Bush and Colbert

[thunderbolt23]

[quote]hspder wrote:

I truly and honestly feel that until there is a fundamental cultural shift, no true person of integrity will ever be elected for public office in this country.

Why?

Ideally, people should elect people that they feel are smarter and more capable than themselves. People that excel at their jobs as political leaders. Exceptional people.[/quote]

Ok.

But they don’t – elections are a popularity contest, one that is won by the person that most closely resembles the electorate.

Nonsense: the point of self-government is to have leadership that reflects the values and attitudes of the people. I realize that republican government must frighten to death an academic voluptuary like yourself - that with all the voting privileges of the unwashed masses and all - but the enfranchisment of something other than a privileged elite has been the development of democratic government over a good while.

It should be noted: I am no believer in “lowest common denominator” politics, and I would like to see a cultural shift in a number of areas myself. But the idea that ‘people’ are ‘stupid’ is a farce - especially once you have actually been exposed to real people.

This means that the person who gets elected cannot possibly be smarter and more capable than the majority of the population, because that would mean they do not resemble the electorate.

This is utter, abstract garbage. People who vote want the best and brightest among them to serve as leaders - and they want those best and brightest to share their virtue and values. Those two desires are not inseparable.

People - that is real people, those people that you may have overheard your fellow scholars refer to as the ‘middle class’ - aren’t quite as stupid as you posit: the idea that the educated middle class will never pick a leader that is better and brighter is preposterous.

Adulterers get elected because most people have either committed adultery at one point or thought about it. Liars get elected because most people routinely lie. Idiots get elected because most people ARE idiots. Greedy bastards get elected because most people are greedy bastards. People without integrity get elected because most people do not have integrity – even the ones that tell themselves they do.

So, let’s have an accounting - most people are adulterers or near-adulterers, liars, greedy bastards, and of course, idiots without integrity.

I assume you cavalierly exclude yourself from all these categories.

This, of course, is the hilarious characteristic so prevalent of the Left, made so evident by you - while you claim to be interested in championing the causes of the common man, you have nothing disdain for the common man.

Moreover, do you ever tire of your own limitless conceit? I sense someone wasn’t given enough attention as a child.

People want to see a reflection of themselves in power – and, unfortunately, that reflection currently looks like a self-righteous spoiled brat with an IQ of a rhesus monkey…

A convenient, if tired and hackneyed potshot. This has been the same old yarn since 2004 - America is sooooo stupid to vote for George W. Bush.

And dimestore psychology can expose this for what it is - arrogant Lefties making themselves feel better about themselves. The easiest ploy in the book after losing is to act arrogant and defiant. “They are all just so stupid” - nice, and effective if you are maybe in the 8th grade and you just got rejected from cheerleader tryouts. I expect better from a Stanford guy. Maybe my expectations are too naive? I am beginning to think so.

If that’s not bad enough, idiots get surrounded by idiots – or, to put it under the First Law of American Managers: “never hire somebody smarter or more capable than you”. The corollary of that is that the electorate, given two less-than-ideal candidates – one smarter and one dumber than the average – it will always pick the dumber one, to be on the safe side.

That, of course, is a silly proposition, but you knew that. Surely - surely - someone with three PhDs knows enough about politics to know that the ‘smartest’ guy in the room is not necessarily the best leader - I know countless brainiacs who aren’t fit for leadership.

That being said, of course leaders need to be smart - but what kind of smart? Academic intelligence might be a part of it, but might not. Personally, I think there is a lot to be said for the virtue of wisdom - something no PhD could ever replace.

[quote]That does explain a lot, doesn’t it?

Now excuse me while I put back my Hazmat suit with flash protection…
[/quote]

Interesting. It really is. Posts like this are very informative - it exposes the Left’s id.

What is fascinating, Hspdr, is that you just can’t contain this naked arrogance when you post like this. It’s actually a little sad to behold.

