Tuesday, November 30, 2004

 

SELF-PERCEIVED "GOODNESS" IS BEHIND THE BRITISH BAN ON FOX-HUNTING

One is reminded of the poem "Address to the unco' guid, or the rigidly righteous" by Robert Burns


"Self-evidently, class antagonism plays a part. Decrying fox hunting as a decadent diversion of the aristocracy, Labour is now in the saddle, and will hound the toffs in their poncy red outfits. The fact that latterly fox hunting bridges class barriers, bringing rural communities of varying incomes together, has failed to diminish this class bloodlust, since most ban advocates are proudly ignorant about the sport they would abolish, and have never been on a fox hunt.

Yet the deeper modern rift between the urban elite and the disempowered countryside is more salient. The urban professionals backing the ban have ideas about themselves, very precious ideas. They are civilized. They recycle. They believe that meat grows in cellophane packets. They abhor genetically modified foods and animal testing. They are good. Britain's country dwellers, who actually make things, grow things, raise things and, yes, kill things, are too busy to worry about being good.

Fox hunting turned an unpleasant necessity, the eradication of livestock predators, into a ritual--an excuse for a frolic on horseback, fresh air, fellowship and a warming drink. And therein lies the nugget. For the virtuous, killing animals grimly is OK, but killing animals and enjoying it amounts to sadism and is therefore unacceptable. What was legislated was not so much what rural sportsmen are allowed to do as what they are allowed to feel.

Alas, Europe in general is suffering under the tyranny of Goodness. The same impulse to legislate virtue drives the antismoking lobby. Hate-crime legislation levies additional jail time on criminals not for what they did, but why. And recycling is embraced as an intrinsically virtuous idea, whether or not its economics or even its environmental merits add up. Thus Goodness is not about doing good but affecting it, and about telling moral inferiors what they may or may not enjoy. In sum, the hunting ban is about vanity.

Urban Labourites are welcome to be as vain as they like so long as they do not employ the powerful arm of the state to squelch one of the few pleasures remaining to a beleaguered minority. Government should only constrict individual liberty when the case for interference is ironclad. (Indeed, had the U.K. a written constitution, the new law would probably be struck down by the courts. But parliamentary democracy allows for the triumph of unprincipled bullies, so long as they marshal the clout.) The case for banning fox hunting--vulpine anxiety, human emotions that are unattractive--is breathtakingly slight.

Whether this misconceived law results in widespread civil disobedience remains to be seen. Though opponents have threatened to fox hunt anyway, daunting police with the prospect of arresting thousands, Britain is lately less a nation of hunters than of sheep. But let's hope that the opposition declines to simply roll over--massacring their hounds, putting down their horses, learning to play Parcheesi on weekends. The British defeated Hitler. Surely they can triumph over the small-mindedness of their own government.

More here

posted by JR 8:50 PM

Monday, November 29, 2004

 

LEFTISTS ARE TOO GRAND TO DEBATE ANYTHING WITH CONSERVATIVES

They KNOW they are right. All that remains is to force their wisdom down other people's necks, by fair means or foul.

"During the Democratic National Convention in August, it wasn’t conservatives who were protesting outside, it was a bunch of liberals protesting other liberals for not being liberal enough. Conservatives had better things to do – like work.

Liberals are people of tolerance and diversity, except when it comes to conservative ideas and views. I’ve heard recently from many of these open-minded, tolerant, peace-loving individuals – through my car window, while driving down the highway with a “Bush 2004: Leadership, Integrity, Morality” bumper sticker plastered on the back of my vehicle. Being in Vancouver, it’s probably the only bumper sticker of its kind in town, but liberals hate any kind of competition. Just witness their reaction to Fox News.

As Bernard Goldberg explains in his book “Arrogance: Rescuing America from the Media Elite,” the evening newscasts on ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS – by and large run by journalists who self-identify as liberal, according to a study by the Pew Research Institute – rake in about 35 million viewers each night, while Fox News averages just over a million viewers in an entire 24-hour news cycle.....

I’m all for smaller government, complete deregulation of the airwaves, and free and open debate of any and all ideas, whether they be liberal, conservative or anything in between. Ideas and information are not dangerous. Ignorance and censorship are. It’s unfortunate that most liberals don’t appear to feel likewise, particularly when it comes to anything even remotely conservative.

Liberals don’t like to debate. They prefer to disseminate propaganda movies, give uninterrupted lectures, or put out “CDs for Insomniacs.” When liberals do debate, it’s usually Left against the Far-Left – not Left against Right.

I’m still waiting for the Left’s favorite recording artist and anti-American conspiracy theorist, Noam Chomsky, to come on my radio show for a debate. Meanwhile, I arrived in Toronto this week and turned on the TV in my hotel room to see Chomsky giving a completely unchallenged talk entitled “The Imperial Presidency” at the University of Toronto, to a group of students who, judging from the TV coverage, appeared to be overdosing on the aural equivalent of Valium. Of course, the talk was sponsored by the rabidly anti-corporate Canadian Dimension Magazine and carried by the mainstream media.

