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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Steve Lokness who wrote (179753)	1/20/2012 1:34:28 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 542008

Limited intellect doesn't mean a person isn't smart in some area- it may just mean they are totally blinkered by their world view. This totally describes both Ayn and Paul. Total zealots. Completely unable to think, or see, outside the little boxes they built for themselves. Sadly zealotry does limit your intellect. But there you are.

To: Steve Lokness who wrote (179753)	1/20/2012 2:50:18 PM
From: Win Smith	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542008

but you need at least an IQ of 120 just to read her. Really? I though you mainly needed tolerance of turgid and prolix prose to read Rand. I suppose it takes some intellect to extract the nuances of libertarianism out of it, but my understanding is that the problem with reading Rand isn't that it requires great intellect. It takes a certain amount of willpower to plow through Tolkien too, but I will eschew the usual waggish comparison. I sort of wonder what Rand would make of the current dominance of Wall St. in the economy. Her heroic industrialists were people who actually built stuff. I'd like to think that maybe she wouldn't approve of the financial sector skimming 30% of total corporate profits off the top of the US economy, but maybe she considered the financiers the crème de la crème , capitalism distilled to its purest essence. Rand certainly didn't approve of government involvement, I assume she wouldn't exactly like the fact that the current government's primary response to the current crisis is to have the Fed pump more and more money into the financial structure that caused the crisis in the first place, while buying up mounds of the financial detritus the masters of the universe generated. But I'd also assume she wouldn't accept government regulation as a solution to the problem of too big to fail Wall St. institutions and the opaque financial engineering they thrive on. I have no idea what her alternative solution would be, or even if she would admit to a problem.

To: Steve Lokness who wrote (179753)	1/20/2012 2:54:40 PM
From: Cogito	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542008

>>Dr. Paul may be many things - but he is clearly not limited by his intellect. Same would go for Ayn Rand - you may not like her or her philosophies but you need at least an IQ of 120 just to read her. << I disagree. I think Paul's intellect is limited. It's limited not by potential but by zealotry. And an IQ of 120 is no great shakes.

To: Steve Lokness who wrote (179753)	1/20/2012 3:38:25 PM
From: Mary Cluney	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 542008

<<<Dr. Paul may be many things - but he is clearly not limited by his intellect. Same would go for Ayn Rand - you may not like her or her philosophies but you need at least an IQ of 120 just to read her.>>> There are more than 60 million people on earth with IQ's above 140. The world is getting more competitive. It has only been a little more than 100 years (1903) since they built the first airplane but 100 years later the Wright Brothers would unlikely have the intellect to participate in exploring space. My point is this, most of our current leaders, philosophers, and business people are dinosaurs. People like Ron Paul, Paul Ryan, Ayn Rand, Michael Moore, Harry Reid, etc and people of their caliber will not be able to compete in the near future. However it will take some time to transition to the future where you need to be educated in order to have an important role in becoming a leader. This doesn't mean we discard all the people like myself and degrade their value as human beings. We should all have access to health care, education, and be able to pursue happiness but we should have some humility and leave the heavy lifting, to people who have the ability, the appropriate values, and the desire to advance civilization and make life better for everyone. We have to weed out all the pretenders and the delusional.

To: Steve Lokness who wrote (179753)	1/20/2012 9:53:46 PM
From: koan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542008

Intellect has little to do with IQ. It has much more to do with how well a person can measure reality. Autistic people can often do great things intellectually, but not be able to live on their own. Many great writers cannot do math and vise versa. The "best functioning mind", IMO, is the mind that can integrate all its parts well into a well fuctioning person. A sane person. What Paul is missing, IMO, is an ability to do that. Yes, he has a mind that can remember facts and solve abstract problems, but he doesn't seem to have a well integrated mind and so has many blind spots. E.g. Sociopaths have traits normal people don't have like a lack of empathy. Although usually above average in intellligence and having a clearer view of reaity (devoid of emotion) still they usually end up in jail because they make mistakes normal people wouldn't make, like being a pathological liar, or just making a simple social mistake. Ayn rand is different, IMO, she was greatly injured as a child and so could not engage in true intimacy and felt little compassion for people. So both Paul and Rand have defective philosophies, IMO. <<<<<That is not too shabby for a person of his limited intellect. >>>> It is no different when the left uses ugly insulting comments to belittle a person than it is the right. This is the kind of garbage many on the right use on a constant bases. Dr. Paul may be many things - but he is clearly not limited by his intellect. Same would go for Ayn Rand - you may not like her or her philosophies but you need at least an IQ of 120 just to read her.