What Kind of Elites Do We Want?
Over at Andrew’s place, Conor Clarke writes:
There’s absolutely nothing wrong, much less “arch,” about criticizing Sarah Palin for being an anti-intellectual demagogue while simultaneously demanding respect for Sonia Sotomayor. Palin’s whole shtick is that she’s an ordinary American with ordinary American concerns. Which is completely fine. But I’m of the mind that our leaders should be exceptional people — hard-working Type-A meritocrats with actual expertise — and I think Sotomayor is one of those people. (Palin, not so much.) That’s my preference, of course, and not necessarily the country’s. But I like to think it’s a perfectly legitimate distinction, not a “hate crime.”
Fair enough, though I am one of those people who is suspicious of government by “hard working Type-A meritocrats with actual expertise.” It isn’t that I object to any of those qualities in particular. Are all laudable. But should they be the basis for choosing leaders? What about wisdom and prudence?
A question I’ve been struggling with: the right used to pride itself on defending the leadership abilities of a certain kind of elite, one distinct from the kind preferred by the left. Those were hardly “the good old days,” insofar as the right had some pretty odious reasons for supporting some of these elites. But I don’t think all the reasons were odious. So a question. If the right has a populism problem right now — if it should appreciate a certain kind of elite, but a different kind than what the technocrat loving left lauds — what are the specific qualities it ought to seek? Wisdom and prudence, sure, but who is against those things? Seems too vague to be an answer. Does this make any sense? This makes 72 blog posts since Monday. So crowdsourced insights? I hope so.
Conor,
could you elaborate a little on the certain type of elite to which you refer?
— pc · Jul 15, 09:26 PM · #
The left and right should want the same kind of leader. The difference between left and right leaders being their ideology and methodology. But the wisdom, the experience, the intellect and the prudence should be qualities ANY leader should possess at the minimum. The right is banging away at Sotomayor for reasons that are not being demonstrated necessarily by her answers. The right is saying still that she is ‘not a deep thinker’ and a ‘racist’. They are not looking at her judgments or her temperament or any leadership qualities. I don’t think the right cares about those qualities. It’s just symbolism and mirrors. I really don’t think the right cares if their leader is bright, worldly or wise. It’s all about being an archetypical Daniel Boone type while making sure the money stays in their pockets. It’s fear of losing the upper hand that drives these people to pick the leaders.
— Jymn · Jul 15, 09:50 PM · #
This goes right to Douthat’s anti-meritocracy crap.
Here’s my response.
Part II of Thom Jefferson An’ Meh: Genetic Bussing
— matoko_chan · Jul 15, 10:17 PM · #
I don’t think leaders are what we need in the 21st century — we need intelligent, honest protectors of rights who understand the futility of central planning and wisdom of non-intervention.
— mike farmer · Jul 15, 10:58 PM · #
LOL. Sarah Palin’s fan club criticizing Sotomayor for not being a deep thinker.
— patrick · Jul 15, 11:46 PM · #
Well, Mr Friedersdorf, never let it be said you ask simple questions. That’s why this grey-headed old lefty keeps reading you. And now you have gotten to the bedrock, which happens to be where I like to invest my cogitating energy. So here’s what I think:
The reason we need a government is, as Mr Farmer implied, not obvious to everyone. But if we persist in being organized in nation-states there must of course be a co-ordinator and planner of common national activities. Even a ‘weak’ gov’t should be able to protect us from burning rivers, hostile nations and e coli in salad bars. This implies a very considerable power, not least the power to compel us to give it money.
There are two aspects of democracy that make it better than, for example, divinely appointed monarchs or rule by gangsters who rise to the top of a monopolistic party. First, democracy solves the problem of succession—which in all other systems is often bloody and chaotic. And second, democracy allows us to choose who among us is the most capable of governing.
The ‘most capable’ have usually risen to the top of smaller spheres within society; Eisenhower was never a politician until he was elected President but he had demonstrated his ‘most capable’ cred in the Army.
There is a big problem in our over-heated, over-connected world today, as we try to chose the ‘most capable’ based on ideology. This is a big mistake because, really, ideology is bullshit. What really matters is INTERESTS. Whose interests are going to be protected, fostered, and rewarded vs whose interests will find themselves unprotected, curtailed and penalized. Ideology—the Liberal-vs-Conservative, moonbats-vs-wingnuts buzz that dominates conversations today is using symbols to substitute for reality.
So when Mr Douthat proposed that ‘meritocracy’ is ‘undemocratic’ he was putting his misunderstanding of democracy in front of everyone who has eyes to see. This was no surprise since he is actually a Theocrat.