Rather than arming themselves with facts and logic, liberals prefer to use pies – like the one that was recently launched at conservative columnist Ann Coulter during a public appearance. A Web site (www.rncnotwelcome.com) dedicated to instructing liberals on how to act like total imbeciles in protest of last August’s Republican National Convention in New York City features an entire section on the art of pieing conservatives. Advice includes how to choose a target (“any pompous evil-doer will do”); how to dress (“shave, put on a suit ... you’ll be able to go anywhere!”); how to handle the aftermath (“expect shock and chaos ... people will be aghast at what has just transpired”); how to practice (“set up a pie toss gallery to practice at home”); and how to handle the inevitable arrest and assault charges. There’s even a pie recipe included, with tofu as a main ingredient, of course.

More here

posted by JR 8:14 PM

Sunday, November 28, 2004

 

"BLACKS SHOULD KNOW THEIR PLACE"

The old slavemaster view is now a view of the Leftist elite! It's "Look up to us or get abused"

A Latino attorney general? A black woman as secretary of state? Who would have imagined it 50 years ago - or even, more recently, say, during the Clinton administration? Give President Bush credit for breaking barriers that his Democratic predecessor never got around to breaking. Just don't try telling that to white liberals who are thrilled with the idea of minorities doing well - as long as they can claim credit. If they can't, or if the minorities happen to be conservative, things can get messy.

The American people are about to get a sense of just how messy now that Mr. Bush has nominated Alberto Gonzales to head the Justice Department and Condoleezza Rice to run the State Department. Senate Democrats don't have the votes to thwart the nominations, but that won't stop them from trying to bloody the nominees before they take office. Witness what happened 13 years ago during the confirmation process for Clarence Thomas, who went from Pin Point, Ga., to Yale Law School to a seat on the Supreme Court - but not before being subjected to what Mr. Thomas called a "high-tech lynching" for challenging liberal orthodoxy on affirmative action, abortion and other issues close to the hearts of Democratic constituencies.

As Democrats sink their teeth into the Gonzales and Rice nominations, note the condescension. Liberals can - in one breath - convey both the high opinion they have of themselves and the low opinion they have of everyone else. I've had a taste. During a stint as a columnist at a newspaper in Arizona, I criticized a Democratic U.S. attorney for ducking a civil rights case involving Latinos. I got lots of angry phone calls and e-mails. One note that stands out: A reader asked where I'd be "without affirmative action secured for (me) by the Democratic Party."

And now Mr. Gonzales and Dr. Rice might get a taste of their own. It's nothing personal. It's about credit, and who gets it. If Mr. Bush, with these appointments, scores points with minorities, Democrats will have to face these constituencies and this question: "What have you done for me lately?" Liberals know that, which is why they're under pressure. And people under pressure tend to say and do really dumb things. Like the left-leaning reader who e-mailed me to criticize Mr. Gonzales and couldn't resist trying to stick a big sombrero on the Harvard Law School graduate. The reader wrote: "Execution of the mentally defective? Fine with Alberto. Health and safety? You don't need no stinkin' laws ensuring a safe workplace. ... He may end up killing more Mexicans than hypertension."

Nice. I especially like the "stinkin' " line - borrowed from the 1948 film, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, in which a very Mexican-looking fellow famously boasts: "Badges? ... I don't have to show you any stinkin' badges!" Now, I have to wonder: Would the reader have chosen the same words to attack someone whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower? Somehow, I doubt it. Others, like syndicated columnist and cartoonist Ted Rall, have tried to paint Mr. Gonzales as Attila the Hun with a law degree, an advocate of torture, someone inspired by Nazis, "one of the most twisted minds the American legal system has ever produced" - and, most incredible of all, someone to the right of John Ashcroft.

Then there's the liberal radio talk-show host in Wisconsin who claims Dr. Rice isn't qualified to be secretary of state. In fact, says John Sylvester of WTDY-AM in Madison, she's better suited to having her image plastered on a bottle of maple syrup. Mr. Sylvester, who is white, called her an "Aunt Jemima" and also referred to Colin Powell as an "Uncle Tom." Mr. Sylvester said later that he was only trying to make a point about how Dr. Rice, Mr. Powell and other blacks have only a subservient role in the Bush administration.

You mean, as opposed to the respect that they getting from people like Mr. Sylvester, who tried to fend off criticism by insisting that he has a long history of supporting civil rights? It shows. Then there was the liberal syndicated cartoonist Jeff Danziger, who depicted Dr. Rice Mammy-style, barefoot in a rocking chair and holding a baby's bottle. She is cradling an aluminum tube - a reference to her comments leading up to the war in Iraq that high-strength aluminum tubes seized en route to Iraq were "only really suited for nuclear weapons programs." In the cartoon, Dr. Rice says: "I don't know nuthin' about aluminum tubes."

When that sort of garbage comes from the right, we call it racism. What should we call it when it comes from the left?

