CDZ Is it just me?

[320 Years of History]

It is only I who is beginning to feel that:

• Being in Chicago while black has a pretty high risk of being fatal?
• Possession of a weapon anywhere in the U.S. while black is criminally fatal?
• Death by cop is moving "up the ladder" as one of the most common causes of death?

 

[irosie91]

It is only I who is beginning to feel that:

• Being in Chicago while black has a pretty high risk of being fatal?
• Possession of a weapon anywhere in the U.S. while black is criminally fatal?

you might seek the help of a professional. It seems to me that persons who
carry guns in their pockets in my town------are at high risk of being shot based on
life style I am not sure. I also believe based on a bit of experience that
persons in high crime areas are likely to catch a bullet----whoever they are----but
the high crime area I knew well is and was a black area------most of the victims
of bullet in brain I saw were young black men------shot by other young black men---
but lots of them were NOT part of the life-style of the shooters. Cop shot was largely
STRAY or RICOCHET-----in drug busts.

 

[Fishlore]

It is only I who is beginning to feel that:

• Being in Chicago while black has a pretty high risk of being fatal?
• Possession of a weapon anywhere in the U.S. while black is criminally fatal?

No, it isn't just you. In fact, the vast majority of Americans have deep misgivings about both race relations and gun deaths. What is more, huge numbers of your fellow citizens have similar feelings of isolation ("is it just me?").

As a wise man recently put it, " it's me, the TV, and the big guys"). The trouble is, the TV doesn't seem to be broadcasting from the same America we are living in and the big guys aren't talking about many of the things that we think are important to American lives.

What I find unusual is the nobody from the loner gun nut crooning over his weapons collection to the Black Lives Matter activist organizing campus protest, thinks the system is working, nobody. The two presidential candidates with the greatest voter enthusiasm are both running against a political system including their own respective parties which, they charge, isn't getting the job done. Neither one is thought to have a chance of being elected.

No, it isn't just you. It's We, the People...

 

[irosie91]

and always has been

 

[koshergrl]

Actually, death by cop is not anything like an epidemic. The chance of being shot by black people who have guns illegally, is.

 

[TNHarley]

Death by cop is moving "up the ladder" as one of the most common causes of death?

Granted, you do hear about more aggression against police..
It doesn't help when people yell "burn this mutha down" and "kill the pigs"

 

[320 Years of History]

What I find unusual is the nobody from the loner gun nut crooning over his weapons collection to the Black Lives Matter activist organizing campus protest, thinks the system is working, nobody. The two presidential candidates with the greatest voter enthusiasm are both running against a political system including their own respective parties which, they charge, isn't getting the job done. Neither one is thought to have a chance of being elected.

The initial thought I had about your comments was "yes, there's a lot of situational irony there." Immediately after thinking that, however, I realized that the irony is but a smokescreen for the real irony being of the tragic variety.

I think what's going on is that people allow themselves to be told what to think, and not knowing how to think, or bothering to (due to time constraints, information overload, apathy, ignorance, presumed political impotence, etc.) if they do know how, connect themselves with an ideology that, on the face of things, seems generally consistent with how they want to perceive themselves. The outcome of that is that people not only do what they are supposed to do -- trust the elected leaders of the republic to do their best and do so with integrity, that is, let leaders lead -- but also they allow leaders to lead them in the analysis and choice of whom to elect to be the leaders. People allow themselves to be pandered to.

When voters let that happen, the result is that the people and interests that truly "give a damn" about what happens and how things happen, and who are also willing to make sure it does, willing to do what it takes to have their way, are able to successfully obfuscate the reality and recast to the detriment of the pandered to, all the while the manipulators' fortunes rise, and the pandered to are left disappointed yet again and still complaining as before that "the system is broken."

I don't think the system is broken. I think it works exactly as the people controlling it want it to. It works just as they have manipulated it to work. Why do I think this? Well, mainly just from what I've observed re: the correlation between some folks' economic position and their political preferences.