In the decision to make in choosing ‘which’ elite controls gov’t there are simple questions to ask. First, what is the likelihood that this person—or party—will act competently. And second, will he/she/they intend to protect our common interests as I see them.
In other words, if we could see through the fog of bullshit and perceive the problems we face in common the solutions should begin to suggest themselves and we should be able to choose from a menu of elites. Sadly, our human tendency to become obsessed by symbols blinds us.
— JohnMcC · Jul 15, 11:50 PM · #
Let us be brutally honest.
We are getting better and better at statistical analysis.
Eventually we will uncover the bedstone of truth, that the GOP is the party for the left side of the bellcurve.
Then they will not only be the uncool party, the old white guy party, but the documented party of sub-mean IQ.
Then you will see some white flight.
— matoko_chan · Jul 15, 11:54 PM · #
So Conor…how did you like my device of portraying Palin as an affirmative action NON-elite candidate needing to be bussed to the right side of the meritocracy tracks?
I thought it was swell.
;)
— matoko_chan · Jul 15, 11:58 PM · #
I’m still kind of curious about the difference in elites we are referring to. Are you talking about the difference between Ike and Kennedy, to grab a couple of examples that popped into my head? Or elite at a lower level of leadership?
— pc · Jul 16, 02:25 AM · #
Aren’t the relevant comparisons not between Sonia Sotomayor and Sarah Palin but between:
- Sarah Palin versus Joe Biden
- Sonia Sotomayor versus John Roberts and Samuel Alito?
— Steve Sailer · Jul 16, 09:14 AM · #
Exactly Steve, but the genius that is “Slo Jo” must be affirmed. From voting against the original pipeline, to approving VAWA that was ultimately overturned, that FISA proved ultimately counterproductive
on September 11th, that partition is a historically fraught idea, that opposing the Contras and the Pershing deployments was the wrong path. Now Mr. Clarke, having struck out three times on ACES, budgeting in Alaska, and Cap n Trade, should really quit the intellectually incurious deamgogue line, but it’s too addictive
— ian cormac · Jul 16, 11:52 AM · #
Wouldn’t the interests you are inclined to protect, at the expense of others, largely be a matter of ideology?
Again, “intend to protect our common interests as I see them” seems like sleight-of-hand for “believe what I believe ideologically.” I’m not really sure what the point of this switcheroo is.
— Blar · Jul 16, 12:23 PM · #
I think the key here is that different social structures require different kinds of elites. It’s fairly obvious that your ideal executive, your ideal congressman, and your ideal jurist might be quite different sorts of people. But more broadly, at least some of the right are interested in a different kind of social structure than the prevailing one. For example, if your polity is run by a giant bureaucracy distant from its citizens, as ours is, type-A public-minded meritocrats are about as good as you are going to do. But to run a family, or a small town, or a cooperative enterprise, you need different forms of leadership: people more socially connected with those they serve, more able and willing to deploy personal considerations in policy matters, people who by inclination use their power more directly to empower others.
— Heath White · Jul 16, 01:16 PM · #
Conor,
These posts are so dull. What makes someone “elite?” Is not elitism in the eye of the beholder?
— Matt C · Jul 16, 01:33 PM · #
There is only one argument, and that is democracy vs. meritocracy, de Toqueville vs Jefferson, Kylon vs Pythagoras.
Elites are aristoi, either “natural” or “artificial.”
They have risen to the top strata of society via some meritorious qualities, either inherited or acquired.
Everyone else is commoners, ‘slines, Joe Sixpacks, Noble Yeoman Farmers, etc.
The selection gradient is merit.
Heath Whites’ solution is just localized mob rule.
JEFFERSON: For experience proves that the moral and physical qualities of man, whether good or evil, are transmissible in a certain degree from father to son. But I suspectthat the equal rights of men will rise up against this privileged Solomon, and oblige us to continue acquiescence under the {‘Amayrosis geneos aston} [“the degeneration of the race of men”] which Theognis complains of, and to content ourselves with the accidental aristoi produced by the fortuitous concourse of breeders. For I agree with you that there is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents. Formerly bodily powers gave place among the aristoi. But since the invention of gunpowder has armed the weak as well as the strong with missile death, bodily strength, like beauty, good humor, politeness and other accomplishments, has become but an auxiliary ground of distinction. There is also an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents; for with these it would belong to the first class.
The natural aristocracy I consider as the most precious gift of nature for the instruction, the trusts, and government of society. And indeed it would have been inconsistent in creation to have formed man for the social state, and not to have provided virtue and wisdom enough to manage the concerns of the society.
May we not even say that that form of government is the best which provides the most effectually for a pure selection of these natural aristoi into the offices of government?