Source

posted by JR 7:44 PM

Saturday, November 27, 2004

 

ANOTHER ROUNDUP OF LEFTIST HATE SPEECH

* "F#$@ the South. F#$@ 'em," reads a widely circulated on-line screed posted at f#$@thesouth.com. (The actual web address contains letters rather than symbols.) "We should have let them go when they wanted to leave. But no, we had to kill half a million people so they'd stay part of our special Union. Fighting for the right to keep slaves - yeah, those are states we want to keep."

"Take your liberal-bashing, federal-tax-leaching, confederate-flag-waving, holier-than-thou, hypocritical bull*?<+ and shove it up your a%&. And no, you can't have your f#$@ing convention in New York next time. F#$@ off."

* The November 5 Wall Street Journal cited these deep thoughts from a weblog called "Punk Voter:" "Senator Kerry said [November 3] that now we need to come together and heal as a nation. F*** that. There's no f****** way I am going to come together with these homophobic, flag-waving, god-fearing, gun-toting, uneducated, isolationist, ethnocentric REDNECKS."

* An "adoption notice" e-mailed around the country shows the Democratic blue states beside the headline "Free to a good country." The mock ad continues, "Educated and intelligent population. Gets along well with others. Pretty. Wants to get out of an abusive relationship with current owner and inbreeding red cousins. Open to all sane democracies."

* Another Internet graphic shows the blue states linked to our northerly neighbor in the "United States of Canada." The red states in between are described as "Jesusland."

* While these vulgar, secessionist sentiments could be dismissed as the bile-fueled grumbling of disgruntled College Democrats, listen to veteran Democratic political consultant Bob Beckel. "I think now that slavery is taken care of, I'm for letting the South form its own nation," Beckel recently declared on Fox News Channel's Fox and Friends. "Really, I think they ought to have their own confederacy."

-MSNBC commentator Lawrence O'Donnell - a former staffer to the late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D., N.Y.) and co-creator of NBC's The West Wing - told The McLaughlin Group this the weekend after the election: "The segment of the country that pays for the federal government is now being governed by the people who don't pay for the federal government...Some would say, 'Oh, poor Alabama. It's cut off from the wealth infusion that it gets from New York and California'...But the more this political condition goes on at the presidential level of the red and blue states, the more you're testing the inclination of the blue states to say, 'So what?'"

* Another theme of the divisive Left is the supposed idiocy of red states and their inhabitants. It starts, naturally, with President Bush. The Left depicts him as a doddering fool. Yet, somehow, this airheaded cowboy has defeated them in two elections. This hardly demonstrates the Left's brilliance.... Were Louisiana and South Carolina, both blue states, dumb over the last six years when they elected Democrats John Breaux, Mary Landrieu (in 2002), and Ernest Hollings to the U.S. Senate, or did they suddenly grow stupid this year? And how about Colorado's pro-Bush voters? They also elected Democrat Ken Salazar to the U.S. Senate on November 2, rather than Republican Peter Coors. So, were they simultaneously sharp and dimwitted?

* Hollywood acted divisively, too. Whoopi Goldberg regaled a July 8 Kerry fundraiser with gynecological double entendres involving the president's surname. Julia Roberts said "'Republican' comes in the dictionary just after 'reptile' and just above 'repugnant.'" Cameron Diaz announced on Oprah September 29 that if Bush were reelected, "we could lose the right to our bodies.... If you think that rape should be legal, then don't vote."

* Perhaps worse than "Nazi" are the other N-words. A blogger named the Rude Pundit, who boasts about "proudly lowering the level of political discourse," called your humble commentator National Review's "house negro." Imagine the justifiable outrage if I or any other center-right commentator called Alan Colmes "the Fox News Channel's resident Jew?" Leftist cartoonist Ted Rall created a July 5 illustration which shows Secretary of State Designate Condoleezza Rice at an "inner-city racial re-education camp." She says, "I was Bush's beard! His house n*gga..."

-As the black free-market organization, Project 21, has documented, "Doonesbury" cartoonist Garry Trudeau recently referred to Rice as "Brown Sugar." The mainstream Universal Press Syndicate distributes Rall and Trudeau.

-On November 17, WTDY (Madison, Wisconsin) radio host John "Sly" Sylvester called Rice "Aunt Jemima" and (current) Secretary of State Powell "Uncle Tom." He also complained about "the illusion of inclusion," as if Bush's appointment of two consecutive black Americans to the nation's oldest and most prestigious Cabinet agency were no big whoop.

-"There are those house slaves who lived on the plantation, and there were those slaves who lived in the house," Left-wing calypso singer Harry Belafonte explained in October 2002. "Colin Powell was permitted to come into the house of the master."

More here

posted by JR 8:24 PM

Friday, November 26, 2004

 

ANOTHER CHARMING ELITIST

She is Canada's leftist queen of anti-American mean. Canadian Liberal Member of Parliament Carolyn Parrish, a backbench member of Canada's ruling Liberal Party, outdid her usual crude and boorish self last week when she appeared on a comedy show televised by the leftist, taxpayer-funded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and stomped on a George Bush doll with her boot. The `Honorable' member from Mississauga, a city just outside Toronto, continued with her vile behavior by performing voodoo on the doll's head, where, she said, "it would do the least damage."...