I come across a pretty wide variety of folks, but not especially huge quantities of folks, and with about some 50 or so of them, I occasionally have political discussions with them. Some of those folks could easily be Republicans or Democrats, and I understand that, and I don't have a thing to say about which party they prefer; they'll make out just fine regardless of which party controls things at any given time. They may be a little better off with one or the other party running the show, but in the scheme of things, their life's not going to be materially different either way. That's clear to me and to them. Among the folks in that group, some of them vote based on what they think is best for the nation, that is, best for others in general, and some of them vote based on what works best for them personally.

I also know some folks who are Republican, and for the life of me, I swear that their party choice makes no sense at all. For example, a fair number of the working class poor to middle income folks whom I know say they are Republicans. I don't understand that at all. What the heck have Republicans ever done that actually is good for working class people? The folks who most need things to change are supporting the party least interested in changing the status quo. I mean really; at the most basic level, that's what it means to be conservative.

Some of these folks have said to me they vote Republican because they are pro-life. This as some of them (as individuals or as a couple) can hardly afford to just be pregnant, let alone actually raise a child, or another child. But they have that one idea in their mind -- pro-life -- that is so important to them that they'd sooner vote for a candidate who is going to foster the aims of the very organizations and interests that have no real interest in them except what they can get out of them. It's tantamount to cutting off their nose to spite their face. I don't criticize them for their views; I just know they won't go far in life overall, not because they lack ability, but because they refuse to see the entirety of their own circumstances. The very folks whom I would expect to vote for their own and their kids' self interest, the folks who can reliably expect that nobody is going to do a damn thing on their behalf and thus must vote to elect someone who'll give them a fair shot, don't. I don't get it.

I also come by folks who are doing well; they aren't the X% of the 1% folks I first mentioned, but are getting on quite well in terms of earnings. Yet a good number of these folks are just one catastrophe (or near catastrophe) away from ruin, and they yet are keen on the Democrats. They are folks who have good jobs and whose livelihood depends on the fortunes of corporate America. These are the very folks whom I'd expect to be Republican because fiscal conservatism is exactly what is going to move them from "teetering on the edge" to joining the ranks of the "quite secure."

It's the "strange" political affiliations that I see among "regular folks," and all the groups I've described are comprised almost entirely of "regular folks," that makes me think that it's the polity that's "broken," not the system. To achieve one's own betterment -- economic, social, whatever -- one has to have a clear picture of what one's own situation is and what is the intended outcome of the various individuals whom one empowers as leaders. The system isn't going to tell one what either of those things are. It wasn't designed to do that.

The sytem is designed to allow and give well informed, bright people who have a track record of success the opportunity to vote for the person whom they believe will best represent their interests. When our nation was founded, whom was given the right to vote? White male landowners. And what distinguished that segment of society from all the others? White male landowners were the folks who had the brains and education to critically evaluate matters, in large part because they were the people who were given an education (however they came by it) and who had the resources to exert political influence.

Our nation has evolved so that one need not be white, male or a landowner to exert influence, but the influence one can exert is limited largely to one's vote. If one also isn't well educated, well informed and willing to use those two things to critically assess one's own position and that of aspiring political leaders, one is consigned to letting things happen rather than making things happen. Well, if one does that, one is hardly likely to find the things happening are what one would have wanted. What will happen is what someone else wants, and one will be left griping about broken systems and just complaining in general. Isn't that about where we are in this country? Surprise!

 

[320 Years of History]

Death by cop is moving "up the ladder" as one of the most common causes of death?

Granted, you do hear about more aggression against police..
It doesn't help when people yell "burn this mutha down" and "kill the pigs"

True, it doesn't. But that people yell those things doesn't authorize cops to become killers. People don't yell "burn this mutha down" or "kill the pigs" when the "mutha" is meeting their needs, and when cops aren't "pigs."

