Thursday, March 6, 2008

Superdelegates Are For Idiots

Stupid people believe in a lot of things, mainly because smart people tell them these things to make everyone else's life a lot easier. How else can you explain creationism, reality TV, and Area 51? Smart people know the truth, and stupid people are comfortable with the lies that they are told. (I hope this makes sense to you... if it doesn't, we're probably going to have to sit down soon and have a little talk about why I write these crazy things - you see, Ryan Seacrest makes me do it).
Anyway, one of my favorite smart-people creations for stupid-people is the idea of a "Superdelegate". This is hilarious to me; people are now up in arms because they feel the whole system of primaries and caucuses may be overthrown by a group of ne'er-do-wells that would subject us to 4 years of Hillary when what we really said we wanted (as voters for not-so-super-delegates) Utop-Obam-ian reign.
Here's the thing; these superdelegates aren't designed to ruin your life, they're there to make it easier. Let's make it easier for the stupid people by pulling it out of the political realm.
Pretend for a moment that there are two classes of shareholders in a company; the "A" class shareholders (powerful and wealthy executives and and the like who already control the company), and a more populous group of "B" class shareholders, essentially holders of common stock. In this company, the "A" class shareholders give power to the "B" class shareholders to make decisions about leadership, so long as they can reach some form of agreement as to who should be chosen. Meanwhile, the "A" class shareholders retain the rights to make all of the pertainent business decisions.
The "A" class shareholders basically just hope to do a good enough job that the "B" class folks don't make them shuffle their seats around too much. The problem comes in when the "B" class can't make up their mind as to who should be running the show - that's when the "A" class exercises their final right - to add their vote to that of the "B" class to decide the leadership.
The "B" class is fully aware of the situation. They understand the consequences going in. And if they don't decide, they may or may not be overridden in their deadlock.
So the next time I hear that the nation is going to alienate the youth movement that's been happening at the polls this year by having the "superdelegates" override the popular vote, I'm going to breath, count to ten, and then not get too upset. Because if any of the nations "youth" is interested in moving out of stupid-people status, (and maybe get an "A" share vote one day), they'll accept the system the way it is. It may not be a comfortable truth, but its the one that smart people understand.
(And if you still don't get any of that, sit down and close your eyes. I have a piece of candy for you hear in my pocket, and Survivor: Zimbabwe will be on soon.)

6 comments:

  1. did you really try to explain things to stupid people by using financial terms? If people cannot grasp the relatively simple idea of delegates/superdelegates, they certainly are not going to understand how the stock market works.

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  2. Are you trying to tell me that you made it at least half way through this post? I figured you'd read the title and immediately fall asleep. Huh, interesting.
    No, I meant to explain to smart people why stupid people are idiots, but in so doing I managed to make things more complicated. I have no excuse for my actions.

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  3. No, that would have been me. I'm the one who only made it halfway through. I start twitching when there is an overabundance of quotation marks.

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  4. I'm still wondering about the piece of candy and Survivor thing... maybe I'm out of touch with my pop culture now that Veronica Mars is cancelled.

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  5. Somewhere in your post, "A" and "B" had a mid-air collision in my brain and rained jagged shards of metal and curtains of flaming jet fuel down on an unsuspecting middle-class suburb. Bottom line is, I'm not sure what that was all about, but I will tell you this: don't mess with Texas.

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  6. I did make it through MOST of the post. I kept confusing A group with B group and then skimmed the rest.

    But still, I disagree with your premise.

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