What do you think of people who aren't "tuned" in?

Well, I don’t believe the right to vote should be taken away from someone who doesn’t keep up with the news, and many already believe that taxes should be higher (They must not realize you could pay higher taxes if you like. Send an anonymous check to the IRS, and they WILL cash it). However, I’d take uninformed people over misinformed people anyday. Example? Sure. I have this aunt who complains that “They give all those millions to athletes, but they give small pay to teachers.” I guess she doesn’t realize that there is no “they.” There is no central pay organization who determines to salaries of everybody. Of course, in her example, you’d have to say that $55,000 a year for a part-time seasonal job is low, but that’s a topic for another thread.

Along the same lines, I have a relative that wants to complain about the current president, endlessly. But she hardly watches the news, never reads a newspaper and doesn’t vote. I tell her she has no right to complain if she doesn’t vote, but of course she does anyway. It annoys me to no end.

Most of it moves too fast for me. I pay attention to certain things at certain times, whatever they may be. It’s also because I can’t stand all the complaining about the government and the world today. I stay informed to a certain amount, but it gets all so conflicting betweens sides that I just sort of stay on the sidelines. I do pay attention to what I’m voting for and if I don’t understand it, I choose not to vote.

@12Oaks There is a “they”. It’s the audience of the players, AKA tax payers

@SpatzieLover With all due respect (and you are way way way way smarter than my, oh like 73 year old aunt) you’re talking about something different than her. You’re more talking about economical theories and how the consumer chooses to spend thier disposable money. You are right, but nowhere near the simplistic way of which she speaks. She talks like she really does believe that there are, like, three men in some office somewhere who determines who should make what and then distribute the money as they see fit. With her, there is no subtext, it is what she says just how she says it. She alienated some family members who won’t even talk to her anymore, and after she made this statement, it was all I could do to go into the next room and correct her. Stuff like that just gets her going more and then there’s no stopping her.

She’s also the one who thinks that a million dollars is a lot of money. Sure, it is, but she thinks if she has a million dollars then that will get her maids, butlers, a mansion on the hill, a fleet of limos and a chauffeur for each. I guess she doesn’t realize that a million dollars may, just MAY, be a good downpayment for that mansion on the hill. If that’s not enough to convince you of her thinking process, I will quote for you what she said in late 2000 during the whole Presidential voting thing. She was speaking about a friend, and my aunt’s quote is “Al Gore should be the President of the states he won, and Bush should be the President of the states he won. That’s the smartest thing I ever heard.” Yes, she said the smartest thing she ever heard. I just walked in the house at this time, and wasn’t in the mood to egg her on. If I were, though, I’d ask if it is the case for the 2000 election, why not all elections? Afterall, no President had ever won all states, though Ronald Reagan sure gave it a good sporting chance in 1984.

@12Oaks I have similar relatives, but on the opposite side of the fence. I get it. I do not know how their brain processes this information. To me it is quite funny…and sometimes, I do prefer to egg them on and get their goat. Not of the older folks mind you, but of the middle age ones. :D