Parrish was first elected to Parliament in 1993 and has been re-elected twice since then. A former high school teacher and board of education chairwoman before entering politics, she shot into the news last year after she was heard saying outside the House of Commons, "Damn Americans . I hate those bastards." She later apologized for those remarks, saying she meant them only for Bush and those in his administration.

Neverthelesss, Parrish's behavior has remained shameless. Last August, she called Americans a "coalition of idiots" for supporting plans for a missile defense system, a play on words of President Bush's `coalition of the willing'. And just last week the married mother of two said she was "dumbfounded" that Bush had won the election, calling him a "war-like man" and saying it shows that the Americans who supported him are out of step with the rest of the international community.

But the nastiness and bullying tone of Parrish's anti-American outbursts comes as no surprise to those who have followed her career. Among her other golden moments, the former teacher once threatened to beat up a school board chairwoman in a dispute over a school program. This paragon of lib-left civility also thought a fellow female MP was "evil" for introducing a bill that would give serial killers consecutive sentences, saying the only reason one didn't "just grab her by the throat and throttle her" was because the other MP sincerely believed in her cause.

here

posted by JR 9:19 PM

Thursday, November 25, 2004

 

AN ELITIST DENIAL OF ELITISM:

If this guy is not elitist, he is certainly dogmatic, arrogant and full of contempt for those who disagree with him. People who disagree with him are not even "rational" apparently. No matter how much he tries he just cannot stop his contempt for others from oozing out. That sounds pretty elitist to me.

"The idea that Blue States are elitist for being intolerant of intolerance is mind-bogglingly dense. The only elitism in the Kerry campaign was a failure to address this distortion because they simply did not believe that a certain portion of the voting public is capable of rational thought. In all fairness, to some degree, they were right. But coupled with a fear of scaring off undecided voters, this allowed Bush to galvanize his other base (you know, the not-elitist one that thinks people who don’t practice their faith burn in hell for all eternity), and more than counteract the flood of new Democratic voters around the country.

Liberals: Get the hell over it. We, as a political body, are our ideas, our hopes, and the future of this country. There’s only way to get over the great ideological slump that we’ve fallen into: Admit that we’re right and work to convince voters. Thinking that your ideas are right isn’t elitism. Believing it’s not worth trying to convince others is.

While the endless parade of Cable TV pundits that have effectively destroyed rational discussion in this country drone on and on about the “liberal elite,” they let it be taken as a given that the “moral majority” in the red states are somehow not elitist.....

John Kerry would have had an easy walk to the White House, if this race were decided by politics. But it wasn’t. It was decided by Evangelical Christians, many of whom went to the polls with decidedly elitist world views..... But Bush knows how to win anything that isn’t a rational argument. ....

But this ran a small chance of making undecided voters uncomfortable, so instead of doing so, John Kerry decided to stay “Above the fray.” Undecided voters, however, did not decide this election. Evangelical Christians, icked out by the thought of boys holding hands, decided this election. Right-wingers who believe that abortion is wrong, but that the death penalty and invasion of Iraq are somehow right (or just less wrong,) decided this election. Voting machines that magically gave the President many, many more votes in precincts without a paper trail decided this election. If the High Road worked, Karl Rove and George W. Bush would both have been out of a job a long time ago.

Liberals don’t answer many right-wing arguments because they simply don’t see the logic behind some of their right-wing values (largely because there is none). That’s not elitism.....

More here

posted by JR 8:41 PM

Wednesday, November 24, 2004

 

ANOTHER SUPERCILIOUS LEFTIST

Excerpts from an "explanation" of American politics addressed to some Europeans. As if Europeans have been wise about their politics! Note that he is condescending not only to President Bush but to the "simple" American people as a whole

"Americans have elected would-be dictators as President (Richard Nixon, George W. Bush). We have passed on clearly highly-qualified candidates (Adlai Stevenson, for one) and had to endure dolts and mediocrities (Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush). On the other hand, we have elected those from whom we weren't expecting all that much (Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson, Bill Clinton), only to be pleasantly surprised with how they grew into the job, despite their tragic flaws and policies of great error....

I think what you're really asking is how -- having watched for four years as George W. Bush has disgraced the presidency and demonstrated his inability to rise to the occasion -- we could have elected this guy.

Virtually all of the presidents mentioned above behaved civilly to their political opponents. (Nixon was an exception: dirty tricks to win election, compiling an "enemies" list to punish, heinous felonies.) And the mass media were much more investigatory and independent. But the Hard-Right, which cares not a fig for democratic institutions -- other than in how it can manipulate them -- decided to forego civility and go for total annihilation of their opposition. Rightwing billionaires established think-tanks, bought up and founded mass-media outlets (national radio talk shows, cable TV shows, Fox News, et al.), spent millions on training college-age Republicans, etc.... In short, the Karl Roves in that Hard-Right world figured out how to use the conglomerate-owned mass media and the "religious" rightwing to their advantage, while the Democrats tend not to get in gear until late in the election game -- too late, as it turns out.

