Welcome to the ignorocracy

One of my favorite Jefferson quotes is from a letter he wrote in 1820 in which he counsels against a fear of the ignorant masses:

"I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power."

Sorry, Tom, welcome to the ignorocracy.

No, I’m not munching sour grapes over the victories of Barack Obama and Dina Titus — a rational explanation for voting for either of these bright and articulate, though left-leaning, candidates can be made.

I’m talking down ticket, down where the thugs pumped out lies, deceptions and distortions against good people in order to prop up public employee union sock puppets.

To read the mailers and hear the commercials Republican state Sens. Bob Beers and Joe Heck want to place Uzis in the hands of kindergartners and spread cancer among young girls.

Then there were the school board candidates backed by the teachers union knocking off highly educated and principled candidates with unconscionable smears.

The public employee unions owned this election. They bought and paid for it. Now we’ll can the bill.

The Prussians were big supporters of education too. They had an ulterior motive too.

I used to say that I did not wish to vote for someone who “looks” like me, but rather for someone who thinks like me. Now, I’ll settle for simply someone who thinks.

If we are going to educate this electorate, we've got our work cut out for us.