More from Colin McGinn

Successful democracy depends upon an adequately educated electorate, unprejudiced and altruistic: but these conditions are not always satisfied by the voters out there. In fact, there is no requirement in the US political system for a president to have even a minimum of education, or even to be able to read and write. Maybe if recognized experts, unelected, were given some political power, the current ills might be mitigated.

amazing.

note taking:
"unprejudiced and altruistic"
I would add that on any university campus in the US, there's a department operating under rationalist principles nearly identical to yours, engaged in the same arch mimicry of science, as if mimicry conferred authority [consult Nietzsche about that one, or maybe Shakespeare]. That department is called the economics department. But where you begin with assumptions of altruism they begin with assumptions of self-interest. Maybe you should walk on over and have a chat. You can't both be right.

This country has always been run by experts. As far as domestic policy goes the last 8 years have been a disastrous exception to the rule (and the rule was never much to begin with). As for foreign policy, it's been run by experts all along, even under Bush. But the neocons are fanatical rationalists: they never let data get in the way of their dream of reason.
Rationalism began as theology, and divorced from empiricism that's where it stays. You're not helping much.