin being able to see Russia from her backyard. You simply think it's okay to take a parody of her thoughtful observations on national security. But it's not okay, as she was running for an office that you lack the popularity or political experience to navigate through.

So go on and hate on the woman, she'll be stronger for it and God-willing she'll be OUR President one sweet day.

[ElNono]

Looks like I hit a nerve... I'll use blue next time...

[Blake]

I'm starting to gather how dumb the OP might be.

[101A]

Further, perhaps at some point the prevalence of ignorance, credulity, and gullibility of the general public might be understood as an indictment of the American K-12 educational system as it exists.

The notion that greater federalization would do anything to improve that is absurd.

This.

[101A]

The only things involving Uncle Sam to a greater extent would accomplish are that schooling would become even more expensive and the people even more stupid.

and this.

[boutons_deux]

her thoughtful observations on national security.

So go on and hate on the woman, she'll be stronger for it and God-willing she'll be OUR President one sweet day.

Holy , you're as stupid and ignorant as she is.

The "see Russia from backyard" joke had such legs because it nailed and parodied her stupidity, ignorance, scatter-brained "thinking" perfectly.

"her thoughtful observations on national security"

[johnsmith]

But it's pretty damn hard to know really what her fractured, run-on jibberish means.

Am I the only one that sees the irony here?

[TeyshaBlue]

Am I the only one that sees the irony here?

This thread is served with delicious sauce.

[Nbadan]

Ergo, you are unable to find a SINGLE quote about Palin being able to see Russia from her backyard. You simply think it's okay to take a parody of her thoughtful observations on national security. But it's not okay, as she was running for an office that you lack the popularity or political experience to navigate through.

So go on and hate on the woman, she'll be stronger for it and God-willing she'll be OUR President one sweet day.