I get the idea you've expressed, but the process flow is not "people yell --> cops become 'pigs'." It's "cops behave as "pigs" --> people yell." Remember, we give law enforcement officials, all officials really, our trust before they've done much of anything to earn it, and then we expect them to uphold it. That's very different from one's earning others' trust and then receiving a role, that of being an official.

 

[TNHarley]

Death by cop is moving "up the ladder" as one of the most common causes of death?

Granted, you do hear about more aggression against police..
It doesn't help when people yell "burn this mutha down" and "kill the pigs"

True, it doesn't. But that people yell those things doesn't authorize cops to become killers. People don't yell "burn this mutha down" or "kill the pigs" when the "mutha" is meeting their needs, and when cops aren't "pigs."

I get the idea you've expressed, but the process flow is not "people yell --> cops become 'pigs'." It's "cops behave as "pigs" --> people yell." Remember, we give law enforcement officials, all officials really, our trust before they've done much of anything to earn it, and then we expect them to uphold it. That's very different from one's earning others' trust and then receiving a role, that of being an official.

Meeting their needs? Like social justice and denial of facts? lol
Look at Michael brown. The "witnesses" got proved to be liars. Our own president sent aids to that criminals funeral before the facts even came out! That incited PLENTY.
The evidence came out and STILL nobody gave crap so they decided to keep attacking people and burning down innocent peoples lives.

 

[Fishlore]

What I find unusual is the nobody from the loner gun nut crooning over his weapons collection to the Black Lives Matter activist organizing campus protest, thinks the system is working, nobody. The two presidential candidates with the greatest voter enthusiasm are both running against a political system including their own respective parties which, they charge, isn't getting the job done. Neither one is thought to have a chance of being elected.

The initial thought I had about your comments was "yes, there's a lot of situational irony there." Immediately after thinking that, however, I realized that the irony is but a smokescreen for the real irony being of the tragic variety.

I think what's going on is that people allow themselves to be told what to think, and not knowing how to think, or bothering to (due to time constraints, information overload, apathy, ignorance, presumed political impotence, etc.) if they do know how, connect themselves with an ideology that, on the face of things, seems generally consistent with how they want to perceive themselves. The outcome of that is that people not only do what they are supposed to do -- trust the elected leaders of the republic to do their best and do so with integrity, that is, let leaders lead -- but also they allow leaders to lead them in the analysis and choice of whom to elect to be the leaders. People allow themselves to be pandered to.

When voters let that happen, the result is that the people and interests that truly "give a damn" about what happens and how things happen, and who are also willing to make sure it does, willing to do what it takes to have their way, are able to successfully obfuscate the reality and recast to the detriment of the pandered to, all the while the manipulators' fortunes rise, and the pandered to are left disappointed yet again and still complaining as before that "the system is broken."

I don't think the system is broken. I think it works exactly as the people controlling it want it to. It works just as they have manipulated it to work. Why do I think this? Well, mainly just from what I've observed re: the correlation between some folks' economic position and their political preferences.

I come across a pretty wide variety of folks, but not especially huge quantities of folks, and with about some 50 or so of them, I occasionally have political discussions with them. Some of those folks could easily be Republicans or Democrats, and I understand that, and I don't have a thing to say about which party they prefer; they'll make out just fine regardless of which party controls things at any given time. They may be a little better off with one or the other party running the show, but in the scheme of things, their life's not going to be materially different either way. That's clear to me and to them. Among the folks in that group, some of them vote based on what they think is best for the nation, that is, best for others in general, and some of them vote based on what works best for them personally.

I also know some folks who are Republican, and for the life of me, I swear that their party choice makes no sense at all. For example, a fair number of the working class poor to middle income folks whom I know say they are Republicans. I don't understand that at all. What the heck have Republicans ever done that actually is good for working class people? The folks who most need things to change are supporting the party least interested in changing the status quo. I mean really; at the most basic level, that's what it means to be conservative.

