| sundin13 said: I don't know man. Of course population size isn't irrelevant, but I don't really think it makes sense to expect a senator to be the one doing the math to make these estimations. The side of the cost benefit analysis that they should predominantly be concerned with imo should be the outputs, not the inputs. Similar to the questions regarding the Bible that I discussed earlier, I kind of understand what he was going for, but it was just done so poorly, it felt kind of stupid. Do I think that Ted Cruz has done a good analysis on whether or not we should go to war? Of course not, but I think that could be communicated so much more effectively than some chud doing trivia at him. I feel like we've lowered the bar way too much if that is passing as a good interview. For the record, the Gary Johnson clip played out roughly as follows: Interviewer: What would you do if you were elected, about Aleppo. Johnson: And what is Aleppo? I think the difference between the two gaffes should be clear. |
If it were just a randomly selected senator sure, I wouldn't expect them to know this detail off the top of their head. But we're not talking about just a random senator. Just like I wouldn't expect Cruz to know the rough population of Lesotho off the top of his head. We are talking about a senator who is actively campaigning to go to war with the country in question. I'd expect that senator to know basic things about said country, like its rough population size and which ethnic groups exist in it.
Honestly, I feel like not expecting senators to know things in general is what is lowering the bar. It's in fact why we are in the crises we are in currently. Congress, due to its low standards, has been inactive and weak as a branch for decades now.
I actually think Johnson's gaffe is less bad, because action (or in-action more likely, given his views) on Syria weren't a primary policy of his. He was mostly focused on domestic policies, with just a generic non-interventionist approach for foreign policy. Cruz, on the other-hand, is doing a media circuit explicitly advocating for war with the country being inquired about. He should know that said country has a population nearing 100 million, even if he doesn't know the specific number. It's directly relevant to the question of whether or not the United States should enter a war with Iran.
