The government we deserve?

I almost left the question mark off this entry's title. But then my deeply malnourished optimistic streak popped up, looked plaintively at me (don't ask how that was possible), and whispered, "It might get better."

I just finished "When ignorance becomes a movement: The rise of Snookiism", a blog entry by David Rothkopf on the Foreign Policy Web site. Rothkopf excoriates the Republicans who have ridden to Congressional power on a wave of not mere ignorance, but full-blown misinformation:

Knowing nothing would be an improvement for this group which defiantly embraces the wrong, the indefensible, the illogical and the absurd with their only apparent criteria for taking a position being that it feels good for their adrenaline-stoked base. Facts, science, knowledge, and reality are all seen as the tools of elites, weapons against common folks who have gotten along just fine believing in foolish ideas for all these years.

Heaven knows, this isn't news to me. It probably isn't news to you, either. And it's not going to get better anytime soon.

In some respects this might be seen as democracy at work. The problem is we are taking an affliction of democracy -- ignorance -- and turning it into a political movement. This may be disturbing to all those who have a passing interest in the facts, but it creates a special burden for those who must oppose the movement, because those on the other side are actually immune to rational argument, by definition allergic to it.

This nation of freedom-lovers has created its logical extreme, a bunch of people who are free to believe what they wish, unconstrained by, well, reality. And if they should ever stumble across this little blog, they'll react to it the way they react to everything with which they disagree: they'll accuse me of elitist obscurantism. Actually, no, that would be too straightforward an attack. Rather, they'll snicker that I'm yet another deluded liberal, and that will be an end to any discussion as far as they're concerned.

In short, there is no way for the rest of us to reach them. Yet they get to vote, the same as the rest of us.

Sorely tempted though I am to propose requiring some kind of test to determine voter fitness, that's just my frustration talking. (It does that a lot on this blog.)

No, there's only one way for this country to solve this problem. Those of us who are still living in the real world, who understand how dangerous it is to let our fantasies govern our actions, need to stop sitting on our hands come Election Day. No excuses.

We blew it this time around. Our motto should be, "Never again."

We outnumber them. We need to demonstrate that in the voting booth.