How do you negotiate with crazy people?

[andrewducker]

• 67 percent of Republicans (and 40 percent of Americans overall) believe that Obama is a socialist.
• 57 percent of Republicans (32 percent overall) believe that Obama is a Muslim
• 45 percent of Republicans (25 percent overall) agree with the Birthers in their belief that Obama was "not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president"
• 38 percent of Republicans (20 percent overall) say that Obama is "doing many of the things that Hitler did"
• Scariest of all, 24 percent of Republicans (14 percent overall) say that Obama "may be the Antichrist."

From

I mean, I know a lot of, say, Conservatives in the UK have beliefs I don't agree with.  But the vast majority of them, so far as I can tell, just have different experiences to me, and different opinions about how things should be organised.  They don't believe that the leader of the oppositon is the fucking antichrist, or other things that can be disproved by 30 seconds with Google.

Comments

[meihua.livejournal.com]

Also remember the complete information vacuum in the States. Everything is opinion pieces, nothing is raw information. The media and politics combine into an endless soap-opera with narratives which are told to kids in primary school. Someone who didn't grow up there just can't have any idea what it's like - and I speak as someone who didn't, by the way, so my understanding is likely flawed as well.

[missedith01.livejournal.com]

But isn't there a responsibility on voters to attempt to find stuff out? If an opinion piece here were to say "50% of people believe Gordon Brown is a socialist" I'd think that 50% were (unfortunately) misinformed and want to do a bit of digging under the headline.

[meihua.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what you're saying. Do you mean that there's a responsibility on middle-American voters to figure out what "socialism" means in UK political discourse and change their own definition to match that? Or do you mean that they should be better informed on the ways in which the current US administration's policies differ from socialist policies?

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

The democratic system gives those with no interest or knowledge the same voting rights as those who form an opinion. I've never been convinced this is a good thing. But what are the alternatives - some sort of qualification or permit to vote? That sort of elitist idea is never going to get far.

[meihua.livejournal.com]

You're talking to the wrong person, I'm not a big fan of the parties-and-votes model in the first place. I think it lends itself to this kinda stuff and I don't see how you make it function!

[missedith01.livejournal.com]

I mean that any voter in any jurisdiction should be prepared to find out enough about their candidates/leaders to come to an informed conclusion (whatever that might be). Perhaps "socialism" is the worst example I could have chosen from the above list (and I only chose it so I could have a go at Gordon Brown for not being an adherent :-) but to take a different one, as far as I'm aware, from what I've read as an interested outsider, there's no evidence that Mr Obama is ineligible because of his place of birth and considerable, easily available, irrefutable evidence that he was born in Hawaii and therefore is indeed eligible. There isn't a complete information vacuum on this issue, it seems to me, just an unwillingness to look at what's available and think about it critically.

[iainjcoleman.livejournal.com]

What you're talking about is republican civic virtue. It's an idea that starts off in Aristotle, forms the basis of Machiavelli's thought, and has seen a revival in some more recent political philosophy.

The basic idea is that if a republic is to remain free, and not collapse or degenerate into a monarchy, the citizens must exercise some degree of public service, engagement with political life, and concern for the good of the republic as a whole.

To civic republicans, this willingness of each individual to put a little work into understanding politics and playing their part in public affairs is the foundation and safeguard of freedom. From this point of view, the trends toward low turnout elections (particularly in the UK) and uncritical batshit insanity (particularly in the US) are worrying signs of a diminution of civic virtue.

What tends to be lacking in civic republican thought is an account of how to inculcate or restore such virtue. Here in the UK, the kinds of political reforms promoted by the Liberal Democrats are at least a step towards a partial solution, but we really need to look hard at things like press standards, education and various legal reforms as well.

As for the US, I don't know what can be done except for the non-crazies to work hard to ensure that the crazies are kept away from the levers of power in the hope that their craziness will eventually burn itself out. This is not a terribly satisfactory plan, I know.