Some of these folks have said to me they vote Republican because they are pro-life. This as some of them (as individuals or as a couple) can hardly afford to just be pregnant, let alone actually raise a child, or another child. But they have that one idea in their mind -- pro-life -- that is so important to them that they'd sooner vote for a candidate who is going to foster the aims of the very organizations and interests that have no real interest in them except what they can get out of them. It's tantamount to cutting off their nose to spite their face. I don't criticize them for their views; I just know they won't go far in life overall, not because they lack ability, but because they refuse to see the entirety of their own circumstances. The very folks whom I would expect to vote for their own and their kids' self interest, the folks who can reliably expect that nobody is going to do a damn thing on their behalf and thus must vote to elect someone who'll give them a fair shot, don't. I don't get it.

I also come by folks who are doing well; they aren't the X% of the 1% folks I first mentioned, but are getting on quite well in terms of earnings. Yet a good number of these folks are just one catastrophe (or near catastrophe) away from ruin, and they yet are keen on the Democrats. They are folks who have good jobs and whose livelihood depends on the fortunes of corporate America. These are the very folks whom I'd expect to be Republican because fiscal conservatism is exactly what is going to move them from "teetering on the edge" to joining the ranks of the "quite secure."

It's the "strange" political affiliations that I see among "regular folks," and all the groups I've described are comprised almost entirely of "regular folks," that makes me think that it's the polity that's "broken," not the system. To achieve one's own betterment -- economic, social, whatever -- one has to have a clear picture of what one's own situation is and what is the intended outcome of the various individuals whom one empowers as leaders. The system isn't going to tell one what either of those things are. It wasn't designed to do that.

The sytem is designed to allow and give well informed, bright people who have a track record of success the opportunity to vote for the person whom they believe will best represent their interests. When our nation was founded, whom was given the right to vote? White male landowners. And what distinguished that segment of society from all the others? White male landowners were the folks who had the brains and education to critically evaluate matters, in large part because they were the people who were given an education (however they came by it) and who had the resources to exert political influence.

Our nation has evolved so that one need not be white, male or a landowner to exert influence, but the influence one can exert is limited largely to one's vote. If one also isn't well educated, well informed and willing to use those two things to critically assess one's own position and that of aspiring political leaders, one is consigned to letting things happen rather than making things happen. Well, if one does that, one is hardly likely to find the things happening are what one would have wanted. What will happen is what someone else wants, and one will be left griping about broken systems and just complaining in general. Isn't that about where we are in this country? Surprise!

An interesting analysis. Thanks. It does seem that, so far at least, the voter base of our two parties has switched. Trump owns the rural white men with no college while Bernie Sanders has a base of college grads. It is hard to see how left Democrats and right Republicans can switch base voters but it looks like they have. How the big middle majority will respond we will have to wait and see.

 

[Fishlore]

Actually, death by cop is not anything like an epidemic. The chance of being shot by black people who have guns illegally, is.

Every gun starts out as a legal gun.
This crucial fact is seldom addressed by Second Amendment Patriots. Nobody thinks illegal guns are a good idea regardless of the color of the owner. How do we stop legal guns from turning into illegal guns? That seems to be a real issue.

 

[320 Years of History]

Meeting their needs? Like social justice and denial of facts? lol
Look at Michael brown. The "witnesses" got proved to be liars. Our own president sent aids to that criminals funeral before the facts even came out! That incited PLENTY.
The evidence came out and STILL nobody gave crap so they decided to keep attacking people and burning down innocent peoples lives.

I'm not trying to identify what the needs are that need to be met, or that any individual or group want met. I'm only saying that when folks needs aren't being met, they "blow up," if you will. Perhaps "protest" or "gripe" is a better term.

The matter really is one of how to manage people, nations. Should leaders and officials do what they think is best for the citizenry or should they do what the citizenry wants? There's no question that citizens will "yell" either way, but whichever approach is best will result in "lower volume yelling" and fewer folks yelling at all. Regardless of what folks say they want, indeed often enough they don't really know what they want, why or whether they should want it, folks know when what they are getting is predominantly a "good thing" or not.

