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the stupid vote: a political thesis by a self confessed elitist

 

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old-as-dirt

Oct 20, 08 14:11

Post #1 of 136 (1004 views)
the stupid vote: a political thesis by a self confessed elitist Can't Post

     
there are two americas and two breeds of american. there's blue america that is largely coastal, well educated, and affluent. these blue states are our economic engines, our cultural hubs and our bastions of education. they are the states where all the smart people live and the states where our best universities are located, and our innovation economies are started. New York, California, Massachusetts, Connecticut, etc. they are competitive places to live and work and if you are good at what you do you can live a very good life and many do. blue staters tend to be open minded, inquisitive, liberal, progressive people and the vote democrat because they know the best leaders exhibit all those qualities.

then there are the red states. they are largely in the middle and south of the country and tend to be less well educated and less affluent. their economies are based for the most part on agriculture that is largely subsidized by the federal government. their universities take more pride in football than academics and all the smart people tend to leave as soon as they can and move to a blue state thereby further concentrating the stupidity in their wake. a smart kid from idaho who graduates top in his class and goes to MIT or Columbia or Stanford, does not go back to idaho when he graduates college. all the stupid kids stay behind to work in the mill or on the farm. red states are cultural deserts where people take great pride in being "simple folk". red staters tend to be closed minded, inward looking, conservative, backward people and they vote republican because they want their leaders to be just like them.

don't get me wrong i'm not being anti-american here, there are stupid people in other countries, its not a solely american trait. there are stupid people in japan, france, canada, england and australia. what makes us different, perhaps unique, rather what makes our stupid people unique, is that they think they can and should run the country. stupid people in other places tend to be just smart enough to understand that their leaders should be nothing like them. they have just enough brainpower to understand that their leaders should go to good schools, and graduate near the top of them. our stupid people look down on smart people, thinking stupidy, or "simplicity" as they like to call it, is a for more important quality in a leader than smarts.

unfortunately for this country, while we are effectively quarantining most of the stupid people in red states, we still have an electoral college system that gives them great political power. it is time therefore to amend our system of electing the president. it should be done the good old fashioned american way. those states that pay the most should get the most college votes; what could possibly be more american than that? it sucks for alabama and mississippi, but if america was run according to your values we'd be in the stone age somewhere between tanzania and outer mongolia in GDP.

time for smart people to take back this country! ;-)


unstable and unable --- mccain and palin 2008

(This post was edited by old-as-dirt on Oct 21, 08 11:00)


TripleThreat

Oct 20, 08 14:23

Post #2 of 136 (990 views)
Re: the stupid vote: a political thesis by a self confessed elitist [old-as-dirt] [In reply to] Can't Post

The problem with some is that those that label themselves as "smart and elite" aren't nearly as "smart and elite" as they presume to be. IMO, anyone that goes to all the trouble to point out this situation is likely a "smart and elite wannabe" as its likely obvious to the true "smart and elite" that they do, in fact, run the country .... and pull everyone else up like an anchor, so the country can move forward.

I will also point out that by "running the country" I am NOT referring to the President, although any President will likely be "smart and elite" (at least comparatively to the norm). The catch is that any candidate wanting to be President will have to relate on some level to the "simple folk".

A successful country is made up of good workers, leaders, etc. Too many workers, not enough good leaders is bad. Too many leaders, not enough workers is bad. We need to work together.

I do admit that the idea that we have "classes of people" that are viewed as "unfit to lead" is pretty damn un-American.
=======================
-- Every morning brings opportunity;
Each evening offers judgement. --


old-as-dirt

Oct 20, 08 14:25

Post #3 of 136 (987 views)
Re: the stupid vote: a political thesis by a self confessed elitist [TripleThreat] [In reply to] Can't Post

if its unamerican to believe that stupid people should not be allowed to hold high office then i guess i'm unamerican.


unstable and unable --- mccain and palin 2008


big kahuna

Oct 20, 08 15:00

Post #4 of 136 (963 views)
Re: the stupid vote: a political thesis by a self confessed elitist [old-as-dirt] [In reply to] Can't Post

if its unamerican to believe that stupid people should not be allowed to hold high office then i guess i'm unamerican.