Also what is fascinating - or tragic, I haven’t decided - is how you can be so undemocratic when the point of the Left has always been to embrace the opposite. You have shown yourself to be nothing more than an insulated elitist - which is usually the battle cry against the country-club Republicans who sneer down their nose at the hired help. You are what the Left claims it stands against.

As is, though I disagree with it, I am not angry at this post - I found it rather enlightening. It reminds that so many of the professoriate have about as much a relationship with the middle class as they do with Middle Earth; they aren’t fit to run a lemonade stand in the real world; and the reinforcement of the ‘arrogance paradox’: the more arrogant the person acts, the less there is underneath to be arrogant about.

[vroom]

Thunder, I’m sure you WANT to believe the things you’ve said about hspder, based on his post, but you are still missing by a mile the subtler qualities of these posts and what they entail.

It’s strange how libs are always labelled as either bleeding heart naive liberals who trust in the good of man, or elitist liberals who somehow feel they are better than the common man because they acknowledge failings.

Such vitriolic labelling, which has become part and parcel of the political process is part of the problem. Funny how neither my post or hspder’s really had anything to say about either left or right party (at least in any way that could be considered biased)… but they still draw such criticisms.

–

Relax. Take a deep breath. Stop hating everyone. You are showing your id. Oh, sorry… I’m playing your game now aren’t I?

[thunderbolt23]

[quote]vroom wrote:
Thunder, I’m sure you WANT to believe the things you’ve said about hspder, based on his post, but you are still missing by a mile the subtler qualities of these posts and what they entail.[/quote]

No, I believe them. Thanks though.

And, there was nothing particularly subtle about Hspder’s post - he stated his position boldly and expected a response.

It’s strange how libs are always labelled as either bleeding heart naive liberals who trust in the good of man, or elitist liberals who somehow feel they are bettern than the common man because they acknowledge failings.

Yes, and that was my point exactly - it is strange because it is kind of hard to be both. It is schizophrenic, and members of the Left haven’t quote squared that circle, to their embarrassment.

And you miss the point - I never said that ‘acknowledging failures’ was the cause of Leftist elitism. I argue that the cause of Leftist elitism is the unalloyed conceit of thinking they are better than everyone else because they are certain they are so much more Enlightened than everyone else.

I am not mad about it - I actually use this to try and explain why outside of certain cloisters, these Leftists get no traction with the rest of the world - because they think the elitism is phony baloney - hence the losing of elections.

Funny how neither my post or hspder’s really had anything to say about either left or right party (at least in any way that could be considered biased)… but they still draw such criticisms.

You mean to tell me, with a straight face, that Hsdper’s post was meant as a wider criticism that included liberals in the Bay Area?

Relax. Take a deep breath. Stop hating everyone. You are showing your id. Oh, sorry… I’m playing your game now aren’t I?

There is no ‘hate’ here - my last paragraphs were not bombastic. And the comment about the id is no slur - it is merely a statement the Hspder was showing what he thought unencumbered by nicety.

But here we have robust debate, not hate - if you haven’t the stomach for it, sit this one out.

[doogie]

[quote]hspder wrote:
The corollary of that is that the electorate, given two less-than-ideal candidates – one smarter and one dumber than the average – it will always pick the dumber one, to be on the safe side.

[/quote]

Thunderbolt already handed you your ass over the rest of this post, but I would like to point out that the last election proved this to be incorrect.

http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/larryelder/2005/06/23/154707.html

Yale GPAs: Bush 77 (with only one D), Kerry 76 (with 5 Ds)

Retired history professor Gaddis Smith taught both students, but only recalls Kerry. Smith remembered Kerry as a “good student.” When informed, however, that Kerry received a 71 and 79 in Smith’s history courses, the professor said, “Uh, oh. I thought he was [a] good student. Those aren’t very good grades.” Oh, what did the forgettable Bush get in history? 88.

and

http://www.rasmusen.org/x/archives/000268.html

IQs: Bush 123, Kerry 120

[doogie]

[quote]vroom wrote:

It’s strange how libs are always labelled as either bleeding heart naive liberals who trust in the good of man, or elitist liberals who somehow feel they are bettern than the common man because they acknowledge failings.

