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"A long habit of not thinking a thing WRONG, gives it a superficial appearance of being RIGHT, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason." Thomas Paine (1737-1809), Common Sense
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Now let's abolish the electoral college custom. I think it was set up in a time when a) there were far fewer people; and b) far fewer people could read, and communication was by horse and letter.
We're not the most literate country, (1 in 3 adults in our nation's capital cannot read above a 3rd grade level. Which makes me shudder.) and I've been reading for a long time. I can read people's positions, want my vote to count, and think the custom sucks boulders.
Sorry. It's an election year. After the last one, I'm kinda touchy. Rant over.
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This puts them at the level of being able to read street signs or simple labels on products but not well enough to complete job applications or governmental forms.
If you saw the emails I get at work.........'roll eyes'
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But most of those who can't read don't vote. Typo's happen. Illiteracy happens, too. It's far more urgent to get people able to take those letters and shape them into words. I don't know how this much neglect happened. Well, I sort of do.
I am, after all, my mother's and her father' daughter.
There's a reason I can write. And I attribute it to my forebears. They were fierce.
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I never hold typos against anyone. With the pain in my hands, I make enough of them although I do try to proofread.
As for the illiterates not voting....I wouldn't be so sure. Until their illnesses really took hold, my parents were regular election judges. According to my mom, a former 4th grade teacher, it wasn't pretty.
I can very easily understand why people had all the trouble that they did in Florida in 2000 with the "butterfly" ballot. We have them here and if you can't read fairly well, you punch the wrong hole.
Brava and bravo to your mom and your grandfather, respectively.
Unless huge reforms happen (and I don't mean the useless crap in No Child Left Behind) we're doomed. People aren't taught to think much less write and we applaud that sort of anti-intellectual laziness here in the US.
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does time make more converts?
i'm finding myself, after reading through the discussions on pandasthumb.org and all the crap the creationists try to do to undermine science at its most fundemental level, to just be sick and tired of it all and losing the will to keep it up...
Re: does time make more converts?
I try to ignore them, since no amount of reason will convert them. Apathetic, no. I've just been fighting for civil rights from age 13. (I didn't like the way girls were treated.) I was a "liberated bitch".) So I do get tired of keeping on keeping on. But I can't not. I liked science much. I just keep my head down and choose my battles. It sucks, but there's only so much rage I can throw around without getting in trouble.