Here's a fellow Democrat I'm more than happy to stand alongside.
Phillip Klinkner, over at Polysigh (a very good group blog by poli-sci academics) got this in comments:Sorry to have to say it, but the retro Nebraska and Kansas are, their university towns excepted, deeply insular places where the people have low levels of information and high levels of suspicion about the outside world. If approved sources--Bush, Fox news, evangelical ministers--say something is untrue, then those folks KNOW it is untrue. Their blinkered view of the outside world is a recipe for disaster. Sadly, It is their kids--from Fargo, Topeka--who are getting killed in Bush's grand folly. I am sorry for them but, in a serious way, it is their fault. They have gotten exactly what an insular and ignorant vote is likely to get. By the way, I was born in the Middle West.Phillip replies:
Well, I'm from the Midwest (Iowa) and I find this kind of pseudo-intellectual, elitist BS deeply offensive. I'm voting for Kerry, but if Democrats see the majority of Americans as idiots, then they deserve to lose elections. Just on general principles, I woudn't support someone who looks down their nose at me. I can't comment at length, but I didn't want to let this pass unremarked. More later.John Schaar approves (from 'The Case For Patriotism'):
"Finally, if political education is to effective it must grow from a spirit of humility on the part of the teachers, and they must overcome the tendencies toward self-righteousness and self-pity which set the tone of youth and student politics in the 1960's. The teachers must acknowledge common origins and common burdens with the taught, stressing connection and membership, rather than distance and superiority. Only from these roots can trust and hopeful common action grow."And so do I.
Phillip and I may be on opposite sides of this election, but we're certainly on the same side of the fence.
In my experience, people who constantly complain about being surrounded by idiots and brainwashed "sheeple" (often extrapolated to include the entire city, state, or country that they live in) are themselves: 1) Boring, 2) Incapable of original thought, 3) Deeply insecure even about their unoriginal thoughts, and 4) Unable to function happily unless they are surrounded by an Amen Chorus of like-minded people, who do not threaten their fragile ego boundaries.
Well I consider myself among the elite, intellectually speaking, and I also consider it a truth that the "masses are asses", intellectually speaking, but the same human reaction to snobbisme applies. No one wants to feel socially inferior.
But let's face it, that's what this is about: social status, not intellectual status (if such a thing even exists). I can just see you applauding an Afghan woman voting against "that Karzai" because "he thinks he's better than everyone with his fancy clothes."
But, well, everyone gets one vote.
We now know the fake explosives story, already debunked by another network whose reported found the bunker empty when we reached it, was supposed to be an election eve CBS dirty trick, in the fine tradition of the crude forgeries and Liar Dan.
We now know Kerry was a traitor working with the Veitcong.
http://wizbangblog.com/archives/004073.php
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=41106
http://www.nysun.com/article/3756
The significance of the documents lies in the way they dovetail with activities of the young Mr. Kerry as he led the VVAW anti-war movement in the spring of 1971.
It was in April that he gave his testimony to the Senate, in which he accused American GIs of having committed war crimes and belittled the idea that there was a communist threat to America.
From http://federalistpatriot.us/current/
However, according to legal scholars, John Kerry's meetings with enemy agents from Communist North Vietnam on multiple occasions between 1970 and 1972 are not covered under EO 4483.
For that reason, we delivered to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft on Monday of this week a "Petition for Investigation and Indictment," calling on the Department of Justice to determine conclusively whether Kerry's actions, in direct violation of UCMJ (Article 104 part 904), U.S. Code (18 USC Sec. 2381 and 18 USC Sec. 953) and other applicable laws and acts of Congress, constitute treason.
Heh .. I doubt thats going anywhere
BTW I support the death penalty for voter harrasment. one thing for certain, the driveby shootings into republican offices and the smashing of cars, now with the people in them, more laws will be passed on this kind of thing, well, that is, if the manic berzerker democrats dont bring it to a shooting war first,
You know, this notion offends this Midwesterner.
The railroad's been through here for some time now, jackass. If you want to seek out insular, self-selected, repressive and politically brainwashed ghettos, I suggest you start in the lower zip codes.
Raymond, stay on topic in our comments threads or the team will need to delete your messages, as happened in my post below.
I appreciate your fervor, but I do not appreciate having you hijack the discussions here at Winds of Change.
"Well I consider myself among the elite, intellectually speaking, and I also consider it a truth that the "masses are asses", intellectually speaking..."
I don't doubt that academics believe they are intellectually superior to non-academics (having seen it first hand). I'm always curious, though, about the origin and justification of this belief. My father didn't go to university, and I don't think of myself as intellectually superior to him. We have different skills, certainly; mine mostly involve being able to successfully complete university type exams and essays, whereas his don't. Does this prove anything significant? Perhaps PhD can tell us.
Moreover, I haven't seen a single academic mount a satisfactory moral defence of the anti-war position, so I'm not sure "intellectually superior" is identical to "intellectually useful". If academics consistently perform poorly in wrestling with major moral and cultural issues of the day, perhaps there is something wrong with academia as an institution.
I couldn't say whether folks in Kansas, the Midwest are insular boobs, but they don't seem to have any relucatance to refer to themselves as America's 'heartland' and to assume that their own values are the only real American ones.
Why can't New England be part of the American 'heartland'? We pay taxes. We vote. We love our baseball. Some of us even helped write the constitution (though it's true we immediately wanted to amend it). Just because we read a book once in a while doesn't mean we're not Americans, too.
DIngo:
Anyone who speaks from the attitude you just portrayed is generally considered "heartland" through and through. And welcome to it.
Walter Russell Meade called it Jacksonian America. The belief that everyone's equal. That's the key, I think, to the topic of discussion here. The corollary is, don't put yourself above anyone else. You won't need to. If we like the cut of your jib, we'll place you on the pedestal ourselves. (How many hits does WoC get?)
Correction. That's Walter Russell Mead.
Whu-oh, I think your puppetmaster, rog, has jumped the shark. Or maybe he's off his meds. Anyhey, you may want to give him a phone call and see if he needs help getting back up.