One more thing: So many Americans lead circumscribed lives of quiet desperation, just trying to get by economically and deal with the fast-moving social and cultural changes that are going on. They look for someone to lead them through the chaos and confusion. This helps explain, as in Muslim cultures as well, the pull of religious fundamentalism and the desire for a theocracy.

Those with simple answers, simple slogans, name-recognition and celebrity tap into this social phenomenon; those who "do" nuance, who understand complexity, who listen to what reality is telling them, tend to be dismissed (Stevenson, Kerry). Hence, George W. Bush -- who thinks with his "gut," exhibits no curiosity, admits no mistakes, you "know where he stands" -- hence is able to lead so many down the greased ramp toward an incipient American fascism.

The Hard-Right has been able to subtly shift the voting public's attention away from economic issues -- i.e., those that truly and often negatively affect their daily lives -- to a kind of cultural class struggle, fanning the flames of fright against enemies they don't know but fear greatly (homosexuals, immigrants, secularists, et al).

The political divide is strong, immense and real. It seems fairly constant, not destined to disappear anytime soon. If you examine it closely, you can see that the coastal states and those with huge population-centers tend to be more liberal, secular, diverse, well-educated, in touch with foreign cultures. Those internal states, among them the once Solid (Democratic) South, are less diverse, more religiously-affiliated, less conversant with the larger world beyond our borders.....

The other war was the Cold War. Our obsession with, and fear of, world communism provided a unifying container for Americans, a way of approaching the world that made sense, an enemy all Americans could revile. Certainly, the American rightwing could concentrate on that enemy, using fear of communist expansion as their ticket to power. When the Wall came down in East Germany, when the entire communist system imploded of its own contradictions in the Soviet Union and its satellites, a new "enemy" had to be identified.

That new enemy became change itself, the social and political landscape that was shifting so rapidly -- symbolized by everything we understand by the term "The Sixties" -- causing such confusion and personal/social upheaval. Some found comfort in their churches, which offered more simple ways of observing and dealing with the rapidly changing scene around them. Some looked for possible progenitors to punish for all that confusing change; the new "devils" became homosexuals, secular liberals, feminists, immigrants, and so on.....

Of course, if he were smart -- what a concept! -- Bush would start devising plans for getting out of Iraq, and engineering a just peace in the Middle East, but he's tied to the neo-con agenda of "changing the geopolitical map" in that area of the world (while controlling the oilfields and establishing military bases there, of course), and to backing Ariel Sharon in whatever he wants to do in the Occupied Territories. So it's unlikely there will be any meaningful breakthroughs on the Palestine/Israel issue, and probably not much positive happening in Iraq. But lots of negative stuff will happen, for sure, including a rise in terrorism directed at Americans and our allies."

More here


A pity such a sophisticate does not know the difference between "forego" (go before) and "forgo" (give up). Such a simpleton!

posted by JR 7:28 PM

Tuesday, November 23, 2004

 

TO RECAP:

In the wake of George Bush's reelection, we are now getting a sense of just how estranged are the Democratic-party elite from the American public, and the level of contempt that the former group feels for the latter. Liberals who yammer on ceaselessly about "tolerance" and "diversity" don't seem inclined to extend those concepts to many of their fellow citizens, whom they portray as religious bigots, racist rednecks, and generally stupid people. As the Wall Street Journal's "Best of the Web" reported on November 10, an entire thread on BillMaher.com, the website of the HBO talk-show host, was devoted to the issue of "Shooting Republicans, ethical? Discuss."

Of course, we expect such stuff in the fever swamps of internet conspiracy theories. But the rot is more widespread. Blue states have come to believe that they are too good to associate with the peckerwoods who reelected George Bush. For instance, on a recent installment of the McLaughlin Group, Lawrence O'Donnell, a major Democratic operative and alleged "political analyst," suggested that the election will lead to serious consideration of blue-state secession from the Union....

More here

posted by JR 8:52 PM

Monday, November 22, 2004

 

BRIAN LEITER: ANOTHER VAST LEFTIST EGO

Leiter's comment on the recent U.S. Presidential election:

"The results of the U.S. election were a resounding victory for fascist theocracy and war-mongering. A philosopher from England, who wrote to me this morning, no doubt expresses the view of the civilized world about Bush's victory: "The brains of a hamster, the religious and moral views of a savage, the record of an almost complete failure. And yet the winner of the popular vote." "

For more on the vast Leiter ego I reproduce below the first part of a heavily linked post from last year by Pejman. It should give readers as good an idea as anything I could say about what Leiter is like. Pejman, like many others, goes on to demolish Leiter's arguments and assertions but the vast Leiter ego seems to be totally unaffected by such demolitions and Leiter certainly does not acknowledge any truth in them. So he is basically a poor man's Chomsky -- with all the intellectual dishonesty that entails




For those of you who have the pleasure of being ignorant of his existence, Brian Leiter is a law and philosophy professor at the University of Texas at Austin. I first became aware of him via this post from the Volokh Conspiracy. I'm quite egotistical, as anyone who knows me will tell you, but even my rather large ego was unprepared for the amount of self-worship that is found over at Leiter's blog--self-worship that is coupled with an unremittingly nasty and despicable attitude towards anyone who might disagree with him.