Camille Paglia once said (before she went palinsane I guess), that “it is nature, not society, that is our greatest oppressor.”
The iron law of the bellcurve of IQ is what oppresses the Great Unwashed, not Jefferson’s meritocracy.
Until we have the skill to level the genome, men are simply not created equal.
Until then, in a meritocracy, elites lead, elites serve, elites shape culture and government by virtue of natural selection for merit in a meritocracy.
— matoko_chan · Jul 16, 02:39 PM · #
And also….for all the demagoguing and sloganeering of “democracy” as a symol, democracy actually means mob rule.
And “democracy” is the perversion of a republic.
— matoko_chan · Jul 16, 02:50 PM · #
The hubris exibited by the geneological, technocrat/meritocrat, type-A stuff is a key distinction in leadership. Knowing how much you don’t know, or having a large respect the complexity of the system would be one trait. That can be anti-intellectual as it would typically be seen as saying B.S. to the latest “model” produced by that gang.
A second trait is a specific view of authority as rooted in duty and as a burden. That duty can be religious not as in God put be here to do something (he might have, but unless he’s talked to you directly you don’t know), but that all authority is ultimately responsible to God for its use. Duty can also be secular – think West Point – duty, honor, country.
The traits of leadership on the left almost exlcude both a respect for the real complexity beyond a pinch of salt (after all their entire basis for leading is they know more/better), and because they know more/better there really is no one they are responsible too as almost by definition the public has no better choices (ex. Mr. Giethner as the only possible Treasury Secretary such that we must overlook him being a tax cheat.)
— Mark · Jul 16, 02:59 PM · #
I can only assume that the good old right wing you mention were those Whigs who stood athwart the growing populism infesting this country before they were more or less transplanted by the moral egalitarians of the republican party, which itself has been transformed by federalist small-gov southerner types.
In general I would advise that the right court the same elites the left does: the best, brightest, most elite elites – who would also be those prudent enough to know that American parties will only prize them as servants of the people rather than leaders.
But, does the GOP really have a populism problem if they can’t win elections?
They could win, if all the candidates and leaders of the party had the stomach to regularly echo many of their constituents and demagogues in publications, public forums, and on the floor of Congress: calling for investigations about birth-certificates, statist conspiracies, fly-by’s of Air Force One, the harm that regulation and mercury lightbulbs have on the environment and health, our national honor, the democrats’ meddling in the country’s cultural/family affairs in the name of an extremist agenda; and scaremongering about Democrats’ cabal of Alinsky intellectuals using wiretaps, misinformation, medical records, monopolies, veiled threats, and the courts to ignore the Bill of Rights, control elections, and oppress the people.
This sort of coordinated grab for power would eventually result in electoral success, but it seems that such tactics are not worth victory for most of the right’s elites.
I agree you should want more respectable and noble elites than you already have, but only to the extent that you don’t mind remaining an impotent faction of constantly losing principled curmudgeons. Isn’t that the most authentic conservatism there is, anyway?
Incidentally, Palin is not the lightweight parvenu to compare Sotomayor to, but Harriet Miers, who was, admirably, rejected pretty overwhelmingly by most on the right. There is no such outcry on the left at this time because they don’t have the same problems with populist appeals trumping substance if it means victory.
Perhaps this is because the right, and conservatism in general, is a more natural home to those with more attachment to consistency, ideas, and “principles” than the urgent yearnings for righting all wrongs and realizing some vision of social justice by any means necessary.
— Victoria · Jul 16, 04:15 PM · #
“This sort of coordinated grab for power would eventually result in electoral success, but it seems that such tactics are not worth victory for most of the right’s elites.”
That is what has worked in the past for the GOP.
The “traditional wisdom” of racebaiting and IQbaiting.
And being elite and pretending-to-not-be-elite are what divides the Levin-Beck-Rush dirty RINOs from teh “true” conservative patriots.
Honest elites get excommunicated. Elites that can fake their commoner bona fides get to stay.
This pretty much sums it up Mark, and your attitude as well.
The populist sentiment of the GOP.
— matoko_chan · Jul 16, 05:20 PM · #
“Perhaps this is because the right, and conservatism in general, is a more natural home to those with more attachment to consistency, ideas, and “principles” than the urgent yearnings for righting all wrongs and realizing some vision of social justice by any means necessary.”
Or possibly just those with sub-mean IQs.
Consider, 6% of all scientists are republicans. 94% of all scientists are NON-republicans.
65% of all voters with post graduate degrees are democrats.
— matoko_chan · Jul 16, 05:28 PM · #
“6% of all scientists are republicans. 94% of all scientists are NON-republicans.
