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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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Vitriol is just my hobby.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Well it shouldn't be. Vitriol is too good a rhetorical device to waste on a mere hobby. Not that I believe you for one moment, you nauseating shit-sucking baboon.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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It's already a matter of public record that Obama is the second most liberal member of the Senate (judged on voting record). What exactly is your point? Try to remember we are a forum for original thinking not repeating known positions. I am referring to you now, not Obama.
But if it's the upper-class thing you are referring to, you will have to explain why this factor doesn't apply to right-wingers (after all, McCain couldn't recall how many houses he had) or to the grandaddy of liberalism, FDR. Or JFK for that matter. Naturally I wouldn't dream of pointing out that more Americans voted for Gore rather than Bush.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Another factor is creeping into American national politics. In relatively undeveloped democracies, elections tend to be won by relatives of previous incumbents. For instance, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have all had wives/ widows/ sons/ daughters etc of the Top Man. So that, for instance, in all three countries, where women are second class citizens, women have been elected to the top job, blood being thicker than gender considerations.
This is assumed to be because in countries where the party system is weak, the candidates have to be recognisable and what better than a relative of the best known person of all. America is going the same way and -- in essence -- for the same reason. Recognition is so vital in early primaries that anyone with a 'name' has a dominant position. The old method (and the method used by properly representative democracies like Britain, France etc) is that candidates have to do the rubber chicken circuit within their parties just to get consideration.
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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In democratic countries like Britain and France (and Israel), there's a monarch or a president who acts as the figurehead or head of state and is both greater than and weaker than the chap/pess running the show but despite powerlessness is instantly recognisable to the populace. America, India, Pakistan et al have to combine a ruling and titular person and personality.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | But if it's the upper-class thing you are referring to, you will have to explain why this factor doesn't apply to right-wingers.... |
In America, Elitism has nothing to do with money. In America, everyone wants to be a rich red-neck.
In America, Elitism is about Intellectualism. The tyranny of the over-educated.
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Komorikid
In: Gold Coast, Australia
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Ish wrote:
| In America, Elitism is about Intellectualism. The tyranny of the over-educated. |
When I picked myself up off the floor after laughing so loud I woke everyone in the house up, I can only say this is the most misguided comment I've ever heard about American society. The tyranny of a deluded mind.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I thought it was a rather interesting and certainly a novel idea. But in any case, Komoro, you are not supposed to just state disagreement, however vehement, without some attempt at commentary.
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Komorikid
In: Gold Coast, Australia
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| I thought it was a rather interesting and certainly a novel idea. But in any case, Komoro, you are not supposed to just state disagreement, however vehement, without some attempt at commentary |
As someone who has travelled the world extensively (3 times to the States) and has met many many Americans from all walks of life, IMHO degrees earned (or more likely bought) and intelligence gained are two entirely different matters. Americans just think they are intelligent and civilised. Their entire society is built on perception not reality.
An Intellectual American is like Military Intelligence and Climate Science -- an oxymoron.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I think I preferred it without commentary.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | I think I preferred it without commentary. |
It would appear he completely missed my point.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Yes, his anti-Americanism renders him as dumb as your pro-Americanism does you. When are you both going to wise up and understand that America is not something you can have a position on. You must judge each one of her actions on its very own merits. Once you start coming out roughly fifty-fifty good-or-bad (and roughly fifty-fifty means 'well, now and again is good enough') you will know you are finally making up your own mind.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | Once you start coming out roughly fifty-fifty good-or-bad (and roughly fifty-fifty means 'well, now and again is good enough') you will know you are finally making up your own mind. |
I was thinking about that the other day. But by-and-large I can't go with it. Factors often weight the odds in favour of one group getting it right over another getting it right.
Perhaps it's something like what you say regarding liberalism and conservatism. Conservatives are more often right and do little harm, but liberals do more good, though they get it mostly wrong.
I quibble by noting the difficulty of doing more good when one is usually trying to do something dumb but... hey... I get what you mean. And the point I wish to draw from your position is that you can't measure anyone's open-mindedness against an expectation of 50-50 outcomes.
With regard to Komori, I actually think he is in agreement with me -- but his anti-Americanism and expectation of my pro-Americanism clouded his interpretation of my remark. For his benefit, I will reiterate.
In America, the worst thing you can do to the proles is to suggest, imply or indeed, give them any reason to infer, that you think they are rubes and that you think you are not. Bill Clinton was a Rhodes Scholar but you never heard that from him. Bill Clinton was always "The kid from little town Hope Arkansas".
Bush went to Harvard but chose to speak with a Texas twang and say the word "Nuclear" as "Nucular".
The bi-coastals hated the way Bush pronounced Nuclear. Drove them batty! Problem was, he said the word the way most Americans said it -- and he damn well knew it. Simple pronunciation alientated just the right people and made him one with those who mattered.
Now I infer from Komori's commentary that he believes most Americans are under-educated. Well so too does Kerry and so too does Obama (or such is how they are perceived) and thus neither Obama, Kerry nor Komorikid wll ever be elected President of the United States.
In the U.S., you can be as rich as you want -- even have a name like "Lynn Forester de Rothschild" -- and no one considers you an "elite". But just once suggest that voters need to be "better educated" and you've lost yourself the election.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Once you start coming out roughly fifty-fifty good-or-bad (and roughly fifty-fifty means 'well, now and again is good enough') you will know you are finally making up your own mind.
I was thinking about that the other day. But by-and-large I can't go with it. Factors often weight the odds in favour of one group getting it right over another getting it right. |
This is complete nonsense. Look at your answer --"by and large", "often", "the odds" "That's why I say 'now and again is good enough'. Actually you only have to kick against the traces once and you're free for ever. Try it. Don't posture it.
| Perhaps it's something like what you say regarding liberalism and conservatism. Conservatives are more often right and do little harm, but liberals do more good, though they get it mostly wrong. |
Well, let's get it exact. Right wing arguments are based on the status quo, the status quo is true, so their arguments tend to be true (but not very enlightening); the left is based on human intellectuality, so is often wrong (but essential for when the status quo is no use).
Once you are free of left and right (and worse, of The Centre) you will have no difficulty selecting the correct policy on any given question since (in the classic Applied Epistemological way) the cretinous morons of left and right set out the arguments in a way even the thickest of us can understand.
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