Political campaings for the uneducated

Many times, over the last couple of days, I have heard someone saying that they have a right to have an opinion.
Well, I say that this right is also connected with a certain duty; if you want to have an opinion that will have any value in society, you must first get informed enough to be able to base your opinion on a reasonable argument.
It may seem obvious, but to many people it isn't.

I spent my weekend at grandma's. Me and her have different views on presidential elections that just ended in Czech republic. And that's okay. The problem was, she could not explain a single reason for her choice that was factually relevant.
Her candidate's campaign was aggressive, used false facts and was generally built around "low" instincts, such as nationalism, ad hominem attacks, rallying the good ole' country against the cities and its lazy bourgeoisie, attacking the other candidate's family...
and she admitted all that. She also well remembers when her candidate was a prime minister, how corruption rate multiplied several times back then.

Why did she vote for him then?
She couldn't really say. She blamed my candidate for not being Czech enough (he was forced to emigrate by communists for a long time), for being to old, for being too rich...

She said my opinion doesn't have any value, because I am not experienced enough, I'm too young. She said that everyone in her county votes for her candidate and there are many intelligent people.
Not only this was a personal attack, not a political argument, it was also completely irrelevant. It simply cannot be said that older = more experienced in politics. Neither it equals more intelligent = "better" political opinion.
Informed political opinion can be only built by one thing: getting informed. Getting information today is cheap and easy, so there is really no excuse. If you want someone to respect your opinion, you must build it on a certain knowledge.
It's not called political science for no reason.
Politics = science. A social science.

After a not-so-very fruitful evening of remembering formulas, I have come to a conclusion that tabloids are more popular than sudoku or chess magazines is that people love stories with a bit of soul or personality. Mechanical knowledge is the most uninteresting thing one can learn. The only good thing about it is the feeling of kicking nature's ass you get when you finally start understanding what you need to do to solve what you need to solve.

For me that's a rather rare feeling. Not worth it.

Look at yourself.

"Methinks weed links drinks and meth
inks weed links drinks and meth
inks weed links drinks and..."
Police officer keeps rambling on and on and he screams in your ear from so far away and he grips your shoulders and your eyelids feel like boulders, slowly closing and he sings his good guy's cacophony, you hate him, he is just a phony.
Will he let you go?
"No. We'll notify your parents."
And he rants, he rants, and your teeth have dents and outside raindrops dance and you can see your body prance on your suburbian gallows.

Blueser

Night's a chaser, sir.
If you run out of rum, run.

Go, socialize, meet some fellow monsters on the prowl.
It's cold outside and you don't have anywhere to go.
Night's sky's sly and not a bit too fly.

Beware of the war, whore.

Ideas and thoughts have never been so clear,

but in the morning you forget how to feel.

You found the meaning of life but it  made you black out.

You had it. Man, you were so close!
But then someone hit your nose.

And all you hate and all you love
mixes in your blood and in your epitaph.

This just about summarizes what an average citizen thinks about politics. Blame Canada is so 2000's. Blame Obama is how you do it nowadays!