65% of all voters with post graduate degrees are democrats.”
IQ and science don’t equal ideas or principles. Have you ever talked to a scientist? I’d say about 94% have nothing insightful or interesting to say.
Science is mostly just following the same method over and over – I don’t think it really is the sign of superiority you think it is. I’m pretty sure less biased robo-monkeys who don’t make fools of themselves by responding to such ridiculous surveys as the one you cite will be doing most of our lab-work and research in the near future (they probably already could).
Also conservative doesn’t really equal republican (another leap you make). But I guess you have your stats and will bring them up whether relevant or not.
Stultifying rationalism, living by rules that constrain the imagination, and chin-stroking hesitation in the face of injustice and inequality are hallmarks of conserving the status quo and setting up the small, petty souls (who tend to cling to stats and logic) as the rightful, more sensible rulers of the working man. I don’t care if scientists are republican or not – most are incurably conservative through and through.
I’m not saying it’s wrong, or they aren’t useful to the country, but they should really abstain from weilding their weight around like a priestly class on issues of political justice and morality, since these are things their rules of reason (written by others for them since they who could not summon any original thought or sentiment on their own) contributes nothing to authentic deliberation and dialogue that any human being with a heart already knows.
And I don’t see why you think I should be impressed with degrees either. “65%” just represents the gratitude that the educated rightfully show to their benefactors in the DNC who have made it possible for them to take a break from real life and indulge their status-seeking fantasies of being seen to consume more or finer things than the downtrodden.
Scientists and test-takers have largely ruined the democratic party, and I am happy to let you have them back on the right where they belong so they can help you continue your plans of taming human nature, social progress, and desire.
You are right that elite bashing and scaremongering is the way to win though, and it has worked for both sides, but I get the sense that most on the right have lost the will to do what it takes anymore. Probably because they have lost their faith in their “principles” and “values” as so supremely important to do anything for.
And even though I can’t argue with their loss of faith, it actually is good to have deluded types for the left to struggle against and overcome. Progress requires synthesis, lest it becomes an inflexible dogma and the avante garde grows up to be the new right. That is the source of my concern that Conor finds the elites he’s looking for.
— Victoria · Jul 16, 07:23 PM · #
Victoria, it is my studied hypothesis that there is an IQ gap between the parties.
I am using science as a marker for IQ. Conservative == republican unless the speaker is trying to scrape 8years of Bush’s republican administration off their shoe.
I am also using post-graduate degree as a marker for IQ.
The slope of the curve is positive, dig?
Do you want to really know why Dan’s professor’s are all democrats?
Because there not any republican academics and/or scientists to hire.
Conor’s point is that a lot of intellectual elites are fleeing the GOP like scalded cats.
And Mark Levin and his merry band of conservo-fascists are busy purging the rest for lack of message purity.
The only elites the conservative movement has left are the elites of talkradio and talk-tv.
And they are kindof manifestly lacking in electoral capability.
Good luck with that strategy.
— matoko_chan · Jul 16, 09:05 PM · #
“ I am happy to let you have them back on the right where they belong”
??
apparently (like Palin) you have some sort of reading disability.
“More than half of the scientists surveyed (55%) say they are Democrats, compared with 35% of the public. Fully 52% of the scientists call themselves liberals; among the public, just 20% describe themselves as liberals. Many of the scientists surveyed mentioned in their open-ended comments that they were optimistic about the Obama administration’s likely impact on science.”
— matoko_chan · Jul 16, 09:24 PM · #
bussing = kissing
busing = gerund of ‘to bus’
Please make note.
— elbowspeak · Jul 16, 09:41 PM · #
Victoria, at the risk of outing myself as an empiricist, do you have any reason for that Romanticist twaddle passing as a criticism of science that you’re peddling, or is just based on what you don’t like about what you think that scientists do?
— Colin · Jul 16, 09:53 PM · #
ty……..but didn’t you get the memo?
No one has to spell or use grammer anymore….that is elitist!
hahaha
— matoko_chan · Jul 16, 09:56 PM · #
“apparently (like Palin) you have some sort of reading disability.”
Wow. Mindless insult, followed up by the same statistic I am supposed to draw wild unfounded, unscientific, conclusions from like you?
Don’t let Levin purge you – you are in the right company.
It is pretty bad form though to accuse someone of a reading disability at the same time you are demonstrating your own miscomprehension of what you just quoted.
