Globally Rational

Shan-ul-Hai

Informed Voting: A thing of the past?

In a campaign full of pointless buzzwords and endless political maneuvering, I was not surprised to read that Hillary Clinton is now telling her supporters to "turn off the TV." Her suggestion was, as one would expect, met with applause… probably because the audience chose to listen to the power and intonation of her voice rather than the actual words that she was saying.

Since when does a candidate actually encourage the voters to stop paying attention to the issues? She obviously wants them to "turn off the TV" in an attempt to neutralize Obama, who seems to climb in the polls every time he gets more exposure in any given state. I'm the first to agree that the media has plenty of inherent biases, but it's still far less biased than the alternative (word of mouth). Even better, take a look at what she said afterwards:

And it would be exciting to have the first mother in the White House. We would have someone who has lived the experiences that many of us share and we would be focusing on how we're going to help families balance the work that they have to do outside the home and the really important work they do inside the home.

It's Mother's Day; you love your mother, right? That means you should find it "exciting to have the first mother in the White House." Apparently, she's the only person who has "lived the experiences that many of us share." She wants people tho think she'll be the only one who "would be focusing on how we're going to help families balance the work that they have to do outside the home and the really important work they do inside the home."

One thing I've noticed about many of these politicians is that they continue to use the same emotion-inspiring phrases. By insinuating that her opponents haven't "lived the experiences that many of us share" and then telling her supporters to "turn off the TV," she is appealing to the emotional (and, consequently, irrational) side of the voters. Sure, that's the best way to get support… but we all know that it's not the best way to get a good leader.

Nominal Breakthroughs: Beating corruption

This is the first post in the "Nominal Breakthroughs" series, which will talk about news that is farcically touted as groundbreaking.

The fight against political corruption is one of the most important tasks confronting many of today's developing countries; for instance, many leaders have stolen billions of dollars (which is worth a lot more in Africa/Asia than it is worth here) from their starving population. For this reason, the UN has spent a lot of resources in the past five years to establish the Convention Against Corruption, which establishes a set worldwide anti-corruption regulations. These regulations will allow a country to prevent this theft, criminalize the thieves, and recover lost assets.

Let's let go of the fact that it took them five years to say that "theft is illegal, thieves are criminals, and stolen money should be recovered." It's more interesting to focus on this: they are expecting the leaders of a corrupt government to persecute corrupt leaders. If you were stealing money, would you really want to bring attention to the fact that money is being stolen? I do see potential benefits from such legislation… but why did it take them so much time and energy to pass such a simple regulation with no real means of enforcement? I know that it will be completely ineffective in my home country of Pakistan, but they tried to mask this by publicizing the Zambian government's recent recovery of a measly $60 million. I wonder how much money they spent trying to make this convention a reality… will they even recover what they spent?

Since I usually get angry comments when I challenge the status quo, I decided to do a Google search for scholarly articles about the subject (which are written by people who know what they're talking about). Click here to see the response study by the Anti-Corruption Resource Centre.

Where is the incentive for corrupt governments to follow these new regulations?

You can see articles right after they're published by visiting the author's blog (click here) or subscribing to his RSS feed (click here).

Digital Dogtags 2: Yes, bartender, I’m 21

Politics and Semantics: “Working Class”

Isn't it about time that we stop getting angry at people for stating the obvious?

After "Bittergate," I think I might have lost hope in our ability to ever recover from our tendency to make a big deal every time somebody says something rational that might just be politically incorrect.  Recently, the popular political blog Crooks and Liars, whose views I usually agree with, decided to publish a post about a FOX News anchor's statement that "working class" is a euphemism for "lower class," which is a group of people with "lower income" and "lower education."  Crooks and Liars dubbed this "demeaning" and called it a case of "elitism".

Honestly, I think they're just arguing over semantics here.  By no means am I typically a supporter of FOX news, but I don't really see how he's wrong.  The phrase "working class" insinuates that you're talking about a class of people who works… but doesn't almost everybody work?  He's being pretty clear in saying that "working class" actually describes not "working people," but rather "less educated people who tend to have lower incomes."  People on welfare are included in "working class," but they don't even work.  Is his statement really false?

There's nothing wrong with being less educated or less affluent; some of my best friends didn't go to college.  But I don't see how it's "demeaning" to simply point out the fact that this group of voters, by definition, has less money in the bank.  Honestly, it seems to me that the comments on Crooks and Liars are more "insensitive and bone-headed" (to use their own words), since they seem to believe that it's "demeaning" to have less money.  I thought this was an equal society; are we going back to the days when it was lower-income individuals were considered to be inferior?

When I don't have money, I don't keep it a secret; neither do my "working class" friends.  I'll make it public knowledge right now that I just finished climbing out of debt; did I just demean myself?  I think it's about time that we start being honest and stop complaining about semantics.

You can see articles right after they're published by visiting the author's blog (click here) or subscribing to his RSS feed (click here).

• Previous Posts:

• Informed Voting: A thing of the past?
• Nominal Breakthroughs: Beating corruption
• Digital Dogtags 2: Yes, bartender, I’m 21
• Politics and Semantics: “Working Class”
• And the Most Influential Republican Is...
• Rise and Fall
• Worst job in the world: Al-Qaeda leader
• Is Jeremiah Wright worse than Pat Robertson?

• Related Posts:

• Bigfoot on Dry Dust – Climate Change and Ecological Damage
• Children Of Poverty - Lesser Known Challenge
• Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Isn’t Dropping Out of The Presidential Race
• America, Want Real Change? Try This...
• Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Isn’t Dropping Out of The Presidential Race
• Top Ten Reasons Hillary Should Be President
• Passion and the Presidential Primary
• Why Hillary Might Be Winning
• How Hillary Can Knock-Out Obama