Biased Republicans, Stupid Republicans

[Closet_Queen]

[quote]Here’s the average IQ by state according to the Ravens APM, and the way each state voted in 2000.

                          AVG IQ      AVG Income       '00 Electoral

(1) Connecticut…113 $26,979 Gore
(2) Massachusetts…111 $24,059 Gore
(3) New Jersey…111 $26,457 Gore
(4) New York…109 $23,534 Gore
(5) Rhode Island…107 $20,299 Gore
(6) Hawaii…106 $21,218 Gore
(7) Maryland…105 $22,974 Gore
(8) New Hampshire…105 $22,934 Bush
(9) Illinois…104 $21,608 Gore
(10) Delaware…103 $21,451 Gore
(11) Minnesota…102 $20,049 Gore
(12) Vermont…102 $18,834 Gore
(13) Washington…102 $20,398 Gore
(14) California…101 $21,278 Gore
(15) Pennsylvania…101 $20,253 Gore
(16) Maine…100 $18,226 Gore

(17) Virginia…100 $20,629 Bush
(18) Wisconsin…100 $18,727 Gore
(19) Colorado…99 $20,124 Bush
(20) Iowa…99 $18,287 Gore
(21) Michigan…99 $19,508 Gore
(22) Nevada…99 $20,266 Bush
(23) Ohio…99 $18,624 Bush
(24) Oregon…99 $18,202 Gore
(25) Alaska…98 $21,603 Bush
(26) Florida…98 $19,397 Bush
(27) Missouri…98 $18,835 Bush
(28) Kansas…96 $19,376 Bush
(29) Nebraska…95 $19,084 Bush
(30) Arizona…94 $17,119 Bush
(31) Indiana…94 $18,043 Bush
(32) Tennessee…94 $17,341 Bush
(33) North Carolina…93 $17,667 Bush
(34) West Virginia…93 $15,065 Bush
(35) Arkansas…92 $15,439 Bush
(36) Georgia…92 $18,130 Bush
(37) Kentucky…92 $16,534 Bush
(38) New Mexico…92 $15,353 Gore

(39) North Dakota…92 $16,854 Bush
(40) Texas…92 $17,892 Bush
(41) Alabama…90 $16,220 Bush
(42) Louisiana…90 $15,712 Bush
(43) Montana…90 $16,062 Bush
(44) Oklahoma…90 $16,198 Bush
(45) South Dakota…90 $16,558 Bush
(46) South Carolina…89 $15,989 Bush
(47) Wyoming…89 $17,423 Bush
(48) Idaho…87 $16,067 Bush
(49) Utah…87 $15,325 Bush
(50) Mississippi…85 $14,088 Bush

The income-IQ correlation was inspired by the book “IQ and the Wealth of Nations,” by Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen. The income statistics are now perhaps a decade old, but were apparently the only numbers available to the original compiler when the results of the '00 election became available (and this chart was made).

Commentary is welcome, send to gcharter@student.umass.edu]

[/quote]

[quote]
National Average IQ’s:

Hong Kong 107 Korea, South 106 Japan 105 Taiwan 104 Singapore 104 Austria 102 Germany 102 Italy 102 Netherlands 102 Sweden 101 Switzerland 101 Belgium 100 China 100 New Zealand 100 U. Kingdom 100 Hungary 99 Poland 99 Australia 98 Denmark 98 France 98 Norway 98 United States 98 Canada 97 Czech Republic 97 Finland 97 Spain 97 Argentina 96 Russia 96 Slovakia 96 Uruguay 96 Portugal 95 Slovenia 95 Israel 94 Romania 94 Bulgaria 93 Ireland 93 Greece 92 Malaysia 92 Thailand 91 Croatia 90 Peru 90 Turkey 90 Colombia 89 Indonesia 89 Suriname 89 Brazil 87 Iraq 87 Mexico 87 Samoa (Western) 87 Tonga 87 Lebanon 86 Philippines 86 Cuba 85 Morocco 85 Fiji 84 Iran 84 Marshall Islands 84 Puerto Rico 84 Egypt 83 India 81 Ecuador 80 Guatemala 79 Barbados 78 Nepal 78 Qatar 78 Zambia 77 Congo (Brazz) 73 Uganda 73 Jamaica 72 Kenya 72 South Africa 72 Sudan 72 Tanzania 72 Ghana 71 Nigeria 67 Guinea 66 Zimbabwe 66 Congo (Zaire) 65 Sierra Leone 64 Ethiopia 63 Guinea 59

sq.4mg.com/NationIQ.htm[/quote]

“96.37% of all statistics are made up.” - Anon

[Durins_Bane]

“Biased Republicans, Stupid Republicans”? Please CQ, quit beating around the bush and tell us how you really feel.

