As P.T. Barnum said, "nobody ever lost money by under-estimating the intelligence of an audience." The problem isn't that a great many people are credulous idiots; the problem is that we have a system of governance that exacerbates all the worst tendencies of our species. Until we accept that one ought to be able to demonstrate basic domain knowledge and basic capacity for reasoning prior to being granted the right to propose or vote on policy initiatives, and that we don't actually need representatives at all now that technology has removed "the tyranny of distance" we'll continue to see clowns being elected by morons. As for The Secret, I would wager that most Americans have heard about it by watching a TV show, as hardly anyone in the USA reads anything more challenging than a menu.


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