Well, by extension, you're implying that so-called "stupid people" get into office because they convince enough other "stupid people" to vote them in. What's next, making people take an IQ test, and to have an IQ card, before they can vote?

It's not un-American to think the way you do. Plenty of people get frustrated all the time by the foibles of politicians, but I've found in my experience that stupid people most definitely do not get elected to high office. They may be smart to play down to their constituencies in such a cynical matter, but they certainly don't lack in either native intelligence or in a kind of animal ambition so powerful it'd make you wet your pants if you were ever exposed to a pure, unadulterated version of it.

T.


TripleThreat

Oct 20, 08 15:06

Post #5 of 136 (952 views)
Re: the stupid vote: a political thesis by a self confessed elitist [old-as-dirt] [In reply to] Can't Post


In Reply To
if its unamerican to believe that stupid people should not be allowed to hold high office then i guess i'm unamerican.

 
Stupid people or people from red states or people from a labor background or what?

I think we can all (or should) recognize that "stupid" (unintelligent) folks don't run the country or hold high office. Even Bush would be considered highly educated (and wealthy).
=======================
-- Every morning brings opportunity;
Each evening offers judgement. --


old-as-dirt

Oct 20, 08 15:08

Post #6 of 136 (951 views)
Re: the stupid vote: a political thesis by a self confessed elitist [big kahuna] [In reply to] Can't Post

sarah palin is stupid and is the governor of alaska. she doesn't play dumb to pander to her voter base either, she is the real deal, dumb as a post.


unstable and unable --- mccain and palin 2008

(This post was edited by old-as-dirt on Oct 20, 08 15:23)


big kahuna

Oct 20, 08 15:12

Post #7 of 136 (945 views)
Re: the stupid vote: a political thesis by a self confessed elitist [old-as-dirt] [In reply to] Can't Post

Your emotions are overriding your intellect. That usually happens to men when confronted with how to deal with the lure of a beautiful woman ;-)

T.


TripleThreat

Oct 20, 08 15:12

Post #8 of 136 (943 views)
Re: the stupid vote: a political thesis by a self confessed elitist [old-as-dirt] [In reply to] Can't Post

Isn't Alaska really Canada anyway? *grin*

Seriously though, this election should reaffirm your confidence in Americans, since Palin's candidacy as VP has been one of the big reasons why McCain is losing (or going to lose).

If her candidacy gave McCain a big boost, the OP would have more of a point to make, instead of pointing out what history has illustrated.
=======================
-- Every morning brings opportunity;
Each evening offers judgement. --


(This post was edited by TripleThreat on Oct 20, 08 15:14)


sphere

Oct 20, 08 16:35

Post #9 of 136 (908 views)
Re: the stupid vote: a political thesis by a self confessed elitist [old-as-dirt] [In reply to] Can't Post

"The McCain campaign has given us a voice - the people who shouldn't speak." -- Asif Manvi

(Gotta love The Daily Show)



"Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son." - V. Wormer


TwinDad

Oct 20, 08 16:41

Post #10 of 136 (897 views)
Re: the stupid vote: a political thesis by a self confessed elitist [TripleThreat] [In reply to] Can't Post

Please try not to feed the trolls...

--------------------
Yes, I too now have a Blog. Don't laugh.


last tri in 83

Oct 20, 08 16:48

Post #11 of 136 (890 views)
Re: the stupid vote: a political thesis by a self confessed elitist [old-as-dirt] [In reply to] Can't Post

Al Gore is dumb as a post and almost made it to be president. Explain please.