[Comrade_Stalin]

[quote=“Closet Queen”][quote]Here’s the average IQ by state according to the Ravens APM, and the way each state voted in 2000.

                          AVG IQ      AVG Income       '00 Electoral

(32) Tennessee…94 $17,341 Bush
[/quote][/quote]

Gore is from Tennessee and failed out of both his religion and law graduate programs.

And this from the Boston Globe:

Gore’s Dubious School Record

JENNIFER C. BRACERAS
Jennifer C. Braceras is an attorney and research fellow at Harvard Law School. Her column appears regularly in the Globe.

When will the liberal media stop treating left-wing ideology as a proxy for intelligence? For months the press has questioned the intellect of Republican candidate George W. Bush, while describing Al Gore as “serious,” “intellectual” - even “wonkish.”

The basis for the media’s unfair attacks on Bush’s intelligence is his 30-year-old Yale College transcript (purloined last fall and published by The New Yorker). Yet The Washington Post’s subsequent revelation of Gore’s unimpressive academic record has done little to alter the media’s false portrayal of Gore as “the smartest kid in the class.” It is a record that is worth reviewing, if only to debunk the myth of Gore as a serious student.

Gore’s undergraduate transcript from Harvard is riddled with C’s, including a C-minus in introductory economics, a D in one science course, and a C-plus in another. “In his sophomore year at Harvard,” the Post reported, “Gore’s grades were lower than any semester recorded on Bush’s transcript from Yale.” Moreover, Gore’s graduate school record - consistently glossed over by the press - is nothing short of shameful. In 1971, Gore enrolled in Vanderbilt Divinity School where, according to Bill Turque, author of “Inventing Al Gore,” he received F’s in five of the eight classes he took over the course of three semesters. Not surprisingly, Gore did not receive a degree from the divinity school. Nor did Gore graduate from Vanderbilt Law School, where he enrolled for a brief time and received his fair share of C’s. (Bush went on to earn an MBA from Harvard).

But whereas the liberal press has described Bush’s college days as a time of misspent youth, media accounts of Gore’s undergraduate years are grossly fawning. (The New York Times: “As Mr. Bush was frolicking around Yale, a young man named Al Gore was studying at Harvard”; “Harvard nurtured the part of [Gore] that is in love with the world of ideas.” The New Republic: “At Harvard, Gore set himself formidable intellectual challenges.”)

And then there is the laughable October issue of Psychology Today. As part of a cover story entitled, “Gore and Bush on the Couch,” the magazine reports the results of a spurious “analysis” of 10 of the candidates speeches and/or interviews. The authors claim that the study “verifies” the popular stereotype that “Bush is not as deep a thinker as Gore.”

Two pages later, readers will be shocked - shocked! - to learn that the magazine’s (no doubt scientific) study of the candidates’ facial gestures reveals that Gore is the “more serious, constrained, controlled, weighty, ponderous, [and] dominant of the two candidates.” More ponderous, perhaps . . . but, please, spare me the pop psychology.

Biased reporters, however, are not the only ones to blame. Indeed, the vice president himself has cultivated this genius persona (one of many). Thus, he did not correct PBS News anchor Gwen Ifill when she referred to him as a graduate of Vanderbilt Law School. Even more significant was the line in Gore’s convention acceptance speech in which he stated, “I know my own imperfections. I know that sometimes people say I’m too serious, that I talk too much substance and policy.” Poor Al, he’s just too smart for the job.

Of course, the stereotyping of conservative candidates as dumb and liberal candidates as “brilliant” is nothing new. During the 1950s, the media lionized Democrat Adlai Stevenson as an intellectual, while ridiculing Republican Dwight Eisenhower as an ineffectual simpleton. Back then, the members of the press knew full well that Stevenson attended Harvard Law School and, yet, had not received a degree. But the media gave Stevenson a pass. (Sound familiar?) Had resourceful journalists investigated, they might have learned (as we now know from Stevenson’s biographer John Bartlow Martin) that Harvard Law School Dean Erwin Griswold had hidden Stevenson’s transcript in a locked cabinet in his office. What was he hiding? Stevenson, the so-called “thinking man’s candidate,” had, in fact, flunked out of Harvard Law.