[/quote]

It’s not any more strange than conservatives being labeled as either ultra-wealthy, heartless capitalists or uneducated, country bumpkin, Bible-totin’ rednecks.

[thunderbolt23]

Further to Hspder’s lame theory on voting:

Assuming Bush is a complete idiot, as Hspdr does, because it fits his these of Stupid People, the President before him was Clinton.

Clinton, for all his faults, had plenty of intelligence - I would even endeavor that in terms of raw intellectual ability, he has been one of our brightest.

Now, Hspder says that the electorate will never elect someone smarter than them, for all of the previously listed half-baked reasons. But Clinton was elected twice, prior to Bush.

But how could Clinton - uber-intelligent Clinton, mind you - ever get elected in an electorate too stuh-stuh-stupid to cast a vote for someone smarter than themselves?

[vroom]

Thunder, Doogie, I think you are guys are mistaking my post and/or hspder’s post to be critiques of the Bush election(s).

I’m afraid that wasn’t the case at all… so there is no need to get your backs up and go on a rampage. If I’m not mistaken, both he and I were lamenting on the state of politics today, which is a much different animal.

Try to take a step back from the day to day left and right struggle, and you’ll get a better perspective on what was being discussed.

[doogie]

[quote]vroom wrote:
Thunder, Doogie, I think you are guys are mistaking my post and/or hspder’s post to be critiques of the Bush election(s).

I’m afraid that wasn’t the case at all… so there is no need to get your backs up and go on a rampage. If I’m not mistaken, both he and I were lamenting on the state of politics today, which is a much different animal.

[/quote]

You honestly believe hspder didn’t intend this to be a critique of Bush (the current reflection of the public)?

People want to see a reflection of themselves in power – and, unfortunately, that reflection currently looks like a self-righteous spoiled brat with an IQ of a rhesus monkey…

[vroom]

Doogie,

I didn’t think it was specifically meant as such, given that he was responding to my own diatribe about trying to find someone with integrity to elect in the next election.

I know my post had taken swipes at both sides… and I thought hspder was just tossing out some pop-culture type theory about why nobody with integrity had been found for a while.

I could always be mistaken…

[doogie]

[quote]vroom wrote:

I could always be mistaken…[/quote]

As you’ve proven time after time…

[heavythrower]

[quote]hspder wrote:
First of all: great post, vroom.

vroom wrote:
God help your country if you can’t find a man or woman of integrity to fill that position soon and surround him or herself with an administration of integrity…

I truly and honestly feel that until there is a fundamental cultural shift, no true person of integrity will ever be elected for public office in this country.

Why?

Ideally, people should elect people that they feel are smarter and more capable than themselves. People that excel at their jobs as political leaders. Exceptional people.

But they don’t – elections are a popularity contest, one that is won by the person that most closely resembles the electorate. This means that the person who gets elected cannot possibly be smarter and more capable than the majority of the population, because that would mean they do not resemble the electorate.

Adulterers get elected because most people have either committed adultery at one point or thought about it. Liars get elected because most people routinely lie. Idiots get elected because most people ARE idiots. Greedy bastards get elected because most people are greedy bastards. People without integrity get elected because most people do not have integrity – even the ones that tell themselves they do.

People want to see a reflection of themselves in power – and, unfortunately, that reflection currently looks like a self-righteous spoiled brat with an IQ of a rhesus monkey…

If that’s not bad enough, idiots get surrounded by idiots – or, to put it under the First Law of American Managers: “never hire somebody smarter or more capable than you”. The corollary of that is that the electorate, given two less-than-ideal candidates – one smarter and one dumber than the average – it will always pick the dumber one, to be on the safe side.

That does explain a lot, doesn’t it?

Now excuse me while I put back my Hazmat suit with flash protection…
[/quote]

so who was clinton more stupid than in 92 and 96?

