The Wall Street Journal recently published an article on widespread public ignorance about federal spending [HT: Andrew Varcoe]: Many Americans have strong opinions about policy issues shaping the presidential campaign, from immigration to Social Security. But their grasp of numbers that underlie those issues can be tenuous. Americans vastly overestimate the percentage of fellow residents […]
Archive | Political Ignorance
In Defense of Negative Campaigning
In every election year, politicians and pundits routinely attack negative campaigning, claiming that it is somehow inappropriate or harmful. This year, Newt Gingrich has been complaining about it especially loudly. But many others have said similar things. As I see it, negative campaigning is just as useful and just as legitimate as the positive kind. […]
A (Literally) Fishy Study on Political Ignorance
The Chronicle of Higher Education has a summary of an interesting recent study that uses an experiment conducted on fish to try to claim that there are underappreciated benefits to political ignorance [HT: VC reader John Perkins]: A team of researchers led by a Princeton University biologist has now studied that question and concluded that […]
Laws about gun ownership in early America
By David Kopel on December 9, 2011 2:23 am in Constitutional History, Election Law, Guns, History, Militia, Political Ignorance, Religion and the Law, Right to carry
Regarding Eugene Volokh’s post below about an NYU L. Rev. article, “The People” of the Second Amendment: Citizenship and the Right To Bear Arms. I just scanned the article, and there appears to be only a single footnote which directly cites any state statutes from before 1800. Note 125, accurately cites standard statutory compilations from […]
George Orwell on Democracy and Political Ignorance
Bryan Caplan has a interesting post on George Orwell’s portrayal of democracy in his classic work Animal Farm. As Bryan notes, the initially egalitarian and democratic regime established by the animals gets subverted in large part because of political ignorance. Like Bryan, I would be interested to know more about Orwell’s view of real-world democracy. […]
Radical Islamists Make Gains in Egypt
Back in January, I expressed the fear that the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak’s dictatorship in Egypt might lead to a new regime that is as bad or worse than the old. I gave two reasons why this could happen: Illiberal forces in Egypt, especially radical Islamists, are much better organized than liberal democrats, and majority […]
The Political Battle Over Eminent Domain Reform in Virginia
By Ilya Somin on November 26, 2011 10:50 am in Eminent Domain, Political Ignorance, Post-Kelo Reform, Property Rights
Virginia was one of several states that enacted a strong eminent domain reform law after the Supreme Court ruled in Kelo v. City of New London that it was permissible for government to take private property and transfer it to other private individuals in order to promote economic development. Supporters of the Virginia law are […]
Ideology and Economic Ignorance Revisited
Last year, Zeljka Buturovic and economist Dan Klein published an article showing that political liberals were more likely to be ignorant about several economic issues than libertarian and conservative survey respondents. The study got a lot of media and internet attention. At the time, I noted that its results were interesting, but also pointed out […]
Herman Cain’s Political Ignorance
Conservative columnist Rich Lowry has an interesting piece on Herman Cain’s ignorance about major public policy: At a meeting with the editors of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Cain was asked whether he agreed with Pres. Barack Obama’s handling of Libya. You would think he had been asked who is the president of Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan, Cain’s joshing […]
More Evidence of the Repressive Nature of the New Egyptian Government
In a recent post, I cited evidence suggesting that the new Egyptian government is degenerating into a military dictatorship at least as bad as the Mubarak regime that was overthrown earlier this year. Jeff Jacoby compiles some additional relevant points: [T]he “spirit of Tahrir Square’’ has ushered in neither liberal democracy nor a rebirth of […]
Egypt Sliding into Military Dictatorship
By Ilya Somin on October 11, 2011 5:06 pm in Democracy, Political Ignorance, Public Choice, Public Opinion
When the revolution that eventually overthrew Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak began, I warned that the end result could easily be a government as bad or worse than Mubarak’s was. In a revolutionary situation, liberal democratic forces often get outmaneuvered by more ruthless and better-organized opponents – even if majority public opinion would prefer a liberal […]
Michele Bachmann, Jewish Names, and Political Ignorance
Co-blogger David Bernstein is skeptical of reports that fundraisers for Mitt Romney are losing out on Republican Jewish donors because some of the latter are giving to Michele Bachmann instead, based on a mistaken impression that she is Jewish. The reports could well be false or exaggerated. But I am less skeptical about them than […]
Democracy and Natural Disasters
In the wake of a massive hurricane that has caused considerable damage and loss of life in several states, it’s worth asking how well democratic governments handle natural disasters. In this recent post, I summarized evidence showing that democracies generally handle disasters much better than dictatorships (even after controlling for a society’s wealth). Elected office-holders […]
Reagan’s infamous speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi
By David Kopel on August 16, 2011 6:18 am in Elections, History, Housing, Political Ignorance, Racism, Tenth Amendment
In 1980, one of the major party presidential nominees opened his general election by delivering a speech in a small town in the Deep South that just by coincidence happened to be the national headquarters of the Ku Klux Klan. That same candidate had previously complained about federal housing policies which attempted “to inject black […]
Political Ignorance and “Caylee’s Law”
The recent controversial acquittal of Casey Anthony has stimulated efforts in many states to enact “Caylee’s Law” as a response. The law would require parents to report a missing child to the authorities within 24 hours, and the death of a child within 1 hour. If they fail to do either, they would be guilty […]