In the end, neither intellect nor academic performance is an especially important criterion by which to judge our presidents. Ronald Reagan and Harry Truman were no scholars, but they rank among the best presidents in our country’s history. And what about many liberals’ favorite president - Franklin Roosevelt? Social, popular, and famously unserious as an undergraduate at Harvard, FDR had an undistinguished academic record. Yet, later in life, Roosevelt’s charisma and his ability to persuade, compromise, and lead helped him to become a “reformer with results.”

This election is not an I.Q. test; it is about which candidate has better judgment. And that is why, despite the media’s love affair with the celluloid image of Al Gore the policy-wonk, it is the affable, authentic, and sensible Bush who would make the better leader.

boston.com/globe

[fred_smith]

Two things Closet Queen:

If we put a ratio of urbanization next to income you would find a direct correlation. Urban areas get paid higher salaries but also have higher costs of living, property costs, etc.

I also note that African countries are low on this IQ chart. Are you suggesting that Black people are not as smart as White people and Asians? Does Alien know that you are saying things like this? I think that it seems very racist and after all IQ tests are not accurate predictors etc etc etc.

[Closet_Queen]

[quote=“fred smith”]Two things Closet Queen:
[/quote]

Fred, colons should only be used at the end of complete sentences. Of course, I’ll forgive your minor transgression. After all, you’re a stupid Republican.

[Chewycorns]

Oliver Wendell Holmes said that FDR had a second-class mind and a first-class temperament. With Bush, I would say he is second class in both ways. That puts him ahead of Gore, who is third class in every respect

[Tigerman]

Explaining Liberal Anger

[quote=“Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. and Associate Professor of Philosophy at The University of Texas at Arlington, where he teaches courses in Logic, Ethics, Philosophy of Religion, and Philosophy of Law”]Why are liberals such as Paul Krugman, Michael Moore, and Howard Dean so angry and aggressive? I like to think that I have insight into this matter, since I was a liberal for a long time. If you haven’t been a liberal, you may be puzzled by what you hear and read from them. They may seem – dare I say it? – insane, or at least discombobulated.

The first thing you must realize is that liberals have a program. They are visionaries. They envision a world in which everyone controls the same amount of resources. Nobody is born to privilege or disadvantage; or, if anyone is, it is swiftly neutralized by the state. To allow disadvantage, they believe, is to become a participant in it. Society, to the liberal mind, is a massive engineering project. Most of us distinguish misfortune and injustice. Not the liberal. No misfortune goes unaddressed by the social engineers. It is presumed – conclusively, without evidence or argument – that disparities in wealth are the result of morally arbitrary factors (accidents of birth or circumstance) rather than individual character, effort, discipline, work, or merit.

As the philosopher John Kekes has pointed out so eloquently, liberals disregard or discount concepts that loom large in the thinking of most of us, such as personal responsibility and desert. Most of us believe that responsibility and desert should play a role in the distribution of benefits and burdens. Liberals disagree. Deep down, liberals deny that anyone is responsible for anything. What we are, in terms of personal character, is a function of circumstances beyond our control. How we behave depends solely on our environment. Our very choices are determined, not free. Liberalism dissolves the person. To the liberal, we are loci of movement rather than initiators of action, patients rather than agents, heteronomous rather than autonomous beings. Liberals will deny this, of course, but look at their beliefs and policy prescriptions.

Liberals, unlike conservatives, are zealous. Like all zealots (true believers), they are eager to implement their program, but when they attempt to do so, they meet resistance. This resistance frustrates them immensely and eventually leads to anger toward and aggression against those who stand in their way (or are perceived as standing in their way). Ideally, liberals would rationally persuade those who resist in the hope of bringing them around. But this doesn’t work. Belief in personal responsibility and desert is widespread and entrenched. Time and again, liberals run up against it. Since it seems obvious to them that the belief is baseless, they tell themselves a story about why it’s pervasive.