Such nastiness is leveled at all sorts of people: Josh Cherniss (twice, no--make that three times), the supposedly "morally hopeless" David Bernstein and other "hopeless folks at the Volokh Conspiracy" (though Leiter assures us he means "nothing harsh" by the term, at least in Bernstein's case), Glenn Reynolds (who is apparently "depraved"), another juvenile shot at Volokh Conspirators is leveled in the last paragraph of this post, conservative law professors in general, the OxBloggers (twice--this post included a snide and substanceless aside against Steve Sachs, yet another shot at the Volokh Conspiracy, still another shot at David Bernstein, more snark directed at Reynolds, calling Stuart Buck's comments "moronic", and making utterly nonsensical remarks regarding the value of a PhD in political science with this attack on Dan Drezner. (Buck and Drezner respond by thoroughly annihilating Leiter's childish drivel--I referenced their posts here.)

In seeking to justify his thoroughly disgusting lack of civility, Leiter penned this self-serving post in which he declaimed as follows:

One of the pernicious aspects of the blogosphere--a consequence, obviously, of the fact that contributions to it are not subject to any screening for qualifications or content--is that those who are basically ignorant, or inane, or trivial, can adopt all the forms and poses and mannerisms of those who aren't.

A civility norm helps sustain the charade. The demand for civility is tantamount to the demand to accord a legitimacy to that which lacks it, to treat the "less they know, the less they know it" blather as though it were "thoughtful," "well-reasoned," and "an interesting perspective."

[. . .]

Plainly my rather brusque treatment of, say, the overreaching Mr. Cherniss is upsetting to all those other bloggers who are similarly situated. (One victim of my polemics even wrote and asked for a detailed critique of his intellectual failings! I suggested he enroll in the law school or the philosophy department here, where I'm paid to help students develop their intellectual skills.) My blog site is not meant to be a remedial class for self-important pontificators who overreach both their abilities and their achievements in Cyberspace. This blog site has modest aims: it includes supplemental information to my various academic rankings sites, as well as miscellaneous musings on cognate academic matters (and a few close-to-home obsessions, like the Texas Taliban). I am rather astonished that some appear to think that every time I make an offhand remark about a Chernissian character, I have acquired an obligation to conduct tutorials. Ezra Pound remarks, "You can not talk to the ignorant about lies, since they have no criteria." I don't have the time to supply all the criteria.

If this fantastic amount of fatuous drivel repulses you regarding Leiter's reptilian character, you're not alone. It is necessary to quote it, however, to understand the perverted rules of debate adhered to by Leiter.

All of this is a prelude to this post where Leiter turns his dull and laughable debating style against me for my apostasy in having criticized Noam Chomsky twice for his recent remarks regarding the level of anti-Semitism in the West (recall that Chomsky said that anti-Semitism in the West "scarcely exists now, though it did in the past.") Leiter, a thoroughgoing Chomskyite acolyte, takes offense at my apostasy, and now takes his turn in trying to prove that two plus two equals lettuce.....




And one of the commenters on Pejman's post was rather to the point in saying of Leiter:

Ah. Yet another pretentious prat lamenting the fact that }**horror**{ the little people have access to global publishing tools!. Yawn. You're rather late on this count, Professor. We've been listening to stuck up, self-important people like you piffering about that for years now.

posted by JR 9:06 PM

Sunday, November 21, 2004

 

A GOOD COMMENT ON DUMBFUCKISTAN

Comment lifted whole from the comments section of The People's Republic of Seabrook -- a post in which "Dumbfuckistan" was proposed as a new name for the "Red" states


On November 19, 2004 05:33 PM, John Masterson wrote:

I think this name fits, and it's extremely important for us to use it as much as we can. First off, let's just face the facts: dumfuckistan is loaded with all kinds of people who we don't fancy as being as priveledged as ourselves. So fuck 'em!

As a left-winger, I have one fundamental principle that guides me in this life: people who disagree with me are inherently inferior, in every possible way. When I'm not damning The Bell Curve, I insist that my IQ is higher than those I disagree with.

We have to convince everyone that good left-wingers are the elite, and that's that. We're better than others. We're morally and intellectually superior, and there's no question about it. Anyone who would offer the slightest hesitancy to agree with me is just a fantatical, homophobic bigot. And I'm gonna keep on telling everyone until the whole world understands. And those who don't understand are unquestionably too stupid to understand.

I'm tired of diversity. The cliche worked good for a time, but we know now that the republicans have put blacks in more important positions than we have. Furthermore, blacks and hispanics are starting to vote for republicans in increasing numbers. I never did like "those people" all that much, but now that it appears that some of them aren't obediently supporting our candidates I think it's time for a radical solution.

Lincoln was wrong. He freed the slaves but now some of their descendants are voting republican. Just the kind of conspiracy you'd expect from Lincoln, who was a republican. Blacks were okay in the old days when they were kept ignorant and just voted the way we wanted. But now they are becoming more educated and asking pesky questions. Can we just ship them all away? The have no place in Blue America.

