Seriously? In 2008?

[cambro]

I recently took a weekend trip out of town with some friends, and one evening we stayed at a cheap motel in a small town in Wisconsin. We went to Culver's (the only restaurant open past nine) for take-out and then sat down to eat it at a picnic table in front of our building. We'd barely gotten started when a car pulled up and a man came out and

Comments

[derekasaurus]

The only reason you are clinging to your elitist ideology is because you haven't fully considered the implications of a Negro with nukes.

But seriously, it's always surprising to see overt racism, especially from people who seem to know better, or at least convey the impression that they should know better. But I think of it as a subset of a much more widespread problem: rampant ignorance.

Even if Obama wins by a generous margin (by today's standards, anyway) and takes 60% of the popular vote, that still means 40% of voting Americans would have preferred to see Palin in the copilot's chair. Palin, who has barely shown aptitude commensurate with managing the night shift at Perkins, is preferred by a significant portion of a supposedly educated population because she's folksy, milfy, and will fight to keep those uppity gays in line.

I could also point out that in 2008 we have many people still fighting to have one specific Christian doctrine taught as science alongside evolution; there is a growing but completely scientifically barren backlash against vaccination, the most successful medical endeavor undertaken by our species; people still work tirelessly to prevent homosexuals from joining the sacred 50% divorce rate the rest of us enjoy; prestigious medical schools are adding CAM programs to appease public perception, supporting practices that have no more basis in reality than voodoo; and so on.

I guess I'm just not surprised that racial bias still makes that list, depressing as that thought is.

[cambro]

Not just rampant ignorance, but proud ignorance. Sam Harris wrote a piece on Palin for Newsweek where he complained about her dangerous combination of confidence and ignorance, and lots of other folks seem to be similarly afflicted. Education is actually a *liability* in some people's minds, despite the fact that the world is growing ever more complex and the problems facing us cannot be solved with gut-level decisions and "not blinking." Some people on National Review Online have actually been complaining about the fact that Obama pronounces Pakistan correctly, because "no one in flyover country says Pock-i-stahn."

Re:racial bias, the Bradley effect is what's worrying me. His lead in the polls may disappear entirely on Election Day. Today's Science quotes a researcher at U-Iowa who predicts Obama will get 50.1% of the popular vote but lose in the electoral college.