It’s a multifaceted story. First, the liberal imagines that the belief in question is rooted in ignorance. Opponents of the liberal program simply don’t know the facts about responsibility and desert. But when liberals try to convey these “facts,” they get no uptake. Indeed, they get denial. This leads to the stupidity hypothesis. Opponents of the liberal program aren’t so much ignorant of facts as incapable of reasoning from and about them. In other words, they’re stupid or unintelligent. They’re incapable of thinking clearly or carefully, even about important matters such as equality, justice, and fairness. This explains the liberal mantra that conservatives, such as Presidents Reagan and Bush, are stupid. (See here for an explanation of this false liberal belief.) Note that if conservatives are stupid, liberals, by contrast, are intelligent. It’s all very self-serving.

[URL=Tech Central Station][b]Deep down, liberals know that conservatives are no less intelligent than they are. It just makes them feel good to say as much. So they attribute the pervasive belief in responsibility and desert to greed. Opponents of the liberal program are greedy. They won’t admit the truth because they don’t want to share the wealth. They take the positions they do, on matters such as affirmative action and welfare, to solidify their social position. Greed is bad, of course, so if you reject the liberal program, you’re evil. You put self-interest ahead of justice.

Here, in one neat package, we have all the liberal platitudes. Conservatives are ignorant, stupid, and evil, or some combination of the three. Either they don’t grasp the obvious truth or they’re incapable of thinking clearly or they don’t give a damn about anyone but themselves. Liberals, of course, are the opposite of all these. They’re knowledgeable, intelligent, and good.[/b][/URL] Note that if you believe your opponents to be stupid or evil, you don’t try to reason with them. Stupid people, like animals and children, need guidance by their superiors. Evil people need suppression. It’s often been remarked that liberals are less adept than conservatives at arguing for their views. Now you see why. They don’t practice.

That, in a nutshell, is the liberal mentality. It explains why liberals are so angry, hateful, and spiteful and why they resort to courts rather than to legislatures to implement their vision of the just society. They have given up hope of engaging their adversaries on rational ground. They know that they can’t muster a majority for their causes. To liberals, only the outcome matters, not the process. Without power, their egalitarianism is mere fantasy. But conservatives should be careful not to dismiss it as such, for liberals have demonstrated that they will do whatever it takes to secure and retain power. We saw it in the case of Robert Bork. We saw it in the case of Bill Clinton. We see it in the case of war in Iraq. To the liberal, the end justifies the means. Take it from me, a former liberal.[/quote]

[Flipper]

what does showing that asians and whites are smarter than blacks and hispanics have to do with republican bias?

since the average iq in the us is 98 and you call those republican states which fall under that “stupid”, would you also refer to canada and all south american, middle eastern, and african peoples as stupid as well?

[fred_smith]

CQ:

We use colons after addresses and salutations, too. Now, has Alien seen this table that you provided. Has the patron saint and defender of Marginalized Peoples Everywhere not had a go at you about this? If I had posted said table, I would have had teeth in my ass until next week. But then maybe you’re special? marginalized? underprivileged? oppressed? and therefore exempt?

[Chewycorns]

[quote=“blueface666”][quote=“Closet Queen”][quote]Here’s the average IQ by state according to the Ravens APM, and the way each state voted in 2000.

                          AVG IQ      AVG Income       '00 Electoral

(32) Tennessee…94 $17,341 Bush
[/quote][/quote]

Gore is from Tennessee and failed out of both his religion and law graduate programs.

And this from the Boston Globe:

Gore’s Dubious School Record

JENNIFER C. BRACERAS
Jennifer C. Braceras is an attorney and research fellow at Harvard Law School. Her column appears regularly in the Globe.

When will the liberal media stop treating left-wing ideology as a proxy for intelligence? For months the press has questioned the intellect of Republican candidate George W. Bush, while describing Al Gore as “serious,” “intellectual” - even “wonkish.”

The basis for the media’s unfair attacks on Bush’s intelligence is his 30-year-old Yale College transcript (purloined last fall and published by The New Yorker). Yet The Washington Post’s subsequent revelation of Gore’s unimpressive academic record has done little to alter the media’s false portrayal of Gore as “the smartest kid in the class.” It is a record that is worth reviewing, if only to debunk the myth of Gore as a serious student.