[hspder]

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
But how could Clinton - uber-intelligent Clinton, mind you - ever get elected in an electorate too stuh-stuh-stupid to cast a vote for someone smarter than themselves?[/quote]

Actually, that is a very good question.

Because none of his opponents were obviously dumber than he was.

(you do overestimate Clinton’s intelligence – even though I very much like him, and I consider him far more intelligent than Bush II, I do realize that a really intelligent guy wouldn’t have been caught with his pants down)

Furthermore, the electorate didn’t really perceive him as being smarter as they (the electorate) are.

[hspder]

[quote]vroom wrote:
and I thought hspder was just tossing out some pop-culture type theory about why nobody with integrity had been found for a while.[/quote]

The underlying theory is actually not mine, and has been demonstrated scientifically (i.e., through behavioral studies) several times. I ran into it a few years ago, while studying the cognitive biases associated with behavioral economics.

I do admit I presented it in a way specifically designed to inflame the people it did. And it worked in spades. It’s amazing how predictable people are.

I did put at the end the Hazmat suit (with flash protection) joke, but I honestly underestimated not only the size of the reaction, but also the entertainment value this is providing…

I mean, since we clearly are not allowed to have an intelligent discussion on this board without being rudely interrupted, at least we can have some fun!

[vroom]

[quote]hspder wrote:
The underlying theory is actually not mine, and has been demonstrated scientifically (i.e., through behavioral studies) several times. I ran into it a few years ago, while studying the cognitive biases associated with behavioral economics. [/quote]

Interesting… but I must take you to task for the following:

People want to see a reflection of themselves in power – and, unfortunately, that reflection currently looks like a self-righteous spoiled brat with an IQ of a rhesus monkey…

I suspect rhesus monkey’s might be smarter than we give them credit for…

More seriously though, it provides a really good reason why Gore lost. He comes across as someone who knows a lot about things and tries to tell people about it.

Heck, if he simply learned to play dumb while hitting the hot topics he’d probably have taken it. Maybe he’ll try again in another decade or so when his zeal has faded.

Perhaps once the Bush legacy is past he’ll be able to present a more serious standpoint?

[hspder]

[quote]vroom wrote:
I suspect rhesus monkey’s might be smarter than we give them credit for…[/quote]

Several behavioral studies have used several types of monkeys, and their behaviors are so similar to ours its scary. We keep telling ourselves how advanced we are, but when it comes down to it, we really don’t behave much differently from monkeys…

[quote]vroom wrote:
More seriously though, it provides a really good reason why Gore lost. He comes across as someone who knows a lot about things and tries to tell people about it.[/quote]

Precisely. And not only that puts people off – because it subconsciously makes them feel stupid, it provides plenty of material for attack – and people will respond very passionately.

[quote]vroom wrote:
Heck, if he simply learned to play dumb while hitting the hot topics he’d probably have taken it.[/quote]

I have no doubt that both Gore and Kerry would have won the elections by a landslide if they had played dumb(er).

[quote]vroom wrote:
Maybe he’ll try again in another decade or so when his zeal has faded.[/quote]

I sincerely doubt that – his image is forever tarnished. I mean, you can get away with just about anything in this country, but the kind of perception people built of Gore and Kerry NEVER goes away.

That is also why Hillary will never get elected. The fact that she’s a woman makes it even worse – I mean, a) women are officially forbidden from being even half as intelligent as men, right? and b) while women seem to be less threatened by intelligent men than men are, they are deathly allergic to intelligent women – so she’d do as badly with women as she would do with men, which is quite extraordinary for a Democratic candidate.

[doogie]

So, because Bush has been shown to be more intelligent than Kerry, was his re-election the result of a brilliant strategy to “appear” to be dumber than Kerry?

[hspder]

[quote]doogie wrote:
So, because Bush has been shown to be more intelligent than Kerry,[/quote]

Since when do grades and a random IQ test can be used to “show” somebody is more intelligent than somebody else?

