Are some people simply too stupid, uninformed or mentally incompetent (second item) to vote?

Though the very idea seems "un-American," Jonah Goldberg, suggests that "[m]aybe the people who don't know the first thing about how our system works aren't the folks who should be driving our politics, just as people who don't know how to drive shouldn't have a driver's license." Goldberg notes:

A very high percentage of the U.S. electorate isn't very well qualified to vote, if by "qualified" you mean having a basic understanding of our government, its functions and its challenges. Almost half of the American public doesn't know that each state gets two senators. More than two-thirds can't explain the gist of what the Food and Drug Administration does.

Goldberg hastens to add that this doesn’t mean Americans are stupid, "[r]ather, it's that millions of Americans just don't care about politics, much the same way that I don't care about cricket: They think it's boring."

No, Americans aren’t stupid – just ill served by the institutions that are supposed to educate and inform them.

Public schools are not turning out graduates who can perform basic calculations used in daily life – even using their fingers. Quick: If a pair of pants is reduced from $65.00 to $25.00 and the store takes another 15 percent off at the register, how much will you shell out for the pants^†?

Even more calamitous than not being able to mentally calculate a store discount using grade-school multiplication and subtraction, a new study of 3,260 elderly patients published in the Archives of Internal Medicine finds that regardless of their state of health, those who were medically illiterate – that is, unable to read prescription labels, appointment slips and instructions on how to prepare for an X-ray – were 50 percent more likely to die within the next six years than those who could read and understand medical information.

Previous studies suggest that as many as 90 million Americans are medically illiterate. These same Americans may be voting on ballot initiatives having to do with stem cell research, global warming, universal health care coverage and other contentious and complex issues.

It’s not just the piss-poor public school education indolently doled out by unionized teachers getting paid private sector middle-management level salaries (teachers average $57,354 in NY, $59,345 in CA and $61,195 in Washington, D.C. per 10-month school year - nine months if you factor in Spring and Winter breaks). Commenting on Ann Coulter’s contention that the MSM routinely gets major stories wrong The Stiletto wrote (third item):

[T]hough many journalists are college and/or journalism school graduates these days, they are too often utterly innumerate and scientifically illiterate. They simply do not have the knowledge needed, nor the analytical skills required, to understand and explain many of the controversial issues on which they are asked to report. And whatever they don’t understand, they leave out. So the resulting articles and news reports are incomplete and inaccurate - and biased.

So in addition to being unable to process mathematical, medical, scientific and technical concepts and data, Americans get their information from journalists who are equally unable to process mathematical, medical, scientific and technical concepts and data.

The inevitable result? A confused, uninformed, easily misled electorate.

Goldberg wonders whether "cheapening the vote by requiring little more than an active pulse (Chicago famously waives this rule) has turned it into something many people don't value" and suggests that "the emphasis on getting more people to vote has dumbed down our democracy by pushing participation onto people uninterested in such things."

His remedy: "Instead of making it easier to vote, maybe we should be making it harder. Why not test people on the basic functions of government? Immigrants have to pass a test to vote; why not all citizens?" And if that doesn’t work: "threaten to take the vote away from the certifiably uninformed."

If only.

[^† $21.25; 15 percent of $25.00 is $3.75]


"Persistent Vegetative State" Diagnoses Too Often A Rush To Judgement

A study by the Coma Science Group of the University of Liège, Belgium, finds that up to half of patients in an acute vegetative state regain some level of consciousness.

In the study, which analyzed data collected over a five-year period, researchers assessed and classified comatose patients according to the Coma Recovery Scale. The researchers determined that some 40 percent had been incorrectly diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state, when they were in fact in a minimally conscious state. And 10 percent of those diagnosed as being minimally conscious were communicating functionally.

A patient who is minimally conscious shows periodic signs of awareness of himself and his surroundings but usually cannot communicate with others, whereas a patient who is in a persistent vegetative state is awake but lacks such awareness.

The Coma Science Group’s Dr. Steven Laureys presented the study findings at the European Neurological Society congress in June:

"Our data show that acute vegetative state is certainly not rare among patients admitted to intensive care … What is important to note is that it may be transient and that the prognosis for patients with impaired consciousness depends to a great extent on the nature of the brain damage. … The study underlines the importance of extreme caution in any decision to limit the life chances of patients during the acute phase of a vegetative state." …

Take the case of Jesse Ramirez, who suffered major brain injuries after his car flipped over and he was thrown from the vehicle on May 30^th. Doctors predicted that the 36-year old Arizonan could remain in a permanent vegetative state. Less than two weeks after the accident, his wife, Rebecca, 33, asked doctors to remove his food and water tubes. But Jesse's family challenged her decision in court, and a Maricopa County Superior Court judge ordered the tubes reconnected.

And then, Ramirez regained consciousness. The Arizona Republic reports:

[H]e can hug and kiss, nod his head, answer yes and no questions, give a thumbs-up sign and sit in a chair. …

Jesse is now ready to move from a hospice to a rehabilitation facility.

"We have had a lot of miracles," said Betty Valenzuela, Ramirez's aunt. "He would have been gone."

"All of the family is absolutely thrilled that he has now become conscious and is able to go through rehab," Judge Paul Katz said. …

The Arizona Republic notes that this same Judge Katz had previously scolded the family for not acting in Jesse's best interest.

Meanwhile, groundbreaking new research published in the journal Nature suggests that patients who are in a minimally conscious state are treatable, and can recover some cognitive ability, speech and movement.

With the aid of computer-generated maps and image-guided navigation equipment, researchers implanted a deep brain stimulator to deliver electrical pulses to the brain of a 38-year old man who had been in a coma-like state for six years after being the victim of a brutal mugging, during which he had been repeatedly kicked in the head. The man had been able to respond to commands on occasion, sometimes moving his thumb in response to yes-or-no questions.

Within hours of receiving the implant, the man opened his eyes and tracked the movement of people in his hospital room, reports The New York Times. He has continued to progress for more than a year and can drink from a cup, comb his hair, speak in short sentences and recently he recited the first 16 words of the Pledge of Allegiance, according to researchers at the JFK Johnson Rehabilitation Institute in Edison, NJ.

There are 100,000 to 300,000 minimally conscious patients in the US, and the researchers do not believe that the treatment would benefit all of them. For instance, the implant did not help Terri Schiavo, the FL woman whose husband won a court battle in 2005 to remove her feeding tube after she had been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years.

The man's mother, who had signed a "do not resuscitate" order for her son told journalists at a press conference that "he can cry and laugh and say 'Mommy' and 'Pop.' I cry every time I see my son, but now it's tears of joy."