_____________________________________________
Conservative in exile.


fitzie

Oct 20, 08 16:49

Post #12 of 136 (886 views)
Re: the stupid vote: a political thesis by a self confessed elitist [old-as-dirt] [In reply to] Can't Post

time for smart people to take back this country! ;-)

First, the smartest people don't run for any political office.
Next, while I like to think we have control over our political process, I have to report that we really don't.
Finally, most of the world thinks ALL Americans are pretty dumb.

Just today, I was reading about this new Bollywood movie coming out of India on outsourced call centers. That should be a hoot.
Anyway, one thing they talked about was a prop the call centers used, which is written down for every employee. It says: 35=10, which means the average 35 year old American has the IQ and intellect of a 10 year old Indian child. They train them to be very patient with the Americans when they call into the center and not to get angry with them, even if the American is angry at them.
Not sure if this is fiction, but I found it very funny. I also had to admit to myself, it just might be true.





"We thought that we had the answers, it was the questions we had wrong."
Bono


last tri in 83

Oct 20, 08 16:51

Post #13 of 136 (882 views)
Re: the stupid vote: a political thesis by a self confessed elitist [fitzie] [In reply to] Can't Post

If they are so smart, why are they in India working in a call center?

_____________________________________________
Conservative in exile.


balanceguy

Oct 20, 08 16:51

Post #14 of 136 (880 views)
Re: the stupid vote: a political thesis by a self confessed elitist [last tri in 83] [In reply to] Can't Post

But Quayle, but Quayle...........


dirtrunr

Oct 20, 08 16:56

Post #15 of 136 (866 views)
Re: the stupid vote: a political thesis by a self confessed elitist [old-as-dirt] [In reply to] Can't Post

in reading this thesis, I'm guessing you would self-identify yourself as "stupid"? b/c i sure as hell would ;)


fitzie

Oct 20, 08 16:56

Post #16 of 136 (864 views)
Re: the stupid vote: a political thesis by a self confessed elitist [last tri in 83] [In reply to] Can't Post

If they are so smart, why are they in India working in a call center?

Because they live in a country that doesn't allow the REALLY stupid people to run the country? Wink

"We thought that we had the answers, it was the questions we had wrong."
Bono


peter826

Oct 20, 08 17:10

Post #17 of 136 (846 views)
Re: the stupid vote: a political thesis by a self confessed elitist [fitzie] [In reply to] Can't Post


In Reply To
They train them to be very patient with the Americans when they call into the center and not to get angry with them, even if the American is angry at them.
Not sure if this is fiction, but I found it very funny. I also had to admit to myself, it just might be true.




  Jeez, I must be pretty bad....I've gotten them to hang up on me....particularly the ones who work for HP... :)


fitzie

Oct 20, 08 17:21

Post #18 of 136 (839 views)
Re: the stupid vote: a political thesis by a self confessed elitist [peter826] [In reply to] Can't Post

Jeez, I must be pretty bad....I've gotten them to hang up on me....particularly the ones who work for HP... :)

Maybe they didn't get the 35=10 training. It's ok, you're on ST. You have to be smarter than a 10 year old Indian child Smile




"We thought that we had the answers, it was the questions we had wrong."
Bono


Large

Oct 20, 08 17:50

Post #19 of 136 (815 views)
Re: the stupid vote: a political thesis by a self confessed elitist [old-as-dirt] [In reply to] Can't Post

Well, at least you're honest enough to put your views in writing. I would imagine there are a quite a few people who feel the same way, yet won't admit it.

Having lived all of my life on one coast or another, and now living in perhaps the bluest state of all (MA), let me offer a few counterpoints. First, having seen so many "smart" people up-close, I would welcome a few more dummies who honestly express their views rather than regurgitate whatever was on NPR or in the NY Times that morning. I would prefer dumb people who work hard all day to the over-degreed smart ones here in Boston who look down their noses at anyone who didn't go the same school as they did.

