gosh, voting, are you sure you're smart enough for that?

[rone]

At first, when friends shared stuff from Mike "Dirty Jobs" Rowe, it was an entertaining read.  His show seemed pretty good, too.  But after a while, his common-sense aw-shucks shtick wore thin, and i unsubscribed.  Then, a few weeks ago, he wrote something in which he compared voting to gun ownership, and how, just as some people shouldn't be encouraged to own a gun, some shouldn't be encouraged to vote.  Well, that sure as hell didn't sit right with me.

This clown tries to hide his elitism, expressed through his concern trolling that some people simply aren't equipped to understand the complicated issues behind our domestic and foreign policies and as voters pose too much of a risk, by painting his friends in Hollywood as the real out-of-touch elitists.  It's cute to say that there ought to be an intelligence test to vote in this country, but we already know that this would just be another way to keep marginalized populations out of the ballot box.  It is, not to put too fine a point on it, un-American.  And we already have a tremendous amount of uninformed voters who are already participating, and will continue to participate, on election day.  So fuck off, Mike Rowe, you sad Romney stumper, with your shitty attitude about people who can't be trusted with the vote.  And your enthusiastic recommendation of "Economics in One Lesson" can go sit in the corner with all of the Austrian economics crackpots, too.

Comments

[rimrunner.livejournal.com]

He pissed me off awhile ago. I forget now exactly why, I think he was beating so hard on the "college is overrated" thing (which is admittedly true to an extent) while leaning hard on his communications degree. I've recently had the strong impression that it's been more about building and keeping his audience than anything else. There's nothing wrong with that, but he's gotten strident and I don't appreciate it.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I don't have anything to add, I just wanted to use this image.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Bloody hell.

[some_other_dave]

Funny, my reaction to that missive of Mr Rowe's was almost completely identical.

FUCK YOU MIKE ROWE.

[ratphooey.livejournal.com]

YES.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

How come the people making that argument never think *they're* the ones who aren't smart enough to be voting?

I bet they're all above-average drivers, too.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Well said... and happy birthday ronebofh.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Thank you kindly, sir.