I had a 4.0 GPA at Stanford and I’ve had IQ tests score me at 168.

So, by your line of reasoning, I’m possibly one of the most intelligent men alive.

I think we can all agree that is highly unlikely. The only thing it does mean is that I perform very well in tests – which is not a suprise, since I had a LOT of practice and I actually love studying.

So, turning to REAL LIFE intelligence measurements, would an intelligent POTS tell German media that his best moment as a president was to catch a fish in his own backyard?

“I would say the best moment of all was when I caught a 7.5 pound largemouth bass in my lake.” --George W. Bush, on his best moment in office, interview with the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag, May 7, 2006

or

“I aim to be a competitive nation.” ?George W. Bush, San Jose, Calif., April 21, 2006

[I was actually there when he said that. The look on people’s faces was priceless]

or

“If the Iranians were to have a nuclear weapon they could proliferate.” ?George W. Bush, Washington D.C., March 21, 2006

or

“I believe that a prosperous, democratic Pakistan will be a steadfast
partner for America, a peaceful neighbor for India, and a force for freedom and moderation in the Arab world.” ?George W. Bush, mistakenly identifying Pakistan as an Arab country, Islamabad, Pakistan, March 3, 2006

or

“I like my buddies from west Texas. I liked them when I was young, I liked them then I was middle-age, I liked them before I was president, and I like them during president, and I like them after president.” ?George W. Bush, Nashville, Tenn., Feb. 1, 2006

… need I go on?

[doogie]

[quote]hspder wrote:

Since when do grades and a random IQ test can be used to “show” somebody is more intelligent than somebody else?
[/quote]

Showing somebody is more intelligent than somebody else is exactly what IQ tests do. I’m sure the Stanford library has a lot of Lewis Terman’s works you could read up on.

[quote]
So, turning to REAL LIFE intelligence measurements, would an intelligent POTS tell German media that his best moment as a president was to catch a fish in his own backyard?[/quote]

Would an intelligent man who was wasting millions of his wife’s dollars trying to become the POTUS say these things?

‘‘We’ve got better hair. I’ll tell you, that goes a long way.’’

or

‘‘I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.’’

or when explaining that quote say

“No, it wasn’t classic at all. It just was a very inarticulate way of saying something, and I had one of those inarticulate moments late in the evening when I was dead tired in the primaries and I didn’t say something very clearly.”

even though the original statement was made at noon

or

“The truth, which is what elections are all about, is that the tax burden of the middle class has gone up while the tax burden of the middle class has gone down.”–John Kerry, quoted by the Associated Press, Aug. 25.

or

“I’m an internationalist, I’d like to see out troops dispersed through the world only at the directive of the United Nations”

or

“Our democracy is a farce; it is not the best in the world.”

or

“I will stand up and struggle, as others have, to try to get that right balance between violence, and sex, and things.”

or

say this about his soon to be running mate

“In the Senate four years, and that is the full extent of public life - no international experience, no military experience - you can imagine what the advertising is going to be next year,” Mr. Kerry said of Mr. Edwards.

or

would someone who wants to be POTUS have a spokesperson explain his outpatient procedure to repair cartilage in his knee, being the result of damage caused by “years of soccer, hockey and marathon running.”

or

“I will say this,” he added. “There is nothing better than Buckeye football, period!”- Speech made in Michigan Aug 2

or

"President Clinton was often known as the first black president. I wouldn’t be upset if I could earn the right to be the second. "

or

“I think there has been an exaggeration of the terrorist threat.”

or

“I voted to threaten the use of force to make Saddam Hussein comply with the resolutions of the United Nations.”

after

“I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force if necessary to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security.”

or

“It’s none of your business,” to an American citizen at a Town Hall meeting who asked, “Who were the world leaders you met with who prefer you to George Bush?”

or

“If you believe, as I do, that America’s best days are ahead of us, then join me tomorrow and change the direction of America.”