Gore’s undergraduate transcript from Harvard is riddled with C’s, including a C-minus in introductory economics, a D in one science course, and a C-plus in another. “In his sophomore year at Harvard,” the Post reported, “Gore’s grades were lower than any semester recorded on Bush’s transcript from Yale.” Moreover, Gore’s graduate school record - consistently glossed over by the press - is nothing short of shameful. In 1971, Gore enrolled in Vanderbilt Divinity School where, according to Bill Turque, author of “Inventing Al Gore,” he received F’s in five of the eight classes he took over the course of three semesters. Not surprisingly, Gore did not receive a degree from the divinity school. Nor did Gore graduate from Vanderbilt Law School, where he enrolled for a brief time and received his fair share of C’s. (Bush went on to earn an MBA from Harvard).

But whereas the liberal press has described Bush’s college days as a time of misspent youth, media accounts of Gore’s undergraduate years are grossly fawning. (The New York Times: “As Mr. Bush was frolicking around Yale, a young man named Al Gore was studying at Harvard”; “Harvard nurtured the part of [Gore] that is in love with the world of ideas.” The New Republic: “At Harvard, Gore set himself formidable intellectual challenges.”)

And then there is the laughable October issue of Psychology Today. As part of a cover story entitled, “Gore and Bush on the Couch,” the magazine reports the results of a spurious “analysis” of 10 of the candidates speeches and/or interviews. The authors claim that the study “verifies” the popular stereotype that “Bush is not as deep a thinker as Gore.”

Two pages later, readers will be shocked - shocked! - to learn that the magazine’s (no doubt scientific) study of the candidates’ facial gestures reveals that Gore is the “more serious, constrained, controlled, weighty, ponderous, [and] dominant of the two candidates.” More ponderous, perhaps . . . but, please, spare me the pop psychology.

Biased reporters, however, are not the only ones to blame. Indeed, the vice president himself has cultivated this genius persona (one of many). Thus, he did not correct PBS News anchor Gwen Ifill when she referred to him as a graduate of Vanderbilt Law School. Even more significant was the line in Gore’s convention acceptance speech in which he stated, “I know my own imperfections. I know that sometimes people say I’m too serious, that I talk too much substance and policy.” Poor Al, he’s just too smart for the job.

Of course, the stereotyping of conservative candidates as dumb and liberal candidates as “brilliant” is nothing new. During the 1950s, the media lionized Democrat Adlai Stevenson as an intellectual, while ridiculing Republican Dwight Eisenhower as an ineffectual simpleton. Back then, the members of the press knew full well that Stevenson attended Harvard Law School and, yet, had not received a degree. But the media gave Stevenson a pass. (Sound familiar?) Had resourceful journalists investigated, they might have learned (as we now know from Stevenson’s biographer John Bartlow Martin) that Harvard Law School Dean Erwin Griswold had hidden Stevenson’s transcript in a locked cabinet in his office. What was he hiding? Stevenson, the so-called “thinking man’s candidate,” had, in fact, flunked out of Harvard Law.
In the end, neither intellect nor academic performance is an especially important criterion by which to judge our presidents. Ronald Reagan and Harry Truman were no scholars, but they rank among the best presidents in our country’s history. And what about many liberals’ favorite president - Franklin Roosevelt? Social, popular, and famously unserious as an undergraduate at Harvard, FDR had an undistinguished academic record. Yet, later in life, Roosevelt’s charisma and his ability to persuade, compromise, and lead helped him to become a “reformer with results.”

This election is not an I.Q. test; it is about which candidate has better judgment. And that is why, despite the media’s love affair with the celluloid image of Al Gore the policy-wonk, it is the affable, authentic, and sensible Bush who would make the better leader.

boston.com/globe[/quote]

That makes Stevenson similar to Bush. Both men come from “old family money.” Adali’s grandfather was VP in Grover Cleveland’s administration I believe. His family owned a chain of newspapers in Illinois and they still have a presence there even today. His poor grades at Harvard Law school were probably based on his hell-raising. The eastern establishment will always protect its own whether its Dubya or the long-dead Adlai, who dies of a heart attack after screwing the late Katie Graham (owner of the Wash Post)in 1965.

[imyourbiggestfan]

CQ

Are you implying that the democrats is the party of the rich?

Perhaps because their tendency towards greater government interference in the economy means more handouts to those who have the eloquence (and the Harvard tie) to argue for them?

Do you think it is a good thing that the democrats are the party of the elite?

Does that make them a liberal or a conservative force in US politics do you think?

