Evidence that the UK is going “tit’s up”, part 73…
Birmingham City Council has decided to abolish apostrophes, essentially because the city councillors are too thick to understand them. This is utterly ridiculous, as many other people have pointed out. As I get older and more reactionary I have increasing sympathy with the view that a certain level of education and intelligence should be required to be allowed to stand for any political office. Obviously the required level for Birmingham City Council could be lower than for the national parliament, but even for a local council it should include the basic elements of grammar with which all 10 year-olds should be familiar.
February 1, 2009 at 20:55
The notion that who has the right to run for office in a plural democracy should be aribtered and vetted by some kind of intellectual elite, and should be based on qualifications and some measure of intelligence. Well for a start its a positive non starter. Practically there would be no way of reaching agreement over standards, kind of like trying to expand the Security Council at the UN. In reality in the UK, it happens already on an informal basis with candidates being vetted by their resepctive parties.
More importantly it is offensive to the concept of democracy.
People should be allowed to elect complete idiots if they want to, and to be honest they quite frequently do. Its how we elevate the superstars, people who have a positive impact and make history, by being able to elect morons who quite frequently make our largest errors.
There may be some positive correlation between intelect and political awareness, but having one is by no means a pre requisite for the other. In fact a lot of the times, having to much of a brain can be a hinderance and can and does result in paralysis by analysis.