And mothers! What is there problem? They are moving more towards the GOP as well. Goddamned hetero breeders! What's wrong with them? If they keep this up there's just going to be more and more of them. We need to let these people know they have no place in our America.

I used to care a lot about the poor people. But what do I get in return from them? Besides, there's a lot of poverty in red America. But hey, not my fault. Fuck those poor people in rural America. Fuck them all.

An indians! My God, have you noticed how many indian reservations are in the red states? Those savages were okay when we could use their images and mis-quote there revered leaders in our environmental fund-raising schemes. But the redman lives in the red states. Fuck him, too!

Most importantly, coming out of this election it's quite clear that the left's political leaders have led us to a catastrophe. But I can't blame them and I certainly can't take a good look at myself. There's NO WAY that I could have been on the wrong side of an issue, it's inconceivable. So I make up outrageous charges and direct them towards people who aren't so easily duped by the things that dupe me. Dumfucks!

Furthermore, I like the idea of secession. I like it because it makes me think of cutting away something like a tumor. There's no room in America for people who disagree with me.

Most importantly, referring to vast swaths of the country as helpless dumfucks saves me the hassle of actually figuring out why they voted the way they did. To do so would mean me removing myself from my ideological cocoon. I don't want to do that. The way I see it, I can just cozy up to people who think exactly as I think. And we can charm each other with how brilliant we are, and laugh at the fools who think differently.

From there, we can cast aspersions towards the vast middle of the road that actually decides the elections in this country. And if we call them names and ridicule them we will probably greatly enhance our chances of winning in '08.

Talk about dumbfucks.

The comment above is of course a satire on Leftist elitism but I suspect that the original post that it refers to was at least partly satirical too. Another more serious comment in the same thread is very much to the point as well:


On November 12, 2004 04:24 PM, bob wrote:

I think the map and the term "Dumbfuckistan" are clever and funny. Unfortunately the humor is ultimately based on the assumption that if a person doesn't vote blue, they are stupid and/or wrong.

I don't think that's the case (most of the time). And by and large I think the people have spoken. So how does W "reach out" to a political segment that assumes anyone who voted for him is a dumbfuck. Furthermore, is such a political segment prevalent (or rational) enough to be worth reaching out to in the first place?

posted by JR 7:55 PM

Saturday, November 20, 2004

 

DUMB ELITES

Writing in The New York Times, author Gary Wills made this observation about the inhabitants of the nation he calls home: "Can a people that believes more fervently in the Virgin Birth than in evolution still be called an Enlightened nation?" Since the re-election of President George W. Bush, several members of the chattering class have complained about the boorishness of their fellow citizens. More specifically, they have bemoaned the voting habits of religiously motivated dolts -- that group whose moral convictions foster such civility as still exists in our country....

Most conspicuously, Gary's pals believe (despite biological "hints" and 5,000 years of civilized history to the contrary) that a family comprised of two mommies or two daddies serves kids quite as well as one in which children derive their most intimate portrait of family relationships from a mother and a father -- a domestic unit within which marital vows have actual reproductive consequences. (Thirty years ago, Bi-Coastal Cosmopolitans dogmatically declared that divorce was no big deal and that the biggest problem facing kids born out of wedlock was the bigoted stigma attached to them.)

Elite Starbuckeroos also believe, regardless of the facts, that underfunding is the real reason public education so miserably fails minority students. With blind faith, they cling to the doctrine that bureaucrats are more trustworthy than a child's parents and that "more of the same" is vastly preferable to options that might undermine political allies.

Smarter-than-thous are also convinced that dismembering a fully formed baby in its mother's birth canal is a woman's choice, while protecting kangaroo rats from extinction is a sacred obligation.

They believe that "Sex and the City" entertainment is morally insignificant, whereas a dramatic presentation of "The Passion" is a cinematic crisis meriting serious editorial response.

They believe that a cross exhibited in a jar of urine is a mark of open- mindedness, but a tiny version of the same figure displayed on Los Angeles' county seal constitutes an intolerant imposition of faith.

Mental Incredibles hail Nicole Kidman's liquid tryst with a 10-year-old as "pushing the envelope," but find the motto "In God We Trust" an international embarrassment.

They declare that Howard Stern's broadcasts are constitutionally protected, but deem it prudent to monitor certain pulpits for hate speech.

They believe that deficits are "generational warfare" when they arise from tax cuts, but "investments in the future" when produced by expanded government programs.

Secular savants believe that SUVs constitute a greater threat than MTV, that minuscule increases in air pollution merit more vilification than a gang of corporate pimps who've been corrupting children for more than two decades.

They believe that secondhand smoke is more deadly than sexual promiscuity, that politics trumps personal morality and that political correctness provides absolution for chronic narcissism.

They think that having three sets of children by at least as many partners isn't nearly as reprehensible as failing to support the Kyoto accords.

They believe, above all else, in the superiority of elite opinion, and in the cultural prestige that attends membership in this mutual veneration society.