So I’ll just say it again:
I am not comfortable with participants in the scientific establishment dedicated to vulgar consumption and controlling human nature being part of my party. You all can have your method-men back and we’ll keep the real elites of the liberal arts. I don’t want my party becoming infected by people like you who draw ridiculous conclusions based on tiny bits of “knowledge” derived from data points. Such people belong in the GOP along with other sycophants and parasites of the old establishment.
Again, I don’t know why you put so much stock in our higher IQs and educational degrees. But I suppose that if conservatives could restrain their obsession with class and rank they would have their own party.
And you only reveal a lack of sophistication by using conservative as a marker for republican. It seems like you want to claim there is a party of idiots who lead and represent the idiots and a party of smart people who represent the smart. This sort of analysis is very simpleminded and is entirely lacking any political substance, like the opinions of many scientists.
Sure, we have more elites on our side now, but we also have more of the uneducated and poor. That’s not because the left stands for the incoherent partnership of brains with brawn, but because our elites have persuaded, and, yes, manipulated, the ignorant to favor what is actually in their best interest.
I’m sorry that your elites don’t have the skill you wish they had of distracting the people from voting correctly, but these things usually go in cycles, mostly because even most of the educated you think are so smart are as much a bunch of followers of those they are told are powerful and smart as everyone else.
I don’t see how any of what you are asserting has anything to do with Conor’s question. It is amazing how you don’t see the irony of a typical closed minded conservative keeps attempting to insult others with incoherence and wild abuse of cherry-picked statistics while at the same time distancing himself from the failure of conservative elites to win elections in the more conservative party. At least most scientists recognize the limited applicability of mere numbers to the real world.
Like I already said, and you didn’t read or understand or something, we have had most of the intellectuals on our side for quite a while, but I don’t equate intellectuals or elites with the test-takers and scientists like you do. These are not my natural allies because these are usually the same elites who are happy with their positions of power and influence and seek only to preserve it. They are truly conservatives, more interested in conserving the status quo than contributing to social justice or progress, and they will only turn our party into a less democratic Democratic party.
We don’t need the majority of the educated because we will always have the best ones – those who are dedicated to the cause of the least educated and oppressed, regardless of where they went to school or what they do for a living. You are obviously not one of them, and I am sure you will get your hard-science selfish heroes back to help you keep oppressing those you despise once they start to see their moral obligations as burdens and after your fellow insulters in talk-radio succeed in turning the easily misled masses (and the trend-chasing elites you love) back to your side. But hopefully not very soon.
— Victoria · Jul 16, 10:18 PM · #
As you show, matoko_chan by misspelling grammar! :)
— Gus · Jul 16, 10:23 PM · #
Having a PhD in Computer Science allows me to pass myself off as an elite— at least until I tell people that I voted for McCain/Palin.
Having said that, I agree with Mark from 10:59 am. Humility is the big one. My big test for someone is— have they ever changed their mind on a major issue as an adult? A dose of humility is necessary for that, and is also necessary for continued intellectual growth. Most people I know in the ‘elite world’ haven’t changed their mind since college.
Obama clearly lacks humility and it’s killing him. A man with no management experience becomes President and makes the biggest mistake a new manager can make— try to do everything at once. He demonstrates the problem with intellectual elites with huge egos— you really don’t want them running anything. Eh-Var!
— Andrew Berman · Jul 16, 10:25 PM · #
Colin,
I was led to believe that science is directed to control by reading what scientists have written. Am I wrong? Is this not the ultimate purpose of almost all the funding and efforts that support scientific research, whether to control living things or dead things or human things for the purposes and interests of those who fund the scientist?
Don’t get me wrong. I am aware that most sci-guys like to think they are just curious minds dedicated to knowledge alone, but that’s not how 99% of them make a living.
And I am not necessarily opposed to this either. Like I said – science is useful and integral to social progress, but that’s about the extent of it. I would use science differently than conservatives like Matoko who only want to use it to justify a rigid class system and oppressive oligarchic orders.
Not that all conservatives abuse the little bit of knowledge they can glean from scientific methods and measurement like he does. They are actually rigorous scientists who just happen to share his primitive classist viewpoint.
So, sure, I guess it’s just what I don’t like about what certain scientists actually do (not in the lab in their capacity as instruments for the powers that be so much, but outside in the public sphere where they try to use science as a weapon to trump human dignity and rights).
I just get annoyed at scientists who speak out of their depth, especially about politics, on both side of the aisle. I don’t think it is “romantic” as you say, but, in fact, more empirically rigorous to demand that scientists adhere to the very limited scope of authoritative knowledge their science actually grants them, rather than always trying to use their status as lab-hands as some sort of unquestionable holy authority that democracies and democratic leaders should defer to.
