The rising popularity of ignorance is something liberals have been lamenting, pointing to the Tea Party movement. However, it should not be seen as a strictly right-wing uprising stemming only from a place of fear and hate. If you ask the question, “Why is ignorance fashionable right now?” you see that it is not a partisan problem. The “Main Street vs. Wall Street” mantra preached by the democratic President Obama is cut from the same cloth. Americans rightly feel that our economy has tanked due to the risky financial actions of white-collar, highly-educated “Big Business” (banks/lenders), under what is assumed to be an “educated” Government, which provided the institution, oversight, and ultimately, a bailout. It is not surprising, then, that “common sense” of “common people” should become the rallying cry of the population.

The choice of Sarah Palin then as a candidate suddenly makes sense when this is taken into consideration. Republicans were betting that America was feeling that intellectuals could not be trusted to keep our country safe. Of course, this is not true. The RIGHT deserving intellectuals ought to be entrusted to keep our country safe.

We do not need to resort to blindly fearing the Tea Party, perpetuating name-calling, etc. Even if 99% of their platform may appear misguided to a liberal, there is a reason they exist. Rather, we ought to refocus the discussion back to the hard issues we could actually agree on but prefer to avoid. We do not need more “common” people, i.e., uneducated citizens running for office to change Washington. One correct action is to focus the media, especially liberal media, on meaningful dialogue. Or at the least do it in your living room, then with your family and friends. Then, we might actually be able to work together to identify how we can craft economic and business policies which set up proper incentives and oversight in order to protect our shared economic future. I realize polarization is somewhat necessary and popular leading up to election dates, but when you polarize an opponent ad nauseum to the point of losing all discussion of the real underlying issues the whole country loses ground in the march toward real freedom.

What have we accomplished lately?