"informed voters"

yes, you'd fail if you wrote " I like Zuess because he was a real nice guy..." you had to do a comparison with everything else. In essence, you had to do a crash course in content, because they weren't going to waste their time with that in the lectures. the rest of the course was not reading you the damn textbook, you read it in the first 3 days, and reference it as you need to. in essence, you either sink or swin based on whether you did the first assigment. Don't do it, and you won't know enough to get through the course.

Self-defined rednecks like stereotypes more than information.

At least I didn't name myself after a greyhound bus driver that took steroids and pumped iron until he was given a job as a cut rate actor in gymnist tights. what kind of stereotype were you trying for?

BTW, there's two parts 2 my name. Its supposed to reflect how i'm changing and mellowing into a civilized person as I age. When I was younger, if you pissed me off I'd probably punch you with no explanation, then f#ck your sister.....even if she is ugly.

Now, I'm married with a child. I've traded my Harley for a tent trailer(seriously).

that because you have a different definition for uninformed.

My old man was a redneck, through and through. He wasn't a dummy, but he sure sounded like one most of the time. The only time he ever sounded smart when we was talking about the job or his hobby. He loved those two things more than anything else and gobbled up information. On those two subject he was very well informed, but about the rest of the world he remained woefully ignorant.

When he spoke about politics he sure thought he knew everything there was to know: those politicians, they're all crooks, he often said. The problem was that he was just as sure about that which he knew as that which he did not know. For the most part, my father spoke from his class interests the way most most people do. He knew the standard response for very issue. Trudeau ruined this country, at least the conservatives will manage the economy, the NDP represents the workin' man, we need tougher laws and tougher judges and we ought to throw the book at criminals, etc. He made his choices based on his gut (big enough for the job, I assure you).

For my father, his brothers, his friends, the answer to any problem usually started with, "It's obvious...", followed by his simple, uninformed analysis, and everyone around agreed. And that's where things turn to crap because the answer is actually rarely obvious. What my father meant, and what most people mean when they say 'it's obvious', is that it's intuitively obvious; their intuition tells them what's what. He didn't calculate the wind resistance, factor in the acceleration due to gravity, and tell me why my toast always falls jam-side down. He just said it happens 'cause that's the heavy side. In fact, the answer is a little more complicated than that. Well, intuition may be a great place to start but that's about it. People who study the natural world have discovered, over centuries of painstaking effort, that cause and effect is not so always obvious. The real world is much more complicated than one cause and one effect. In fact, the world is often counter-intuitive. Here's an example, you can read about it yourself at Discover Magazine. It's about traffic signs. Imagine that all the traffic signs were removed - your uninformed gut tells you it'd be chaos right? Well, think again (Oops! You weren't thinking the first time, were you). The result was that removing traffic signs actually improved congestion and reduces traffic accidents. Surprise! Just as engineering roadways based on your gut is a bad idea, voting based on your gut is rarely the best way to decide public policy.

One of the CPC planks has been law and order. More cops, tougher laws and longer sentences. It works well for them because this appeals to our collective desire to punish the crims and it plays on our fears. It plays really well, in fact. The problem with this gut-reaction based approach, and the politics that flow from it, is that it hasn't done a damn thing to make our world a safer place. Millions of Canadians vote for law and order but we aren't getting the results we need. Recidivism rates are anywhere between 1% and 80%, depending on the population being studied. The crime rate, while fluctuating with the economy, is still plenty high. Our imprisonment rate is about 110 per 100,000 persons. It's time we all admit that our current policies do not give us a safer world.

The 'informed' know that, along with drug treatment programs, education is one of the greatest deterrents to recidivism. Many studies have shown that recidivism decreases by 20-60% for inmates given education. Another major study showed that prisoners enrolled in an education program had a 29% lower recidivism rate AND earned more money upon release - meaning they paid higher taxes and re-paid some of their financial debt to society. Can I get a hallelujah? No?

So why aren't we pouring money into educating prisoners if that's something that has a demonstrated, major impact on our safety? Three words: Your Uninformed Gut. Even as I was writing the paragraphs above I was anticipating all the redneck diatribes and polemics and ranting and hysteria which inevitably follow when someone mentions giving cons an education. It's doesn't matter to the uninformed, just like it didn't matter to my father. You 'uninformed' out there just see it as molly-coddling or un-fair to the rest of us law-abiding Canucks. Why should any ex-con get a university education for free when my Johhny will have to pay... blah blah blah.

You know what? I'm sick of my safe society being being ripped out from under my feet by your greedy and uninformed gut! It's you uninformed folks out there who are the problem and you've only got your lazy selves to blame for the dangerous world that we ALL live in. The information is there - go to the nearest library and ask the librarian for some help finding it. But will you do that? I'll give you 1000 to 1 odds that you won't. Why would you? You haven't up until now.

You see, your uninformed gut tell you that somehow I'm wrong. Even if God told you I was right, it still wouldn't change your beliefs about how the world works and how it should work. Your minds are made up and we ALL have to suffer because of it - because you're the majority.

Where's the proof of that? Just look at the thread about legalizing pot. It didn't matter how much evidence was presented that it doesn't increase crime, it doesn't lead to harder drugs, it isn't addictive, it's health effects are limited (I doubt AR even read it), you sanctimonious anti-pot crusaders have your minds made up that it's wrong and that's all there is to it. Period. You were born into ignorance and you choose to live and die in ignorance. Just like my old man.