Is it twaddle to put justice over scientific method and contingent hypotheses? Fine, call me what you will, I’ll still be right (i.e. on the Left side of history).
— Victoria · Jul 16, 10:37 PM · #
I’m a little surprised no one has mentioned Bobby Jindal. Is he that on the outs? Too bad..
— Conor Clarke · Jul 16, 10:53 PM · #
1. experience in some sort of liberal arts setting (at any level)
2. business experience, especially operations
3. skepticism, more than is considered healthy.
— Nayagan · Jul 16, 11:26 PM · #
I’d say that the sort of elite conservatives should support would include those who share some of the basic core values of the conservative base, but who are able to advance those values in ways that accommodate or at least account for the clashing values of liberals and moderates. For instance, I think most conservatives dislike government welfare programs because they believe there are aspects of life that are fundamentally “unfair” and that always will be no matter how much government intervenes. For domestic policy, the question is how to better alleviate the vagaries and harsh results of this unfairness — a goal that’s very much on the American mind during this economic crisis — without destroying the creative forces generated by capitalism or creating still more inefficient (and usually ineffective) bureaucracies. Similarly, and along these lines, I think a conservative elite would care about (and thus finds creative ways to stop) the virtual disappearance of the working class caused by globalism. Then there’s the question of how we can continue to sustain a culture of freedom when we face threats ranging from terrorism to the continuing breakdown of families. No one wants to impose a theocracy or create a police state (or at least they say they don’t). But other than those options, how does conservatism suggest solving this problem?
— Mark H · Jul 16, 11:31 PM · #
You think lazy, type C personalities with no expertise would demonstrate more wisdom and prudence presumably?
— John · Jul 16, 11:53 PM · #
To Andrew Berman @06:25 PM:
Your opinion is duly noted, but you fail to mention Sarah Palin’s INCREDIBLE lack of humility.
She “doesn’t know what she doesn’t know,” yet with the predictable certitude of a theocrat, she thinks she knows all she needs to know.
Far, far more dangerous than Barack Obama. Hands down.
Cheers.
— Mark Danton · Jul 17, 12:17 AM · #
pardon, Victoria, I am an indie(now) that voted for Obama.
I even worked the campus GOTV and contributed to his campaign.
you are trying to ….umm….pass.. as an upper right tailer?
lol
The reason the right needs to be concerned about those stats is that scientists and people with post-graduate degrees make up 99.9% of uni professors. The right whines that academe is painted blue, but even if they could instantiate some sort of affirmative action program to force unis to hire republican/conservative professors…..there aren’t any.
To me the only difference between conservatives and republicans is that conservatives desperately want to somehow disassociate themselves from Bush’s EPIC REPUBLICAN FAIL neither republicans or conservatives seem able to articulate any differing policy positions….or indeed, any policy positions beyond sloganeering and buzzword generators.
In case no one has noticed….the GOP is having a youth problem.
Part of that problem is that republican/conservative professors are scarce as hen’s teeth.
A tribe without reps cannot survive
— matoko_chan · Jul 17, 12:23 AM · #
John wrote: “You think lazy, type C personalities with no expertise would demonstrate more wisdom and prudence presumably?”
Agreed. Wisdom and prudence have a way of showing themselves in a person’s career.
Bush’s failed businesses, and his adulthood-begins-at-40 life, and his careless handling of Texas executions, for instance, are a pretty good indicator that he lacked wisdom and prudence.
— Jon H · Jul 17, 12:26 AM · #
I think Victoria is a concern troll that is really a republican.
Otherwise why quibble about the difference?
conservatives ARE republicans…..except to poseurs that want to distance themselves from GW the Torture President and Father of the Econopalypse.
CC, Jindal failed the tv-telegenics test with his first prime time speech effort. Intellectual chops don’t count with the old-white-guy party.
Give Bobby some boobs and a wink and perhaps the GOP can get on board.
— matoko_chan · Jul 17, 12:34 AM · #
Hey! Jacobs!
Victoria == Katemarie?
— matoko_chan · Jul 17, 12:38 AM · #
@ Andrew Berman: tell us, why did you vote for Sarah Palin?
— Mark · Jul 17, 01:55 AM · #
Whatever label/insult/name makes it easier to discount arguments and avoid actual thinking or discussion is fine, matoko. But it doesn’t make you look superior to anyone, just unfit for civil society.
Why would anyone distinguish the terms you keep trying to conflate? They must be one of THEM bogeymen you are afraid of. They couldn’t be interested in clarity or weeding out ignorant arrogance from discourse. Only reason anyone would do that is out of an interest to distance themselves from low poll-numbers.
Could that be your own motivation for making such shallow arguments and abuse of the lowest form of soft science (opinion surveys)? I wouldn’t speculate on that.
