I find it interesting that during an election season, many pundits, candidates and their supporters are charged with intellectual laziness. It's an interesting situation when we are charged with determining who is to lead our country. I think that our values speak louder than our intellect when we are determining such things, and I think that the candidates and their election team like to take advantage of us for the same things.
For example, I was just looking at a democratic website asking Romney to share his tax returns. He already shared his last year returns according to law, so why should more matter? Are his tax returns critical to making a decision about who is going to be a good president? Personally, I am more curious about what kinds of laws he passed or signed into law in the state of MASSACHUSETTS when he was governor. Why are we not getting more information about that? Conversely, why are we not hearing about Obama's policies that he signed into law? What about the ones he requested but didn't get signed because of congress? I am still curious about why he brought us into the war in Afghanistan when we are now seeing soldiers being killed by their "trainees." Why are we not talking about that? Why are we not talking about closing Guantanimo?
Our founders made sure that the President doesn't have too much power, but we certainly attribute a great deal of power to our president. There are many things that the president can control, but there are a great deal of things that he cannot since the Congress has much to do with what bills get passed, etc. Why are we not asking more questions about how the President can work with Congress? How well did Romney work with the MASSACHUSETTS state legislators? What's Obama's record?
Our values may be getting in the way of making a good decision in this election. I read an article recently in Salon.com that described our fascination with these "side stories" a matter of intellectual laziness. Is it? Can you find some evidence of intellectual laziness in some of the news stories about the upcoming election?
I also looked up an article on salon.com. This website was focusing on Romney donating his money to a church charity to get a tax break. The article was also complaining that Romney was avoiding taxes by putting his money in different types of names and bonds to avoid paying taxes on it. I believe this is a story involving intellectual laziness and performing fascination on a side story.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.salon.com/2012/10/31/how_romney_used_his_churchs_charity_status_to_lower_his_tax_bill/