Friday night's McCain townhall meeting in Lakevill Minnesota saw this comical (and a bit unnerving) assertion from an audience member who'd taken the microphone to participate in the meeting:
"I can't trust Obama. I have read about him and he's not, he's not uh — he's an Arab. He's not —"
At which point McCain, trying unsuccessfully to not look disgusted, snatched the microphone back and assured:
"No, ma'am. He's a decent family man [and] citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and that's what this campaign's all about. He's not [an Arab.]"
He then went on to defy what, to me, appeared to be a rather ignorant and Bible whipped audience and defend his rival's appeal for the US Presidency. This defiance and willingness to piss off a room full of potential votes showed a great deal of character and courage on the part of Senator McCain.
Naturally his detractors will paint his failure to challenge the woman's fantastic misconception of "Arab" as a semblance of complicity. That McCain, like this sad woman from Minnesota, imagines a fire breathing, suicide belt wearing and "Allahu Akbar" screaming takfiri when the word Arab is uttered. I very much doubt that Senator McCain's homogeneous vision of terrorism stoops so low.
I'm more worried about the general awareness of the average American voter. Those that think beyond pop culture, newspaper op eds and talk radio blowhards
are an understandably rare commodity. Not everyone has the time, patience or willingness to suffer the insatiable curiosity and cynicism that's required to resist what's mainstream "accepted" and chase after the elusive, self defined actuality of "what is." There's a degree of comfort and order in simply accepting knowledge as it comes to you.
But the abject ignorance displayed by the above quoted woman in addition to John Stossel's bit of investigative journalism below lend me to agree with Mike and Stossel. If you think the US has 52 states, each state 12 Senators and Barrack Obama is an Arab you have a civic duty to stay home and either bask in your ignorance or set aside MTV and Us magazine for a newspaper or news channel and spend November 4th catching up.
John Stossel report on ignorant potential voters. (Via No Angst Zone)
7 comments:
I am surrounded by people at my job (most of them self-described lifelong Democrats) who believe that mess because longstanding friends have sent them e-mails and testimonials about his Arab heritage and the secret plot by Ahmanjihad and the Saudis to take over America with Obama as their emissary.
Each e-mail is sent along to me as well and people come over and cluck, "see I told you so."
I want to scream! There should be citizenship and current events tests annually for those who want to vote. If you're uninformed, you cannot vote.
For whom will the ignorant voter cast his ballot? We can only hope it will be for Cynthia McKinney, someone he has never heard of.
eddie, I can relate. The obama=terrorist taxonomy abounds in my own sphere of employment. I don't endorse Obama but it's irritating none the less.
we are being trained to be single issue voters. the public is dumbed down. this is driven by the parties, some more so than others. the gop is running a scar tactic campaign based on one word, or one thought. muslin, terror, hussain.
i actually think i am somewhat informed, but it wouldn't matter because i too am a single issue voter. i don't want to live in a country where people loose their homes because some insurance company dropped them from their roles when they got sick.
it's unethical. we should have issue campaigns where the parties are forced to address real issues that impact our lives.
that will never happen. americans will never vote to have their vote taken from them but they don't have to. w/the escalation of caging and the proper election software the parties can fight eachother over who gets to rule, it's not a democracy anymore anyway.
Jay,
Its certainly not just the Obama stuff either. There were a lot of nasty e-mails about Romney's multiple wives and the secret Mormon conspiracy for America back in the winter. I suppose there is a serious contingent of people who will believe anything they read, something modern technology and expanded general education has done little to change.
Jay,
The main fault of democracy is that some fateful decisions are put in the hands of people, 90% of whom believe this or another nonsense.
The balance comes from the (hope? fact?) that half of them people believe a thing that the other half disbelieves.
When the balance is ruined, we come to situations like, for instance, in 1933 (Hitler elected) - I am using an extreme example of a democracy going astray.
Anyhow, I fervently wish for the whole shebang being over already.
Snoop, I'm not suggesting legislation that requires some pre-testing of voters (though, emotionally, I'd like to) rather suggesting (without any real hope of realization) that some have a responsibility to realize that they are simply punching buttons at the polls.
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