Can somebody please explain this to me?  I am baffled by recent polls which show that people believe the economy is worse than four years ago, yet they are STILL supporting Barack Obama.  How is this possible?  What is going through these people’s freaking minds?  This speaks to either two things: The incompetence of voters, or the failure of Mitt Romney to do anything to convince voters that he would be a better choice than Obama.  Hell, Honey Boo Boo could arguably do a better job at running this nation.  At least she recognizes the value of a hard earned dollar.

Just some details about this poll …

When asked which candidate’s policies would best improve these issues over the next four years, Obama leads in seven of the eight categories, including the overall economy, jobs, and health care. Romney bests Obama on only a single issue — the budget deficit — and by only a three-point margin …

Obama also holds a large 12-point lead on whose policies would improve America’s standing in the world, even though a large majority of Americans (60 percent to 17 percent) say the nation’s standing is worse off than it was four years ago.

It reminds me of the Dunning-Kruger effect.  I’ve talked about this before.  It’s basically the theory that incompetent people are inherently unable to judge the competence of other people.  This also goes for the quality of those people's ideas.  If we apply this to the election, an incompetent, low-information electorate is incapable of knowing who the truly qualified candidate is.  Therefore, when presented with Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, they are unable to pick the person who would actually be able to lead us toward future prosperity.  “As a result, no amount of information or facts about political candidates can override the inherent inability of many voters to accurately evaluate them,” according to this article on their research. 

In other words, no matter how many stats I provide or how many rational, reasoned arguments I make, it won’t be useful in swaying the opinions of the dumb masses – the GOVERNMENT EDUCATED dumb masses.  The founding fathers had it right when they decided NOT to put a right to vote in the Constitution.  They knew that there were then and there would always be a segment of our population that would simply be unable to understand the issues and the candidates and would, therefore, not be able to cast an intelligent and informed vote.  Who knew, though, that these people would become such a huge percentage of our population?

So … I will review and revise an earlier position regarding the reasons four the breakdown and decline of our Republic:

1. A system of government education, as called for in the Communist Manifesto, ws designed to only educate the bulk of our population only to the point that they would make good industrial workers and business employees, but never to the point that they would become a threat to their private sector bosses and political leaders.
2. The gradual but unrelenting expansion of the voting franchise in this country to the inclusion of people who are unable to answer basic questions about the candidates and our system of government.

 Do you see either of these elements changing?  No?  Me Neither.  America is in decline .. and we don’t have the courage to change that.