{"id":576,"date":"2005-02-09T20:20:00","date_gmt":"2005-02-09T20:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/2005\/02\/09\/576\/"},"modified":"2005-02-09T20:20:00","modified_gmt":"2005-02-09T20:20:00","slug":"576","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=576","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Education and the 2004 Election:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
LEVEL OF EDUCATION<\/b>:<\/td>\n\n
BUSH<\/b><\/div>\n<\/td>\n
\n
KERRY<\/b><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
No High School Degree<\/td>\n\n
49%<\/div>\n<\/td>\n
\n
50%<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
High School Degree<\/td>\n\n
52%<\/div>\n<\/td>\n
\n
47%<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Some College<\/td>\n\n
54%<\/div>\n<\/td>\n
\n
46%<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
College Degree<\/td>\n\n
52%<\/div>\n<\/td>\n
\n
46%<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Post Graduate Work<\/td>\n\n
44%<\/div>\n<\/td>\n
\n
55%<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

What do these numbers tell us? Well, Bush had solid support amidst the great wide swath of voters who earned high school degrees and have zero to four years of college. Kerry found his support at the extremes; voters without high school degrees broke slightly for him, and people with post-graduate educations were fairly enthusiastic supporters.<\/p>\n

My guess is that the drop-out crowd knows that they\u2019re not appreciated by today\u2019s economy, and hoped that the Democrats might show them some mercy. The post graduate crowd, by contrast, shouldn\u2019t have much to worry about. They have the luxury to vote according to their progressive and idealistic beliefs. The great middle class, by contrast, believes they\u2019re still in the game, but it’s a struggle. They can still make it on their own — maybe even make it big. But they live in constant fear of losing their good life due to a bad break; e.g., a corporate merger causes layoffs, their job is outsourced to India, they get hit with uninsured health costs, etc. They could either look at the government as their friend, a force to protect them from the extreme uncertainties of our modern techno-society; or they can see it as an enemy, something that drags them down with high taxes that go to support the unworthy.<\/p>\n

The 2004 election results indicate that they generally take the enemy viewpoint. Yea, there is a \u201cvalues gap\u201d in America involving religion, marriage and property; the southern states and the land-locked states (red America) believe these things to be sacred, while northern states with shorelines (blue America) usually take a more nuanced and tolerant approach. But this values gap also extends to government. The blues and the post-grad people see government as necessary for a better life and a better world, even if they don\u2019t always love it. The red folk seem to want government \u201coff their backs\u201d. They appear to think that America and its economy are rolling along just fine, if a bit unpredictably, and that they could deal with the unpredictability if they didn\u2019t have to pay taxes.<\/p>\n

This is the debate that America needs to have right now. Government — to be or not to be. If it is to be, then just how much? Why have a government? What good can it do? What bad side effects does it have? What does it cost? Is it worth the cost? In the past, philosophers justified the downsides of government thru the theory of social contract<\/span>; we put on the yoke of laws and taxes in exchange for order and predictability (with certain protection mechanisms to avoid abuse of power, e.g. voting, constitutions and separations of power). Have things changed so much in our high-tech, interconnected world as to make that idea irrelevant? Can we all get in synch with each other without a king and a police force and a tax collector and a department of [fill in the blank] to boss us around? Can we do \u201clong term best interest\u201d by ourselves? Issue in focus: do we need government to support us once we can\u2019t work (traditional Social Security), or should we keep the tax money and invest it ourselves (the new Bush proposal)?<\/p>\n

The average American seems to think we don\u2019t have much need for government (or at least not as much government). The most educated and the worst off seem to disagree. For now, let\u2019s forget about biscotti versus blueberry pie with lard crust, and NASCAR versus the Sunday New York Times. Let\u2019s even put the abortion and gay marriage stuff aside. Let\u2019s go back to the drawing board regarding the institution of government. Let the red folk think about how they benefit from roads, schools, unemployment benefits, police protection, care for the injured and elderly, flood relief, farm insurance, etc.; then let them ponder where these things would come from without government. <\/p>\n

At the same time, let the blue folk be honest about how government sometimes irks them, e.g. lavish subsidies for rich agri-business owners and military contractors. What is government doing that modern conditions no longer require? And what modern conditions require new forms of government involvement? How much government inefficiency and unfairness is inevitable, and how much can we tolerate? How can we encourage greater citizen trust and empowerment in government in today\u2019s world? It\u2019s a discussion worth having — a discussion that should interest high school drop-outs, PhDs, and everyone in between.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Education and the 2004 Election: LEVEL OF EDUCATION: BUSH KERRY No High School Degree 49% 50% High School Degree 52% 47% Some College 54% 46% College Degree 52% 46% Post Graduate Work 44% 55% What do these numbers tell us? Well, Bush had solid support amidst the great wide swath of voters who earned high […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}