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+--- Thread: David Brooks' take on the transition... (/showthread.php?tid=66733)
Re: David Brooks' take on the transition... - davester - 11-21-2008
swampy wrote:
There's a difference between sense and horse sense. Some of the dumbest people I've ever known had degrees from prestigious Ivy League schools.
I'm not sure you're qualified to make that judgement, based on the utter fiction you often post here as fact. In any case, except for those placed in and coddled through Ivy League schools based on their connections (GWB being one of them), your point is one of those typical BS stereotypes often thrown out by Joe Six-Pack types to denigrate those who are smarter than them. You have no concept of the amount of hard work and brainpower it takes to successfully get through an Ivy League school.
swampy wrote: My point being that many of these "elite" have no way of relating to what it's like in the "real world" so I'm not impressed with the so called educational credentials.
That's nonsense. They are only "elite" in terms of their intelligence. Obama and most of his appointees are "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" types who have lived their lives in the real world. The type of "elite" you are talking about is for the most part a description of the leading republicans. The Bushes are the "elite of the elite" in this regard, having come into their fortunes and careers based on their inheritances and connections derived from an isolated and insanely rich dynasty of Bushes.
Re: David Brooks' take on the transition... - davester - 11-21-2008
oops. double post
Re: David Brooks' take on the transition... - $tevie - 11-21-2008
The current trend to denigrate education is really disturbing. Shades of George Wallace's cries about Pointy Headed Intellectuals. Pol Pot killed anyone wearing glasses because it was assumed they could read and were thus "intellectuals". This claim that college educated people don't understand the real world feels disturbingly similar.
Re: David Brooks' take on the transition... - swampy - 11-21-2008
mikeylikesit wrote:
[quote=swampy]
There's a difference between sense and horse sense. Some of the dumbest people I've ever known had degrees from prestigious Ivy League schools.
I'll never forget when George H.W. Bush was televised going through a supermarket checkout line. He had never seen a POP scanner before. Even my brainiac cousin, PHD in inner space weather from MIT, didn't know you had to have a fishing license in order to fish in Florida (and he's a native Floridian).
My point being that many of these "elite" have no way of relating to what it's like in the "real world" so I'm not impressed with the so called educational credentials.
That whole thing about Bush and the scanner has been debunked Swampy, surprised you didn't know. I'll agree to the extent Robert MacNamara was one of the best and brilliant of course he would have been out of the cabinet if Kennedy had lived; Johnson was no match for him.
Obama seems to be a match for them all.
Couldn't be false. I saw it with my own eyes years ago.
Re: David Brooks' take on the transition... - Stizzealth - 11-21-2008
Your analogy wilts under light examination. First of all, one can't compare Pol Pot's anti-intellectualism to plain old anti-stupidity. First of all, Pol Pot's policies demanded the absolute political illiteracy of the general populace, as does liberalism today. Anybody who is even moderately politically and economically informed ought to know that flooding the market drives down prices and strangling companies with regulation prohibits their growth. It would make sense that economically minded voters would swing to the Republican Party, yet soaking Peter to pay Paul is just SO enticing, isn't it? Today's institutions of higher learning are sadly one-sided, and as I previously mentioned, one can go to Harvard to get stupid. I don't fear pointy-headed intellectuals, as the disconnected ones concoct various snake-oil concoction to sell to the public that are usually fairly easy to debunk. There's nothing to fear about something that can be defeated.
Re: David Brooks' take on the transition... - swampy - 11-21-2008
Davester..."your point is one of those typical BS stereotypes often thrown out by Joe Six-Pack types"
I think this country is made up of a lot more Joe Six-Pack types than Harvard elite.
That's nonsense. They are only "elite" in terms of their intelligence. Obama and most of his appointees are "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" types who have lived their lives in the real world. The type of "elite" you are talking about is for the most part a description of the leading republicans. The Bushes are the "elite of the elite" in this regard, having come into their fortunes and careers based on their inheritances and connections derived from an isolated and insanely rich dynasty of Bushes.
Nothing like the Kennedy's or Rockerfellers to punch a hole in that argument.
Re: David Brooks' take on the transition... - Mike Sellers - 11-21-2008
swampy wrote: Nothing like the Kennedy's or Rockerfellers to punch a hole in that argument.
Other than Jay, Rockefellers have traditionally been Republicans.
Re: David Brooks' take on the transition... - davester - 11-21-2008
swampy wrote:
I think this country is made up of a lot more Joe Six-Pack types than Harvard elite.
Hence the dramatic drop in the U.S.'s ability to compete over the past few decades.
swampy wrote: Nothing like the Kennedy's or Rockerfellers to punch a hole in that argument.
The Rockefellers are a republican dynasty. Irrelevant anyway...neither are up for cabinet posts and a few old establishment democrats does not a trend make. That the republicans are the party of the rich is not a remotely arguable point.
Re: David Brooks' take on the transition... - davester - 11-21-2008
...and hey, who left the door open and let Pete in (or should I say left the asylum door open and let him out)? Are we now to be regaled with frequent references to donkeyshit?
Re: David Brooks' take on the transition... - cagney - 11-21-2008
I'm from Glasgow England, that's great that you've seen sense and voted Democat. Mr Obama, sorry I should to call him Sir because he deserves a nighthood for the servies he has done to humankind, keep up the good work.