They Just Can’t Stop Themselves
Posted by David Foster on September 18th, 2008
Joe Biden:
"The Republican party and some of the blogs and others on the far right, are trying very hard to paint a picture of this man, they’re trying the best as they can to mischaracterize who he is and what he stands for.
All this stuff about how different Barack Obama is, they’re not just used to somebody really smart. They’re just not used to somebody who’s really well educated. They just don’t know quite how to handle it. Cause if he’s as smart as Barack is he must not be from my neighborhood."
(via Rachel Lucas, whose post on this is worth reading)
They just can’t stop themselves. The Democratic leadership, together with its core of “progressive” supporters, is so convinced of their own superior brilliance that they can’t stop talking about it, even though it should be obvious that the arrogance is turning people off.
What is the evidence for the claimed superintelligence of Senator Obama? Where are the great scientific discoveries or the patents for vital new technology? Where are the deep analyses of the history of political thought? Where is the carefully-crafted legislation? Where is the brilliant reorganization of a government agency or a business that dramatically improved its effectiveness? Where are Obama’s books and articles dealing with any subject other than himself?
Obama seems to be a pretty smart guy who can give a very nice talk, as long as he doesn’t have to do it impromptu and you don’t listen too carefully or too often, and who gives the impression, correctly or not, of being likeable. Biden himself can’t even offer those distinctions.
I’d also note that when Biden spoke at a Democratic rally where he made the above comments, he was introduced by a woman who referred to Governor Pailin as “a bucket of fluff.” It’s part of the same pattern of arrogance. (And, anyhow, isn’t the phrase usually “a ball of fluff?”)
chicagoboyz.net
Explaining Elitism to Leftists
Posted by Shannon Love
...Leftists simply cannot understand why people say they find leftist elitist. For the contemporary American left, who remain mired in 19th-century European political thought, a person becomes an elitist only by virtue of possessing wealth. The comments from the Left on this Riehl World View post [h/t Instapundit] demonstrate this clearly.
The Left simply does not understand a key facet of culture in contemporary America: Elitism isn’t about money. It’s about respecting the beliefs and decisions of others. It’s about believing you are intellectually and morally superior to others.
As a thought experiment, take two people, call them Bob and Steve, and make them identical in income, education, religious belief, economic accomplishments, political ideology, core values etc. Say they both have middle-class incomes or less. No one on the Left would call either Bob or Steve elitist. Now, suppose Steve wins the lottery and becomes a multi-millionaire over night. According to the Left, Steve becomes an elitist over the course of that night even though he still thinks the same way as does the non-elitist Bob.
Now take a second case. Call them John and Bill. In this case, Bill is much richer and better educated than John but they share the same core values, go to the same church, like the same sports/leisure activities (maybe they both like to hunt) etc. Despite their differences in wealth, both John and Bill make the same decisions on most political matters. For example, they both have the same views of abortion, family values, the Iraq war, free-market vs. government, taxes etc. For the non-leftist, Bill is not an elitist because he thinks the same way as John. Bill respects John’s decisions because John makes the same decisions that Bill makes.
Now, take a third case. Call them Ted and Dick. In this case Ted and Dick share little in common save they have the same income. They have different values, different religions, different ideologies. On issue after issue they make different decisions. Moreover, Dick and friends never pass up an opportunity to express just how stupid they think Ted is for not thinking as they do. They openly deride Ted for his religion. They mock his ideas about everything from personal values to foreign policy. Ted’s income does not matter to Dick and friends. If Ted has more money than Dick, Dick says that Ted is evil, greedy and exploitative. If Ted has less money, Dick says that Ted is a hapless victim of circumstance and only holds his beliefs and values out of ignorance.
Obama and the rest of the post-’60s American Left are Dick(s). They think Dick is not an elitist because, like them, Dick seeks to help out poor-Ted in the manner that Dick, not Ted, thinks best. Non-leftists think Dick is a elitist because Dick believes he belongs to a minority that possesses vastly superior decision-making ability as compared to the majority.
Obama and the other leftists cannot see their elitism for two reasons. Firstly, post-’60s American leftist thought is heavily crypto-Marxist. In Marxism, income (economic class) defines an individual’s entire intellectual and moral outlook. For a Marxist, a rich and poor person cannot hold the same values. They take it as axiomatic that the rich scorn the values and beliefs of the poor. Needless to say, in America, the land of the self-made millionaire, where those same millionaires brag about how poor they were when they started out and pride themselves on holding middle-class values, the Marxist assumptions mean little. (Indeed, they most likely never did, even in Europe.) Yet, still they believe that McCain is an elitist because of his wealth.
Secondly, Obama and other leftists confuse compassion with respecting the decisions of others. We all deeply love people whose decisions we do not respect. We love children, the elderly in their dotage, the mentally challenged and pets. We love them so much we will lay down our lives for them without hesitation. Yet, because we love them, we feel obligated to override the decisions they make and substitute our own decisions at any time we decide it best to do so.
Obama and friends view themselves as the only adults in a world of children. All these children blunder through life making all kinds of stupid decisions and doing childishly cruel things. These children desperately need adult supervision. Obama and friends see it as their obligation to care for these “children” and to force them to grow up into “adults” using the violent force of the state.
They cannot hide this belief in their own superior ability. When Obama made his comment on people in rural areas “clinging to God, guns and fear of people unlike them” he wasn’t being intentionally mocking or cruel. He was an adult explaining to other adults why those “children” behaved (voted) the way they did. He thought he was being understanding and compassionate. He and other leftists cannot honestly understand why anyone would resent the remark...
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