Here are a couple of thoughts from having watched Senator Ben Nelson’s Health Care Town Hall here in Omaha and the highlight clip of Congressman Barney Frank’s much publicized confrontation with a heckler at his Town Hall in Massachusetts.

First, I’m reminded of why I am not an elected official myself. I have never in my life (to paraphrase Shakespeare) suffered fools gladly and this seems to be a prerequisite skill for politicians.

This is especially true for Nelson in representing a state where the two parties are now evenly divided. Frank, on the other hand, has a much more free rein in a state dominated by his party and the clip I watched provided ample evidence.

I thought Nelson rightly asserted himself in an answer to a questioner who expressed concerns that health care reform would result in rationing of care and long lines at the point of care. Nelson pointed out that condition already exists and can be seen at our nation’s emergency rooms.

Nelson also revealed the legislative language place in the proposed Health Care bills regarding end of life counseling that was translated into the "Death Panel" controversy by Sarah Palin and others was actually placed there by a Republican. How annoying for that Republican to see his attempt to encourage needed end of life counseling and allowing doctors to be paid for it to be so thoroughly trashed.

Nelson also made what I thought was a profound statement when he said the solution to Health Care reform was not rocket science, but rather actuarial science. I’ve remarked here about the fact the actuaries can accurately predict the actual cost of whatever is proposed. We would do well to get beyond the emotional posturing and focus the debate on the reality of hard numbers.

I was also amused by those opponents of Obama who like to express their opposition by showing a defaced picture of Obama as Hitler and decry Obama as a socialist. This is only reinforcing what I’ve been telling you about the ignorance of some American voters. Hitler, mein gut herren und damen (my good gentlemen and ladies) was a fascist, not a socialist. If you’re going to show a picture of Obama as an evil socialist or communist, then may I suggest you use Joseph Stalin as your model. Stalin had a moustache, too.

I ended last week’s effort by posing this question. So what are you as an independent voter to do when you feel both parties are populated by dysfunctional thinkers?

Over the last few months I’ve highlighted for you the difficulties we have as a nation with our citizens’ behavior as voters. I have, for example, commented on Rick Shenkman’s book, Just How Stupid Are We? To repeat the bottom line answer, pretty darn stupid. We have entirely too many people voting (if they vote at all) who do not know the basics about our Constitution, government structure or current events.

A problem also exists among the active and involved. As last week’s column showed, some portion of the active and involved base their opinions on flimsy foundations at best and on "ignorant and perverted points of view rooted in psychological dysfunction" at worst.

As a result of factors like these, we have rowdy and dysfunctional behavior in our political process adding little to reasoned discussion of issues and even less to building consensus towards solutions.

So, what should be done about this? Should we have some form of test to determine who gets to vote and who doesn’t? Not much work should be needed to convince you this is a bad idea. Who gets to design the test for eligibility? Who gets to enforce it? In addition, the grand scheme of the universe with the laws of probability indicate the number of ignorant and uninformed are likely as numerous for one side as they are the other.

So, if isolating voters is not the solution, then what is? The solution is for independent voters to insist on . . .

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