You really want to rescue that well reputed (focus-group tested) brand name “conservative” from the 3rd generation entrenched good old boy elite W don’t you? It must be so embarrassing that the only safe, conservative choice of 2000 blew up in your face. You can deny his name three times if you want, but I’m afraid torture has always been a classic conservative method of choice, always resorted to after the name-calling and reciting of scripture (or stats) doesn’t have its desired effect. It is cowardly and unproductive to run from who you and most conservatives really still are deep down.
I don’t care what you call yourself or who you say you voted for – your actual statements reflect the same retrograde thinking that has plagued conservatives of all stripes for too long.
Having a card that says you are independent doesn’t make your mind free if you can only make the same time-worn arguments about bell curves and social hierarchies.
Personally, I wouldn’t have any problem voting republican if they weren’t still controlled by stagnant conservative minds like you. I wish the real Christians in this country who are committed to charity and social justice did get fed up with being manipulated and used by the right and take over the gop, so there might truly be an anti-captialist party of the common man some day.
And, like I said, I am concerned for conservatism and republicans. I don’t see why that is some mark against me just because I think two sides and two parties is healthy in a large democracy. I just don’t see either the party or conservatism as an intellectual movement is helped by the intolerance for ideas and people who don’t fit into your simplistic preconceived pigeonholes among people like you and Levin. You are both purists who are blindly opposed to the inevitable evolution and transformation of all political positions and ideologies, even when it might help your side of the spectrum or the country as a whole.
And now you seem to confuse professors with scientists who you already lumped in with intellectuals and equated to elites, who you also want to say are all leftists, except talk-radio hosts, and me. It’s starting to sound like I am in a much smaller minority than you. But once again, your point is not clear – republicans don’t attract academics. They also don’t attract Hispanics and blacks. But what is your point? To attract the latter you would have to actually learn and defer what would be in these groups’ interest. It would take engagement with the common man and thinking through what concerns him and what he needs. To attract the former you would have to…..what? affirmative action is all you’ve got? And that wouldn’t work, I guess, because academics are attracted to ideas and discourse more than arrogant recitals of statistics, prejudice, and canned insults?
It is too bad your democratic professors couldn’t teach you to actually stick to topics, ideas, or arguments. But it sounds like you were probably too caught up in who they voted for to actually learn anything from them. But if you actually listen to what they say and believe, professors are much more diverse (and conservative) in their views than you and other right-wing scare mongers claim.
Some don’t even try to indoctrinate the youth like you seem to think is necessary for the right. Is that why you think anyone believes what they believe? Not even all conservatives are followers of what’s popular like you. Some actually graduate with their own independently derived opinions that are not based on the self-esteem they get from calling everyone else inferior.
— Victoria · Jul 17, 02:18 AM · #
Its Katemarie the concern troll!
boooorrrrrriiiing.
go away Kate.
;)
— matoko_chan · Jul 17, 02:21 AM · #
I mean……Katemarie the Concern Troll!
I miss JP,
Can we trade her for him?
Please?
>:(
— matoko_chan · Jul 17, 02:24 AM · #
Hey. A concession. I won! And I was just trying to answer a question.
Didn’t mean to upset your fragile ego, Matoko Levin. I’ll let you be.
— Victoria · Jul 17, 02:31 AM · #
Haha, My nafs is strong.
Concern trolls don’t upset meh.
;)
Ima go stay up with Nico and see what happens in Iran.
Finnimalyyah, Concern Troll.
— matoko_chan · Jul 17, 02:36 AM · #
matoko, you are a hoot, but I don’t get why you believe that the GOP and conservatives are congruent, especially given the intellectual flight from the GOP. How are you defining conservative? Maybe you need to use some modifiers? Along the same lines, why should an anti torture conservative who is running as fast as he or she can from Bush and Cheney be considered a poseur?
I’m a recent ex GOPer. The overall trend of the GOP was making me increasingly uncomfortable (I voted for Bob Barr in 2008. My libertarian tendencies are mostly towards the civil and social.) but the pro torture line taken by the GOP leadership this year tore it for me. But I didn’t take your comment personally. I’m just curious.
I don’t know if Victoria is a concern troll, but I can tell by her incomprehensible prose that she is an anti-intellectual. Let me quote here:
“I was led to believe that science is directed to control by reading what scientists have written. Am I wrong? Is this not the ultimate purpose of almost all the funding and efforts that support scientific research, whether to control living things or dead things or human things for the purposes and interests of those who fund the scientist?”