[fred_smith]

Interesting Tigerman:

Now, I must admit to having some of these same “liberal” tendencies then. For example, if I argue that the war in Iraq is the right thing to do and we must bring democracy to the Middle East and assist them to reform, is this a zealous agenda? Also, I feel exasperated at what I feel is a Liberal inability to understand the facts. Of course, I have supplied endless numbers of them myself. Does this mean that deep down, I too am a liberal? haha

Good point about the use of courts rather than legislation to force down their agenda when they cannot win a majority.

[Tigerman]

I find this line interesting from the article I cited above:

What we are, in terms of personal character, is a function of circumstances beyond our control. How we behave depends solely on our environment. Our very choices are determined, not free.

Isn’t that just what the anti-Bush critics are saying about the soldiers who committed the abuse of Iraqi prisoners? They are saying that Bush and Rumsfeld are responsible for the abuse because they “created” the “situation” in which the soldiers would obviously stoop to utilizing abuse.

[Closet_Queen]

[quote=“fred smith”]CQ:

We use colons after addresses and salutations, too.[/quote]

Good boy! Unfortunately,

@fred smith

Two things Closet Queen:

isn

[fred_smith]

Well when it comes to taking personal responsibility and ownership for one’s actions which I firmly believe each and every individual has, then you can sign me up on the conservative roster again big time.

Whew! I was almost worried that I was becoming Liberal. Egads.

[fred_smith]

Gosh CQ:

There is so much that I can learn from you. What does pedantic mean? haha

[Chewycorns]

@tigerman

Explaining Liberal Anger

[quote=“Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. and Associate Professor of Philosophy at The University of Texas at Arlington, where he teaches courses in Logic, Ethics, Philosophy of Religion, and Philosophy of Law”]Why are liberals such as Paul Krugman, Michael Moore, and Howard Dean so angry and aggressive? I like to think that I have insight into this matter, since I was a liberal for a long time. If you haven’t been a liberal, you may be puzzled by what you hear and read from them. They may seem – dare I say it? – insane, or at least discombobulated.

The first thing you must realize is that liberals have a program. They are visionaries. They envision a world in which everyone controls the same amount of resources. Nobody is born to privilege or disadvantage; or, if anyone is, it is swiftly neutralized by the state. To allow disadvantage, they believe, is to become a participant in it. Society, to the liberal mind, is a massive engineering project. Most of us distinguish misfortune and injustice. Not the liberal. No misfortune goes unaddressed by the social engineers. It is presumed – conclusively, without evidence or argument – that disparities in wealth are the result of morally arbitrary factors (accidents of birth or circumstance) rather than individual character, effort, discipline, work, or merit.

As the philosopher John Kekes has pointed out so eloquently, liberals disregard or discount concepts that loom large in the thinking of most of us, such as personal responsibility and desert. Most of us believe that responsibility and desert should play a role in the distribution of benefits and burdens. Liberals disagree. Deep down, liberals deny that anyone is responsible for anything. What we are, in terms of personal character, is a function of circumstances beyond our control. How we behave depends solely on our environment. Our very choices are determined, not free. Liberalism dissolves the person. To the liberal, we are loci of movement rather than initiators of action, patients rather than agents, heteronomous rather than autonomous beings. Liberals will deny this, of course, but look at their beliefs and policy prescriptions.

Liberals, unlike conservatives, are zealous. Like all zealots (true believers), they are eager to implement their program, but when they attempt to do so, they meet resistance. This resistance frustrates them immensely and eventually leads to anger toward and aggression against those who stand in their way (or are perceived as standing in their way). Ideally, liberals would rationally persuade those who resist in the hope of bringing them around. But this doesn’t work. Belief in personal responsibility and desert is widespread and entrenched. Time and again, liberals run up against it. Since it seems obvious to them that the belief is baseless, they tell themselves a story about why it’s pervasive.

It’s a multifaceted story. First, the liberal imagines that the belief in question is rooted in ignorance. Opponents of the liberal program simply don’t know the facts about responsibility and desert. But when liberals try to convey these “facts,” they get no uptake. Indeed, they get denial. This leads to the stupidity hypothesis. Opponents of the liberal program aren’t so much ignorant of facts as incapable of reasoning from and about them. In other words, they’re stupid or unintelligent. They’re incapable of thinking clearly or carefully, even about important matters such as equality, justice, and fairness. This explains the liberal mantra that conservatives, such as Presidents Reagan and Bush, are stupid. (See here for an explanation of this false liberal belief.) Note that if conservatives are stupid, liberals, by contrast, are intelligent. It’s all very self-serving.