You may not always get what you pay for, but what you want and don't pay for, you nearly always won't get.
-- 320 Years of History

 

[TNHarley]

Read the black lives matter state of the Union and get back to me about needs. The argument is a fallacy.
Special rights doesn't deserve a protest. Maybe a fire hose lol

 

[irosie91]

Actually, death by cop is not anything like an epidemic. The chance of being shot by black people who have guns illegally, is.

it IS a horror story-----some time ago when I was working----part of my job was determining "BRAIN DEATH"-------I did lots----a few per month in the high crime area
in which the hospital in which I worked was situated------mostly young black men----shot by young black men. I little bullet in the brain ---especially a .22 caliber thing ---often leave the heart beating------but the brain DEAD. Every time I wrote it ----up----it was heartbreaking-----healthy looking boys------"brain dead"------an EPIDEMIC

 

[320 Years of History]

Actually, death by cop is not anything like an epidemic. The chance of being shot by black people who have guns illegally, is.

Every gun starts out as a legal gun.
This crucial fact is seldom addressed by Second Amendment Patriots. Nobody thinks illegal guns are a good idea regardless of the color of the owner. How do we stop legal guns from turning into illegal guns? That seems to be a real issue.

Simplified, perhaps it boils down to what my folks taught me as a young adult. What they said was this.

If you are conservative before you turn 35 you, have a lot to learn and everything to lose. If you are a liberal after 35, you haven't learned much and have nothing to hang on to.​

One must understand the human condition and the reality of life in the society in which one finds oneself to fully grasp what's in that short axiom. I didn't really "get it" until I was in my mid to late 20s when I came to understand what life stages are and the importance of doing that which is appropriate to the stage in which one finds oneself.

Thought I think the specific age varies somewhat from person to person, but I think the principle applies universally.

 

[koshergrl]

You stop legal guns from turning into illegal guns by keeping criminals in prison where they belong. Most gun crimes are committed by people with extensive criminal histories.

 

[320 Years of History]

Read the black lives matter state of the Union and get back to me about needs. The argument is a fallacy.
Special rights doesn't deserve a protest. Maybe a fire hose lol

Okay. I read it. So about what aspect of "needs," and given the context and purpose of that document, is it you want to hear from me?

 

[Elvis Obama]

What I find unusual is the nobody from the loner gun nut crooning over his weapons collection to the Black Lives Matter activist organizing campus protest, thinks the system is working, nobody. The two presidential candidates with the greatest voter enthusiasm are both running against a political system including their own respective parties which, they charge, isn't getting the job done. Neither one is thought to have a chance of being elected.

The initial thought I had about your comments was "yes, there's a lot of situational irony there." Immediately after thinking that, however, I realized that the irony is but a smokescreen for the real irony being of the tragic variety.

I think what's going on is that people allow themselves to be told what to think, and not knowing how to think, or bothering to (due to time constraints, information overload, apathy, ignorance, presumed political impotence, etc.) if they do know how, connect themselves with an ideology that, on the face of things, seems generally consistent with how they want to perceive themselves. The outcome of that is that people not only do what they are supposed to do -- trust the elected leaders of the republic to do their best and do so with integrity, that is, let leaders lead -- but also they allow leaders to lead them in the analysis and choice of whom to elect to be the leaders. People allow themselves to be pandered to.

When voters let that happen, the result is that the people and interests that truly "give a damn" about what happens and how things happen, and who are also willing to make sure it does, willing to do what it takes to have their way, are able to successfully obfuscate the reality and recast to the detriment of the pandered to, all the while the manipulators' fortunes rise, and the pandered to are left disappointed yet again and still complaining as before that "the system is broken."

I don't think the system is broken. I think it works exactly as the people controlling it want it to. It works just as they have manipulated it to work. Why do I think this? Well, mainly just from what I've observed re: the correlation between some folks' economic position and their political preferences.

