I’m tired of watching interview shows like Meet the Press and seeing the interviewers trot out a litany of poll data on how the public feels about this or that.  I would hazard a guess that many of the respondents don’t know any more about the subject matter than a monkey, but they dutifully give their opinions anyway.

I bet that if a poll were taken asking the question, “Do you think the American government should just print more money to solve everyone’s financial problems?” a shockingly high percentage, maybe even a majority, would say yes.  Then the intrepid interviewers would seriously ask politicians, “Why isn’t the government being more responsive to the demands of the people and printing out more money?  You seem to be out of touch with the people of this country.”  The politician can’t say, “That is a stupid idea!” for fear of offending the morons potential voters who said yes.  Instead he must try to explain why it would be a bad idea.  Meanwhile, another politician seizes on the notion that many people want the government to print more money and he comes out and says, “If I’m elected my first item of business will be to print more money.”  And populism is born.

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This entry was posted by Brian on Monday, January 29th, 2007 at 6:41 am and is filed under Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.