I don’t even know where to begin. Can someone please explain to me what is meant by this passage? The best I can come up with is that Victoria just saw a marathon of B grade scifi movies where scientists inadvertently create giant insects, etc, and is now afraid of science.
Lastly, if I was to pick a winner of the thread it would have to be John McC near the top. His comment raises more questions than it answers, but is both the most interesting and thought provoking.
— Marcos El Malo · Jul 17, 02:41 AM · #
Mark,
I never would claim that Sarah Palin as Vice President doesn’t have significant problems. But when I vote, I have to choose between candidates. I didn’t “vote for Sarah Palin,” I chose McCain/Palin over Obama/Biden.— Andrew Berman · Jul 17, 11:20 AM · #
What does it say about liberals like Andrew Sullivan and matoko_chan that they spend their days bashing Sarah Palin when she is nobody. She is not in any kind of office anymore. She does not have any kind of power. Maybe your elite intellectual abilities would be better spent analyzing what Obama is doing, or what sort of health care reform would really be beneficial. We non-elites wait with baited breath to be led by our betters.
Anyone who can watch Sonia Sotomayor and truly believe that she has the intelligence to be on the Supreme Court has deep bias issues.
I know scientists. I know people with advanced degrees. All of them hate the GOP because they hate evangelicals and other similar biases. As I have said to many of them (with little effect making me truly doubt just how elite they are) is it really worth throwing out officials who at least give lip service to limited goverment, free markets, self reliance for officials who tell you they are for wealth redistribution, regulation of all aspects of your life and big big government? But their prejudices keep them blind and voting Democratic. The elites who spend too much time in the laboratory and not enough time studying issues are not ready to make decisions about the direction of this country.
Talk amongst yourselves.
Eric
— Eric · Jul 17, 12:32 PM · #
Eric, one more time.
The Dark Sith Lord of TAS says—
“There was a slight chance that she would be vice president. The apoplexy was terror-based. It’s like if someone seriously proposes letting a chimpanzee land the passenger jet your traveling in. Your offended that someone would be so reckless with your safety and terrified that your fellow passengers might somehow be persuaded.”
I consider it my personal geas to make sure that chimp doesn’t ever get to try flying the jet.
She has a following of rabid supporters that seem wholly disconnected from reality.
I am far more terrified of stupid people that of crazy ones.
There are way more of them.
Perhaps her political aspirations are dead.
But until Sully and I can be sure she will never get within a parsec of the oval office, we will guard the gates of Hamunaptra with the rest of the Medjai, so that she cannot pass back back into political life.
— matoko_chan · Jul 17, 12:59 PM · #
The elites who spend too much time in the laboratory and not enough time studying issues are not ready to make decisions about the direction of this country.
That isn’t my point, Erick.
My point is those are people that are teaching your kids in universities.
And you are losing the youth vote 2:1.
— matoko_chan · Jul 17, 01:02 PM · #
I think this is what Eric is trying to say.
A War Between Two World Views
But the war is over before it even starts.
As long as there are no new conservatives with the ability to articulate and promote conservative memes, Sarah Palin’s War is finished.
Because those people have to come from universities and colleges.
A tribe without reps cannot survive.
— matoko_chan · Jul 17, 04:24 PM · #
The idea that Palin shouldn’t be criticized because she no longer has any power is just ridiculous. A large chunk of the base of one of our two major parties absolutely worships the woman. She may very well be the GOP nominee for president in 2012. She may not have the support of the majority of the American people, but the fact that she has the unwavering support of a significant number of them makes her very relevant (unfortunately).
— Jake437 · Jul 17, 06:17 PM · #
I agree with Jake437 that Palin is still a proper subject of criticism. I wish we’d get some actual criticism of her, though, instead of the non-stop hate, venom, and sneering we’ve been getting so far. When I hear all that crap I begin to think I’m one of her supporters. I wish I was, but unfortunately am not. For a while last year I thought I’d vote for her, but ended up not, and not just because of her running mate, either. She could still become a person I could vote for, but I’m not holding my breath.
— The Reticulator · Jul 18, 01:14 AM · #
The main question for meh, Conor, cher, is can the GOP survive without intellectual elites?
It seems the GOP is going to have to do without minorities, and without youth.
Inquiring minds want to know.
If the GOP is teh party of Sarah Palin. Rush, Levin, and Beck, who are ALL openly anti-intellectual, where do you get young replacement conservatives to run for local office and articulate conservative memes?
— matoko_chan · Jul 20, 01:31 PM · #
Srsly, conor, the head of the “young” republicans is pushing 40, Audra Shay, and a documented facebook racist to boot.
have you given up?
— matoko_chan · Jul 20, 06:44 PM · #