Ignorance and Public Policy

Yesterday I saw a summary of a poll conducted by  Survey Sampling International and commissioned by 3 Political Science professors.

People were asked "Where is the Ukraine?" and "Should the U.S. intervene in the Ukraine with our military?"

The findings.

Only 16% of the sample identified the Ukraine accurately on a map and the median error was 1,800 miles off.  The Ukraine is the largest country in Europe and even if you could not locate it exactly, a smidgen of intelligence would have you locate it on the border of Russia.  1,800 miles puts it roughly in Portugal to the West, Finland to the North, Kazakhstan to the East and Sudan to the South.

The ability to identify it correctly went down with age going up so we cannot blame the current state of the school systems.  Correct identification also went up with level of schooling but only 21% of college graduates were correct.  Men (20%) did better than women (13%) and Independents (29%) did better than Democrats (14%) and Republicans (15%).

Now only 13% of Americans support the concept of sending the U.S. military to the Ukraine, but of those that do support it, there is a high coloration with identifying the Ukraine on the map with a larger error, rather than a smaller error, with a 95% confidence level.

In other words, the greater the ignorance of reality, the more willing they were to belief the neo-con politicians who have advocated putting boots on the ground in the Ukraine.

Ignorance leads to bad policies and politicians with an ax to grind take advantage of that ignorance.

I noticed an article but didn't keep track of it, showing how Halliburton profited immensely (as so did Dick Cheney's "Blind" Trust holding his Halliburton shares) from the BORROWED War on Terror.

And the GOP continues to campaign on policies that are bankrupting this country as a bipartisan group of politicians rolled back a cut in Medicare Advantage insurance company subsidies.  This was in the Senate where the GOP could have stood on principle for something necessary and they punted. How can we ever make progress on Medicare if the GOP will not deal with the truth?