In response to the original question, informed voters are necessary. It is important for citizens to critically analyze the news and policies of each political party and look at the pros and cons of each and using personal experience, education and reasoning; arrive at a conclusion. The end result may be different for different people but the point is that voters much critically analyze and inquire before they cast a vote.
There is no excuse for being uninformed. The concept of democracy spawned from the social contract; the government is elected to represent the people and to protect their rights and interests and citizens in return must fulfill their duties as citizens in order to sustain the system.
Ignorance could lead to a government that is ill-suited to people's needs.

Ok, I finally have time to try and explain my original post by putting into context of the debate that I had at work that led to me creating this post.

Here goes.....

My boss is a typical kind of guy that has lots of education but almost no common sense. For example, he insists that my production workspace is a 4'x8' table that is cleared off completely each day. I am sure that the reason he likes large tables is because they are what he has experienced in the lab rooms of the university where he spent over 10 years working towards his doctorate.

I personally don't have a doctorate, but basic common sense tells me that any work space that is more than a few feet out of my reach is extremely inefficient. Furthermore, if I am to put my $100k worth of test equipment away at the end of each day, then why not have the storage shelf for them immediately above my workspace? Additionally, I pointed out that his entire manual of process controls and instructions exist on paper, and if he truly wants to move to a higher level, he needs to start investing in workspace infrastructure. An empty table is not evidence of engineered process, it is evidence of a neat freak that won't build equipment setup into their processes. Beleive it or not, this is a 5 year arguement that I've been having with him that was still going strong until my other boss got involved and I was able to sell him on my ideas in under 10 minutes.

Anyway, boss #1 is talented at arguing, in fact I've heard him say that the key to getting his doctorate was the ability to defend his thesis. Although, I understand this to be true about doctorate thesis, I also have first hand knowledge that this guy doesn't defend a damn thing. Often his tactic is to persevere until everyone else gives up. However, he is pretty good at basic anal arguementive tactics. for example: I once refered to design issue problems with our product, and he went into a rant arguing that I couldn't 'know it was a design issue unless the issue was identified and solved. When I responded that I have over 20 years in my career and when a pile of boards build up next to a test bench and no production or vendor issues are found.....its always a design issue. And, "I have a track record of finding them if you won't." Guess what? He won that arguement. Not because he came up with anything reasonable, he just kept repeating the same things over and over until everyone just stopped caring. Being an owner has priviledges I guess.

So anyway, back to my story ( I told you that this would be long one). We were having some light and entertaining debate about politics when he tried the basic tactic of "how do you know that? did you check official records?" Then he uses a personal anedoctal story to back it up. He said the other day he read a CTV report that suggested that the new copyright laws would make bit torrent software illegal, so he wrote a letter to our mla stating that bit torrent software was used for legitimate reasons, "could you please reconsider?" the MLA responded with a political response(ie no swearing) that pretty much said 'thats bullshit, we aren't making bit torrent software illegal' with a link to a website that showed the proposed legislation. My boss said he read the legislation and could not find a damn thing that is even remotely close to making bit torrent clients illegal. Nice story, right? It compells a person to want to do their own fact checking because obviously the CTV journalist screwed up with his interpretation of the proposed laws.

But the funny thing is, the arguement that we were having was about equalization payments to Quebec. My boss was arguing that Quebec doesn't get them, and he was further challenging my facts with his "how do you know?" tactic even though the information that I got my facts from had full citations for each fact....many refering to government reports and statistics canada info. He kept saying over and over again. "You dont know that, you didn't do enough fact checking."

Well another day goes by, and I complain about how the Liberals used EI funds to balance their federal budget, and how I object to the terminalogy because i would never consider dipping into my savings account as "balancing" my monthly cashflow...

my bosses response. Have you guessed it? Yup, he asked "how do you know that money was taken from the EI fund by the Liberals? did you check the aduitor general's reports?"

then he goes onto to say " you have the responsibility to properly inform yourself before passing judgement or getting involved in the electoral process...." and he did a bit of a 'dangers of uninformed voters' rant.

This is a bit laughable considering that he considers himself as 'informed' yet he was wrong on the facts on both ocasions. And, yet I was 'uninformed' because I didn't validate my facts with the conscientious approach of a scientist.

This got me thinking.

I think my bosses standard for fact checking is seldom followed.
Acording to my boss that would make the whole lot of us 'uninformed' voters.

Yet, he and his ilk would still consider themselves part of the informed voters.

I think this standard is unrealist. And, I believe I used the words 'vial crap'

Dont get me wrong, being informed is a good thing, I just don't beleive that my boss's way of defining it is acurate.

Furthermore, I was thinking "what if it is true? what if all of us are truly uninformed?" "Does it matter? Is it wrong?"

Then I remember a comment from Trudeau " The voters are never wrong, sometimes misinformed, but never wrong " and I have to agree with the first part of his statement the most....ie "the voters are never wrong" is the essence of democracy. Sure they can be misinformed, but the concept of democracy means that they are never wrong. However, we know this not to be an absolute, right? because democracy in this country is not unlimited. It is restricted, and kept on a tight leash from our legal system, our constitution, and our legislative policy.

Anyway, lets get back to the informed. Not the truly informed, but the pompous "informed" that dont have the basic common sense to truly know what the rest of us canadians might truly want. Do their opinions count in a democracy? Yes, they absolutely do. But, thankfully, no more so than us 'simpletons' right?

I am comfortable to say that the "informed" are only capable of making a better Canada if the "uninformed" are included in the general democratic process. Did I ever mean to describe the "uninformed" as the same reckless incompetant idiots that Mustang wrote about? No that was not my intention.Yet, the concepts of freedom of speach and universal right to vote suggests to me, that it isn't that bad of a thing to allow the occasional idiot to vote freely. They don't account for the swing vote in this country, anyways.

Edit: cleaned up some grammar, spelling mistakes, etc. Damn, I should have gotten more schooling and less common sense.