I come across a pretty wide variety of folks, but not especially huge quantities of folks, and with about some 50 or so of them, I occasionally have political discussions with them. Some of those folks could easily be Republicans or Democrats, and I understand that, and I don't have a thing to say about which party they prefer; they'll make out just fine regardless of which party controls things at any given time. They may be a little better off with one or the other party running the show, but in the scheme of things, their life's not going to be materially different either way. That's clear to me and to them. Among the folks in that group, some of them vote based on what they think is best for the nation, that is, best for others in general, and some of them vote based on what works best for them personally.

I also know some folks who are Republican, and for the life of me, I swear that their party choice makes no sense at all. For example, a fair number of the working class poor to middle income folks whom I know say they are Republicans. I don't understand that at all. What the heck have Republicans ever done that actually is good for working class people? The folks who most need things to change are supporting the party least interested in changing the status quo. I mean really; at the most basic level, that's what it means to be conservative.

Some of these folks have said to me they vote Republican because they are pro-life. This as some of them (as individuals or as a couple) can hardly afford to just be pregnant, let alone actually raise a child, or another child. But they have that one idea in their mind -- pro-life -- that is so important to them that they'd sooner vote for a candidate who is going to foster the aims of the very organizations and interests that have no real interest in them except what they can get out of them. It's tantamount to cutting off their nose to spite their face. I don't criticize them for their views; I just know they won't go far in life overall, not because they lack ability, but because they refuse to see the entirety of their own circumstances. The very folks whom I would expect to vote for their own and their kids' self interest, the folks who can reliably expect that nobody is going to do a damn thing on their behalf and thus must vote to elect someone who'll give them a fair shot, don't. I don't get it.

I also come by folks who are doing well; they aren't the X% of the 1% folks I first mentioned, but are getting on quite well in terms of earnings. Yet a good number of these folks are just one catastrophe (or near catastrophe) away from ruin, and they yet are keen on the Democrats. They are folks who have good jobs and whose livelihood depends on the fortunes of corporate America. These are the very folks whom I'd expect to be Republican because fiscal conservatism is exactly what is going to move them from "teetering on the edge" to joining the ranks of the "quite secure."

It's the "strange" political affiliations that I see among "regular folks," and all the groups I've described are comprised almost entirely of "regular folks," that makes me think that it's the polity that's "broken," not the system. To achieve one's own betterment -- economic, social, whatever -- one has to have a clear picture of what one's own situation is and what is the intended outcome of the various individuals whom one empowers as leaders. The system isn't going to tell one what either of those things are. It wasn't designed to do that.

The sytem is designed to allow and give well informed, bright people who have a track record of success the opportunity to vote for the person whom they believe will best represent their interests. When our nation was founded, whom was given the right to vote? White male landowners. And what distinguished that segment of society from all the others? White male landowners were the folks who had the brains and education to critically evaluate matters, in large part because they were the people who were given an education (however they came by it) and who had the resources to exert political influence.

Our nation has evolved so that one need not be white, male or a landowner to exert influence, but the influence one can exert is limited largely to one's vote. If one also isn't well educated, well informed and willing to use those two things to critically assess one's own position and that of aspiring political leaders, one is consigned to letting things happen rather than making things happen. Well, if one does that, one is hardly likely to find the things happening are what one would have wanted. What will happen is what someone else wants, and one will be left griping about broken systems and just complaining in general. Isn't that about where we are in this country? Surprise!

Our system wasn't designed to have a particular method of voting. We had electors, originally, for practical reasons. When we were able to have a popular vote, we initially extended the franchise to property holding males, because they were the only ones deemed sufficiently well informed to vote responsibly (Race was never a requirement in voting, though it was in immigration. Blacks have voted in every popular election held in America. Not many of them, but a few).

Then we expanded the franchise, several times. We allowed our education system to deteriorate to the point where 2/3 of our electorate cannot name the three branches of government. We put big, splashy ads on TV, with the biggest celebrities in the world exhorting people to go out and vote. Not to be informed and engaged, but just to vote.

