Liberal Values Defending Liberty and Enlightened Thought

5 Comments

1. 1

   

   Eclectic Radical says:
   

   November 17th 2009 at 7:42 am  

   The article itself actually kind of irritated me a little bit, though there were fortunately a couple of comments than communicated my irritation well enough to satisfy me. I certainly agree with the basic premise that Palin’s statements on the matter were stupid. The mischaracterization of religious people who accept science as ‘Christian Deists’ makes me stop short of claiming it is a ‘good’ article, but the core point made about Sarah Palin is a good one. It is unfortunate that it digressed into a broad point that got lost in the tall grass.
    
   I could not help getting sucked into the back and forth of the commentary on the article, however.
    
   What struck me more than anything else was this, which may prove my own elitism:
    
   People who don’t want others to look down on them should refrain from being idiots. To my mind, it’s not elitism to be unwilling to call a fool a fool. It’s the ‘common sense’ that ‘populists’ claim to so highly value.
    

2. 2

   

   Eclectic Radical says:
   

   November 17th 2009 at 7:43 am  

   ‘not elitism to to be unwilling to call a fool anything but a fool’
    
   I need to type slower some days.
    

3. 3

   

   Leslie Parsley says:
   

   November 17th 2009 at 10:17 am  

   “People who don’t want others to look down on them should refrain from being idiots.”

   But there are a lot of people who are so stupid they don’t know they’re stupid.

4. 4

   

   Eclectic Radical says:
   

   November 17th 2009 at 3:33 pm  

   ‘But there are a lot of people who are so stupid they don’t know they’re stupid.’
    
   This, sadly, is far too true.
    
   There are also far too many people who are far too happy to lie about how stupid they are to get the idiots on their side.
    

5. 5

   

   Ron Chusid says:
   

   November 17th 2009 at 3:48 pm  

   Unfortunately for this discussion, the word “stupid” will grab comments for moderation. That weeds out a tremendous number of comments from right wingers.

   (I sometimes use a plug-in which gives a white list which allows certain people’s comments to go through regardless of what you say. At the moment it is turned off because I’m not certain if that was causing some other problems. Therefore the actual rules re holding posts from moderation can vary frequently depending upon which plug ins I’m using at the time.)