In a political context, Jimmy Carter was pretty smart, but a disaster as a leader. Harry Truman was thought to be a pretty simple guy, but now is viewed as one of our better presidents. Smart people advocated "nuanced" ideas like a nuclear freeze, while dummies like Reagan went about actually reducing and destroying nuclear weapons. Smart people advocated accommodating the Soviets, while dummies like Reagan and Welesa actually believed they could bring down the "evil empire."

Some of the smartest people I've ever worked with came out of places like Humboldt TN and Bismark ND (and both of them went back to live there after working in DC.) Personally, I'd rather live with a few dummies who are honest about their views and have an innate sense of which candidates are genuine, and which are opportunistic liars, than have smart snobs who reflexively revert to the same government-sponsored solutions for every issue that emerges.

Smart people give us a "progressive" tax system that amounts to taking from the rich and giving to the poor in the name of fairness, but denouncing a truly fair system (a flat tax) as simplistic.

I guess I'm just a dummy.


(This post was edited by Large on Oct 20, 08 17:53)


Beckett

Oct 20, 08 22:54

Post #20 of 136 (768 views)
Re: the stupid vote: a political thesis by a self confessed elitist [old-as-dirt] [In reply to] Can't Post

You're so stupid; you don't even know how stupid you are.


David in FL

Oct 21, 08 5:53

Post #21 of 136 (731 views)
Re: the stupid vote: a political thesis by a self confessed elitist [big kahuna] [In reply to] Can't Post


In Reply To
Your emotions are overriding your intellect.

 

Well, truth be told, it doesn't take much.......





"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in a grey twilight that knows not victory nor defeat."

Theodore Roosevelt


GOKARTN

Oct 21, 08 6:01

Post #22 of 136 (724 views)
Re: the stupid vote: a political thesis by a self confessed elitist [old-as-dirt] [In reply to] Can't Post


In Reply To

...then there are the red states. they are largely in the middle and south of the country and tend to be less well educated and less affluent. their economies are based for the most part on agriculture that is largely subsidized by the federal government. their universities take more pride in football than academics and all the smart people tend to leave as soon as they can and move to a blue state thereby further concentrating the stupidity in their wake. a smart kid from idaho who graduates top in his class and goes to MIT or Columbia or Stanford, does not go back to idaho when he graduates college. all the stupid kids stay behind to work in the mill or on the farm. red states are cultural deserts where people take great pride in being "simple folk". red staters tend to be closed minded, inward looking, conservative, backward people...

 
...and all black people steal hubcaps, drink Colt 45 and smoke crack. Hispanic people tend to be lazy, eat burritos and stuff too many people in their vehicles. All people of Middle Easternern descent tend to be anti-American terrorists.

Nothing like like watching "enlightened" folks stereotype those folks they don't know. It's good to see rednecks and elitists can share a common bond.
__________________________________________________
Yeah, now I'm blogging too


TripleThreat

Oct 21, 08 7:03

Post #23 of 136 (696 views)
Re: the stupid vote: a political thesis by a self confessed elitist [GOKARTN] [In reply to] Can't Post

Nothing like like watching "enlightened" folks stereotype those folks they don't know. It's good to see rednecks and elitists can share a common bond.

They stereotype themsleves also ... just that they embelish and impose a good dose of wishful thinking when doing it. *wink*
=======================
-- Every morning brings opportunity;
Each evening offers judgement. --


big kahuna

Oct 21, 08 7:41

Post #24 of 136 (675 views)
Re: the stupid vote: a political thesis by a self confessed elitist [GOKARTN] [In reply to] Can't Post

...then there are the red states. they are largely in the middle and south of the country and tend to be less well educated and less affluent. their economies are based for the most part on agriculture that is largely subsidized by the federal government. their universities take more pride in football than academics and all the smart people tend to leave as soon as they can and move to a blue state thereby further concentrating the stupidity in their wake. a smart kid from idaho who graduates top in his class and goes to MIT or Columbia or Stanford, does not go back to idaho when he graduates college. all the stupid kids stay behind to work in the mill or on the farm. red states are cultural deserts where people take great pride in being "simple folk". red staters tend to be closed minded, inward looking, conservative, backward people...

