Too Stupid To Vote?

Too Stupid to Vote?
by Wayne Lutz

October 1st, 2002

Anyone who's been connected to the internet for more than fifteen minutes has seen some version of this joke in his e-mailbox: In a nutshell, a perplexed computer user calls tech support because she can't enter any information on her screen. After a lengthy and patient Q & A from the support person, it's determined that, since her office is experiencing a power-outage, her computer is, like the lights in the room, disabled.

The tech support person then offers the following advice:

"A power... A power outage? Aha! Okay, we've got it licked now. Do you still have the boxes and manuals and packing stuff your computer came in?"

"Well, yes. I keep them in the closet."

"Good! Go get them and unplug your system and pack it up just like it was when you got it. Then take it back to the store you bought it from."

"Really! Is it that bad?"

"Yes, I'm afraid it is."

"Well, all right then, I suppose. What do I tell them?"

"Tell them you're too stupid to own a computer."

This cute story, usually presented as factual, is in fact an "urban legend." It's based on a true story, but the final lines are what the tech person wish he could have said, not what he actually did. ( We all know that feeling, I'm sure.)

But the part of the story leading up to this is true. The person on the other end of the line really was experiencing a power outage, and she really was perplexed as to the cause of her computer's refusal to accept any input.

In other words, she really was too stupid to own a computer.

I'm sure there are those who would disagree with my characterization, but, after all, stupid is as stupid does. Which leads me in a seamless transition to Florida.

The problems with the 2000 election in Florida, particularly in Democrat-controlled Miami-Dade and Broward counties, are the stuff of legend. Unlike the story above, this legend is, painfully, true - a truth made all the more painful by the continuation of problems in the 2002 primaries. The stupidity that is, to me, apparent in the mass-inability to figure out how to vote was only compounded by outrageous accusations from prominent Democrats that it was all, somehow, Jeb Bush's fault. Mistakes and snafus, particularly when dealing with electronic equipment, can be explained, even when those explanations are tortured. But to compound ineptitude with idiocy by pointing fingers in absurd directions simply confirms my Stupid Florida Democrat Thesis, to my mind.

Fortunately, here at The Tocquevillian we have cooler and more objective heads than mine to examine the issue. Donna Doyle, unrepentant Florida Civil Servant and longtime Florida resident, does a yeoman's job of it in this October issue. Check it out - then take our poll. Do you agree with me, or are you one of those dull "rational" types?

Also in this issue we witness the long-anticipated return of Rhetorix, our Cato the Elder Wish-She-Was, continuing the series in which she employs her finely honed metaphorical cutlery to deftly trim the fat from the bloated speech of unwary public figures.

And speaking of low-fat (there's one of those seamless transitions again), our own Gene Royer, the World's Youngest and most fit "Octogenarian" and second-best fiction writer on the Internet, introduces his own series to Tocquevillian readers. Each month we will be regaled with another of Gene's exploits in his Neighborhood - a world so crazy that it's completely sane, populated by characters so unique and so...human, that it can't be fiction at all. Welcome to yet another WONDERFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD.

Each issue of The Tocquevillian brings you guests who we believe have something important to say. This month we travel to Yale, where the editor-in-chief of the Yale Free Press warns incoming students against joining the "Bubble Children" who surrender intellectual honesty at the door.

R. Jones and Your Editor round out the October Issue of the Tocquevillian, each in his/her own way exposing liberal folly with Truth, Translations and Common Sense. Warning: If you are one of that odd breed of library fetishists I've come to know, or if you believe that you have a right to feed at a public salad-bar, don't bother reading these articles.

Everyone else, welcome to the October Issue of your Tocquevillian Magazine!

- Editor