or

(To the Hollywood actors that showed up for his fundraiser) “You are the heart and soul of America.”

or

Kerry also cited examples Sunday of how people were duped into not voting,
“Leaflets are handed out saying Democrats vote on Wednesday, Republicans vote on Tuesday. People are told in telephone calls that if you’ve ever had a parking ticket, you’re not allowed to vote.” 4-11-05

Why is that funny? Because it came from here http://www.scrappleface.com/MT/archives/001764.html and here http://www.theonion.com/content/node/30760

or

“You bet we might have.” ?Sen. John Kerry, asked if he would have gone to war against Saddam Hussein if he refused to disarm

---

In the end, though, for you to argue that the smarter person is the one who FAILED to get elected is asinine. You did want to talk about real world intelligence, right?

[thunderbolt23]

[quote]hspder wrote:

I mean, since we clearly are not allowed to have an intelligent discussion on this board without being rudely interrupted, at least we can have some fun! :-)[/quote]

This explains quite a bit - Hspder’s love of an adoring echo chamber keeps getting interrupted by filthy plebians who shouldn’t be allowed to read books anyway.

[thunderbolt23]

[quote]hspder wrote:

vroom wrote:
More seriously though, it provides a really good reason why Gore lost. He comes across as someone who knows a lot about things and tries to tell people about it.

Precisely. And not only that puts people off – because it subconsciously makes them feel stupid, it provides plenty of material for attack – and people will respond very passionately.[/quote]

This fails for a number of reasons.

First, having met Al Gore, the first impression is not that of an intimidating brainiac that makes you feel stupid. Gore is plenty smart, but that is a silly proposition.

Gore, irrelevant of his intelligence, came off as detached and unable to connect with people. Everything was forced - he was not natural in the room I was in. Witness the debates - he didn’t do poorly because he was too smart for his own good - he acted very strange. From an intelligance point of biew, he should have been fine in the debates - but many people were turned off by his performance in the debates, and it wasn’t because he made them feel stupid. People came away with a very bad impression.

This idea that Gore turned off people because of his intelligence is nothing more than therapism for Gore-supporters: after all, the underlying philosophy is that if people were as smart as I am, they would not have been bothered by Gore and voted for him and he would have been President.

The problem is, for all of this pseudo-intellectual analysis, the situation is too complicated for the simple and therapeutic explanation that Gore was just too smart for his own good. Gore distanced himself from Clinton, which had implications. Gore repeatedly ran into problems of dishonesty during the debates because he would be untruthful or exaggerate information - to which he actually formally apologized for at the beginning of one debate.

Gore over-relied on consultants, who steadily gave him information on how to act in certain situations, giving him this erratic, unpredictable public posture - and a fundamental bottom line that overrides this “too smart” theory: people of all intellectual backgrounds don’t trust a phony when they see one. Well, I should qualify - people blessed with a fair amount of common sense and ordinary wisdom, so that probably rules out most university faculty, who seem to adore phonies, frauds, and charlatans.

Gore is a sharp guy, but the idea that he was ‘too smart’ to get elected is poppycock.

Second, if people were that worried about being intellectually intimidated by their candidates to the point they wouldn’t dream of casting a vote for them, why weren’t all the dumb folks skeptical of having Dick Cheney on the ballot as VP? Under this theory, at the RNC, all the stupid people in the crowd - and of course they were stupid, they aren’t elightened fops that work in academia - would have been very uneasy when the turbo-smart Cheney took the podium.

So, if Bush is dumb as a stump, and dumb GOP voters voted him in because he doesn’t intellectually bother them or make them feel stupid, then under this theory, why would they be so supportive of Cheney?

In sum, cute theory - but it is no more than a way for a certain branch of partisans to feel better about themselves. The entire book “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” already tried a version of this, and it has been summarily routed. If conservatives were to offer this theory up - when they lost, it was explained by way of the American public being too stupid to vote for Republicans - it would be characterized as partisan hackery, and rightfully so.