...and all black people steal hubcaps, drink Colt 45 and smoke crack. Hispanic people tend to be lazy, eat burritos and stuff too many people in their vehicles. All people of Middle Easternern descent tend to be anti-American terrorists.

Nothing like like watching "enlightened" folks stereotype those folks they don't know. It's good to see rednecks and elitists can share a common bond.


I'm struggling to figure out where he got his impressions about Mideastern and Midwestern universities. Considering the University of Michigan, which most of those kids from the blue states who graduate tops in their respective classes still couldn't get into (especially when it comes to both Law and Medicine) and any number of other world class universities (many being "state schools") within just a 400 mile radius of Ann Arbor, I can't see the logic behind his reckoning.

My father-in-law (who was a professor of materials science at Marquette before retiring and starting a bottled water delivery business back in his small Lodi, Ohio hometown) often observes that college isn't for everybody. And it shouldn't be. The world absolutely needs mill workers, or skilled tradesmen, or burger flippers. This is not to say that the Joe Plumber type is immediately entitled to earn what a pediatric cardiologist makes (and there are plenty of those professions who graduate from Midwest residency programs, by the way), but if through his or her (Josephine Plumber?) hard work, sweat , taking of risk and everything else associated with success in our country, happens to make it possible to do so, why would we sneeringly look down on him? That does seem elitist, sad to say.

I wonder how these folks would take to being called "stupid," especially the increasingly disappearing small-to-midsize-farmers? I wonder how many of us would have the discipline or desire to do the hard, tough work it takes to bring agricultural products to market, year after year, in good times and bad (those farm subsidies are another story), and for not a lot of money, relatively speaking. Is it because they're too stupid to know what's good for them, or is it perhaps that the land is in their DNA? And why would we want to disparage those folks, just because they don't live in trendy SoHo lofts and aren't seen spending time at some Upper East Side martini and cigar bar, after a hard day at work in arbitrage or futures trading?

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with SoHo or any of that. As I said earlier, the world needs all types of folks. Like the ones who work on your fancy BMWs and Volvos or the family station wagon or minivan. Or the ones who come out in the middle of the night on some dark road to change your flat, or answer your OnStar plea for help in getting you directions back to your large city's downtown condo building, or come to your house on an emergency call to look at your electrical panel. Anybody here know how to upgrade an electrical outlet from 110 to 220w, or completely swap out the service? Or safely handle 20,000 volts when hooking up a commerical business's new service from the city's grid to the building? Do any of us appreciate the small city cop who has to, by himself, pull over a speeder in the middle of the night, who might possibly be drunk or even armed and dangerous? Maybe he was lucky to make it out of high school, and he easily could've ended up in some vo-tech training program to become an HVAC technician (how many of us could do that job?), but instead was fortunate enough to make it through the local community college's law enforcement officer training program and scored his job, which pays him, if he's lucky, 24 grand a year (don't believe a lot of cops make that? Detroit cops a few years ago started at 28k a year).

I've lived all over the world. I've known brilliant people, and not-so-brilliant ones. Most are in fact of average intelligence, and that's just a plain fact of life, and geography makes little difference in the "stupid population," I'd say.

T.


Rob C in FL

Oct 21, 08 7:48

Post #25 of 136 (667 views)
Re: the stupid vote: a political thesis by a self confessed elitist [old-as-dirt] [In reply to] Can't Post

"our stupid people look down on smart people, thinking stupidy, or 'simplicity' as they like to call it, is a for more important quality in a leader than smarts."

Since you wrote that, I'm going to have to assume that you live in a red state. ;)
-------
Rob Cunningham
http://www.humanactioncourse.info

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