Political Philosophy!

Warning: What you are about to see is an opinion. If you experience light-headedness, shortness of breath, projectile vomiting, or explosive diarrhea, then you should probably see a doctor or something. That shit sounds serious. If you experience a differing opinion, then you should leave an interesting, non-inflammatory comment.

In my philosophy class this week we're discussing 'The Search for a Just Society" and in the discussion board earlier I was in a discussion about "merit vs. democracy" in cases such as choosing a president. This is my addition to that discussion:

Disclaimer: As always, I like to play the Devil’s advocate in these
discussions. I like and want to keep my ability to vote just as much as
the rest of you.

That having been said, I don’t really think there’s a valid discussion
here concerning the fact that we want the best people we can get to do
the important jobs. You can’t get anyone to say that they would like an
idiot doing surgery on them or running their government. The issue is
this: it seems nearly impossible to get everyone to agree on just who
that best person is. This is easy enough to tell from how our country is
split right now. Half the people in this country think it’s possible
that GWB is the returning Messiah and the other half believe he’s the
Anti-Christ. And I suppose there are those of us few atheists who are on
the fence about it. Haha, that was a religion joke. Did you get it? No,
it probably wasn’t that funny, but anyway, the point is, when the
question arises, Who is the most qualified for this job? Who do you ask?
The red side or the blue? Who’s right?
Herein lies what I believe to be a major problem with democracy; I
think that most people vote the same way we would have, if when we were
children, our parents asked us whom we wanted as a babysitter. Of
course, we would have chosen the prettiest one. Only afterward would we
have realized and whined about there bedtime and late night snacking
policies, just like the people are doing now concerning Bush’s foreign
and domestic policies. On top of that, who am I to pick the best person
to do a job that I myself have no idea how to do? How are anyone of us
to tell if he or she is doing it right? Yeah, we all have our ideas, and
they may have worked when we played a computer RTS game, or Risk, or
Stratego, but does that qualify us to put a certain person in charge of
our armed forces? I’m not so sure…

I thought it was interesting enough to discuss with those total strangers so I figured it would be enjoyable enough to discuss with you people that I know and love. So, I put it to you: How can we, as a society of students, gamers, drunks, drug addicts, bibliophiles, cashiers, and house wives/husbands call ourselves qualified to appoint the people that should lead us? I submit that unless you have been the leader of a country, you cannot. How do we even know what it takes to be a president or something like it? One might be inclined to say that experience would help, but look at Bush; He had four years under his belt but this time around seventy percent of his countrymen and women, including myself, say that he's not getting the job done correctly. Maybe he's got the raw potential to be a competent leader, I don't know, I don't claim to be an expert on the matter. But maybe we should have started him with a smaller country, you know, let him work his way up to the most powerful nation on the planet. Canada, perhaps, or Liechtenstein.
Yeah, sure, I realize he was the governor of Texas, but you know...it's Texas. What does the Governor of Texas need to do but kick the Mexicans back into Mexico and tell the Cowboys to make sure and keep the longnecks inside the cab of the pick-up while driving down the highway. (You know, they just recently, within the last few years, made it actually illegal to drink while driving in Texas. Notice that that's different from driving drunk.)
My point here is that I believe both the merit of the leaders and democracy for the people are important to the success of this country, I just can't see how they logically commingle. How do we know who is the most qualified for the job, and how can we be qualified to say who is?


Edit: In light of Richard's comment, I should mention that I am aware that the president is elected via the Electoral College. I suppose I didn't make it clear enough that I was refering to all elected offices, although Richard does have a good point about the topic on which he spoke.