[URL=Tech Central Station][b]Deep down, liberals know that conservatives are no less intelligent than they are. It just makes them feel good to say as much. So they attribute the pervasive belief in responsibility and desert to greed. Opponents of the liberal program are greedy. They won’t admit the truth because they don’t want to share the wealth. They take the positions they do, on matters such as affirmative action and welfare, to solidify their social position. Greed is bad, of course, so if you reject the liberal program, you’re evil. You put self-interest ahead of justice.

Here, in one neat package, we have all the liberal platitudes. Conservatives are ignorant, stupid, and evil, or some combination of the three. Either they don’t grasp the obvious truth or they’re incapable of thinking clearly or they don’t give a damn about anyone but themselves. Liberals, of course, are the opposite of all these. They’re knowledgeable, intelligent, and good.[/b][/URL] Note that if you believe your opponents to be stupid or evil, you don’t try to reason with them. Stupid people, like animals and children, need guidance by their superiors. Evil people need suppression. It’s often been remarked that liberals are less adept than conservatives at arguing for their views. Now you see why. They don’t practice.

That, in a nutshell, is the liberal mentality. It explains why liberals are so angry, hateful, and spiteful and why they resort to courts rather than to legislatures to implement their vision of the just society. They have given up hope of engaging their adversaries on rational ground. They know that they can’t muster a majority for their causes. To liberals, only the outcome matters, not the process. Without power, their egalitarianism is mere fantasy. But conservatives should be careful not to dismiss it as such, for liberals have demonstrated that they will do whatever it takes to secure and retain power. We saw it in the case of Robert Bork. We saw it in the case of Bill Clinton. We see it in the case of war in Iraq. To the liberal, the end justifies the means. Take it from me, a former liberal.[/quote]

I am sure some Republicans were glad Bork never made it to the Supreme Court, the late Eliot Richardson being one of them. Whether you love or hate Senator Kennedy, his “borking” of Bork saved the Supreme Court from " a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, children could not be taught about evolution."

[fred_smith]

Chewy:

Oh for Christ’s sake where do you get these ideas. Bork? Backalley abortions, segregation returns. What are you some kind of dumb Liberal?

freddie

[Tigerman]

@Chewycorns

I am sure some Republicans were glad Bork never made it to the Supreme Court, the late Eliot Richardson being one of them. Whether you love or hate Senator Kennedy, his “borking” of Bork saved the Supreme Court from " a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, children could not be taught about evolution."

Chewy,

Read what Bork says about these things. For instance, rogue police:

[quote]Judge Bork:That’s precisely an example I use in my book as a proper use of the Constitution. The reason they had a Fourth Amendment about limiting unreasonable searches and seizures was that they had government intruding upon your privacy in your home or your office and they didn’t want that done. When the government no longer had a constable clomping in in heavy boots but managed to get electronic devices, the principle is the same. The government is intruding upon your home or your office. It’s a form of a search. There’s no problem with that. Just as the First Amendment–they didn’t know about electronic communications but they have extended the First Amendment to electronic communications because it is speech. Now I don’t think they’ve extended it far enough but they have come a long way.

Peter Robinson: So there’s absolutely no problem. This is not hard work. The new technology doesn’t present as many difficult problems?

Judge Bork: No, no, the problem arises when the Court invents a new principle that’s not in the Constitution. The application of existing principles, well people can disagree about it but at least we know what we’re talking about.[/quote]

[cableguy]

Let’s face it. The grades a person received while in college clearly don’t reveal much about a person at all. Thus, while it is possible that Bush did better in school than Gore, this in no way reveals that Gore would have made a worse president than Bush.
The truth is that Bush, despite his educational background, is a horrible president who has entrenched Americans in a war that, at the moment, seems impossible for us to get out of very easily. The economy in the states is bad and I don’t think Americans actually feel very safe from terrorism, despite the government making some changes. (However, I am sure Bush and his wife feel safer. It helps to have a private plane and round-the-clock bodyguards).
All in all, Bush is an intelligent guy who sucks as a world leader.