Taking away the right to vote isn't possible. All that's left is education. An informed electorate can accomplish anything. An uninformed electorate, to quote Chuck McGill, is like a chimp with a machine gun.

 

[Elvis Obama]

It is only I who is beginning to feel that:

• Being in Chicago while black has a pretty high risk of being fatal?
• Possession of a weapon anywhere in the U.S. while black is criminally fatal?
• Death by cop is moving "up the ladder" as one of the most common causes of death?

Being in Chicago and wandering into the wrong neighborhood will get you shot. Most people, who are lucky enough not to live in these neighborhoods, are safe. They know not to go there. Cops are paid to go there, and to engage with the worst, most dangerous products of our indifference and stupidity. Raise a human being to be a good person, through education and love, and their chances are good. Raise children in poverty and the results go from barely acceptable to monstrous.

This is a solid slice of our gun violence problem. Not cops shooting black people, but the consequence of allowing people to be raised in a manner which creates a depraved indifference to human life. We hire cops and send them into these neighborhoods because we don't want to deal with the problem. It's cheaper and easier to sit on it. To punt. It's not the cop's fault, and it certainly isn't the fault of the monsters we create. Cops want to go home, every day. That's job one. Job two is maintaining order. Not peace, just order. As Jack Nicholson said, we want them on that wall, we need them on that wall. We're not inclined to question the manner in which they achieve that order. Hence, the Tamir Rice verdict.

 

[320 Years of History]

Our system wasn't designed to have a particular method of voting. We had electors, originally, for practical reasons. When we were able to have a popular vote, we initially extended the franchise to property holding males, because they were the only ones deemed sufficiently well informed to vote responsibly (Race was never a requirement in voting, though it was in immigration. Blacks have voted in every popular election held in America. Not many of them, but a few).

Then we expanded the franchise, several times. We allowed our education system to deteriorate to the point where 2/3 of our electorate cannot name the three branches of government. We put big, splashy ads on TV, with the biggest celebrities in the world exhorting people to go out and vote. Not to be informed and engaged, but just to vote.

Taking away the right to vote isn't possible. All that's left is education. An informed electoral can accomplish anything. An uninformed electorate, to quote Chuck McGill, is like a chimp with a machine gun.

Red:
With regard to the Constitution, that is true. With regard to state laws, it's not. After the Civil War, the nation enacted the 15th Amendment, and in turn, states implemented "Black Codes" to skirt the letter and spirit of the 15th Amendment.

Blue:
The blue text is what I think is the central theme and point of your post, and with it I fully concur. I don't see that that truism is affected by one's race.

I have said it before and I'll say it again. If there were a way to ensure that the only people permitted to vote, regardless of race or gender, had to be any of the following, Rhodes Scholars, Mensa members, Nobel Laureates, holders of master's or higher degrees from nationally accredited colleges/universities, and/or have earned some other credentials that show them to at least be intelligent, I could live with it just fine, regardless of whether I met the criteria. I know there's no way to fairly implement such an idea, and if there were, nobody currently "in power" would let it be implemented anyway because it'd put their power at risk.

I don't mind that folks disagree with me and would vote differently than I because for many issues (I haven't counted, but perhaps even most issues) I know the "right" position is not at all a "cut and dried" thing. Quite often, "trial and error" is the only way to really know what is the "right" answer, that is, what be the right end and/or what be the right way to achieve any given end. I mind that idiots have the ability to vote and by doing so they have the potential to adversely affect the way my life happens.

What matters most to me is good leadership and innovation, not whether someone always themselves has the right answer. My career has taught me that the best leaders often aren't the source of the best ideas, but they nearly without exception, by their good leadership skills, discover the owners of those ideas, champion those people and ideas and ultimately bring them to fruition. That, and their having earned my trust, is what I look for in someone who asks me to vote for them.