More here

posted by JR 9:18 PM

Friday, November 19, 2004

 

MORE CONDESCENDING ELITIST THINKING

"Democrats need to stop being "the other party of big business" and reclaim their base: working Americans. Those of us with other hot-button issues need to have the political courage to put them behind our first priority of taking back the working class. This segment, frankly, finds many of our views strange. But if we can show them that a vote for the Dems is a vote for their own economic well-being, then we can begin reintroducing social issues. We will never win the working class back unless we shift attention from these issues and back to economics. Convince people who work for a living that Dems are looking out for them, not Bill O'Reilly, and you start to undo the damage started by McGovern and you begin reclaiming red states."

More here

posted by JR 7:51 PM

Thursday, November 18, 2004

 

THE UNREALITY-BASED ELITE

As the furor over the election dies down, with more unseemly whining from sore losers and some unseemly gloating from sore winners, certain stereotypes of Bush voters continue to have a lot of currency among disgruntled liberals. One of them is that Bush supporters, and conservatives in general, are dumb, ignorant, and out of touch with reality. This notion has been bandied about with quite a bit of smugness. Some on the left have humbly taken to calling themselves "the reality-based community."

The idea that Bush voters are reality-challenged is based partly on surveys showing that a large percentage of Bush supporters believe, despite evidence to the contrary, that Iraq under Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction or a program to develop them. Many also persist in the belief that Iraq had substantial ties to the Al Qaeda. Other Republicans who support tougher environmental and labor standards incorrectly assume that Bush favors these positions as well.

Is this a damning indictment of Bush voters and conservatives? George Mason University law professor David Bernstein, a libertarian who was highly critical of both candidates in the past election, points out on the Volokh Conspiracy blog that in other surveys, Republicans have on average scored higher than Democrats on knowledge of political issues than Democrats -- though voters across the board tend to be woefully ill-informed. Bernstein speculates that in the more recent polls, ignorant Bush supporters were likely to pick answers flattering to Bush, while ignorant Kerry voters did the opposite.

Furthermore, on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda, the evidence leaves room for some ambiguity. I know intelligent and well-informed people who believe it is quite likely that Hussein managed to get his stockpiles out of the country before the invasion. As for collaboration between Hussein's regime and terrorist groups, it clearly did exist; the only question is how substantial it was......

A particularly amusing instance of the "Americans voted for Bush because they're so dumb" trope occurred in a post-election discussion at the online magazine Slate.com. Laura Kipnis, a professor of media studies at Northwestern University, noted that "The United States ranks 14th out of 15 industrialized countries in per capita education spending." In fact, comparisons conducted by the international Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development have found that only four countries -- Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, and Norway -- spend more per pupil on primary and secondary education than the United States. We also spend a higher percentage of our gross domestic product on education than most other industrialized nations. But Kipnis's statistic (for which she was unable to provide a source, saying that she used it in her last book but currently had no access to her notes) fits neatly into the stereotypes of American stupidity and greed.

In other news, a poll conducted on Nov. 3 showed that 13 percent of all voters believed Bush had stolen the election. (That adds up to about a quarter of Kerry voters.) Another 10 percent believed he had won it "on a technicality." After Salon.com, a strongly anti-Bush online magazine, published an article debunking various election fraud theories, the author, Farhad Marjoo, was deluged with e-mails asking if he was on the Republican payroll. "Reality-based," indeed.

More here

posted by JR 8:57 PM

Wednesday, November 17, 2004

 

CONSERVATIVES ARE NOW "AVATARS OF IGNORANCE"

How kind and noble of Mr Timothy M. Gay to set us right on that. An excerpt:

"Encouraging fundamentalist preachers to pound their pulpits and inveigh against gay people has consequences. It puts men and women in communities across this country at personal and professional risk. There's nothing more despicable than creating a phony political issue (just how many gay couples are clamoring for marriage certificates in the state of Ohio, anyhow?) and preying on people's prejudices.... through Lincoln's resolve -- our nation overcame a cataclysm of hate to stop the Union from dissolving. Back then, certain avatars of ignorance were called Know-Nothings, which, come to think of it, is an apt description of more than a few right-wingers today."

More here

Interesting that he should have chosen a word from the Hindu religion to describe Christian conservatives. It would have been clearer if he had said "embodiments" instead of "avatars". But apparently other religions are great. It is just Christianity that is evil. I wonder whom he thinks he is going to persuade by such talk? It seems clear that he is just acclaiming his own superiority. After all, only a superior person would even know what an "avatar" was!

posted by JR 10:35 PM

Tuesday, November 16, 2004

 

ANOTHER ELITIST HYMN OF HATE TOWARDS MAINSTREAM AMERICA

An article by Dan Savage in "The Portland Mercury". Excerpts:

"Liberals, progressives, and Democrats do not live in a country that stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Canada to Mexico. We live on a chain of islands. We are citizens of the Urban Archipelago, the United Cities of America. We live on islands of sanity, liberalism, and compassion--New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Seattle, St. Louis, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and on and on. And we live on islands in red states too--a fact obscured by that state-by-state map. Denver and Boulder are our islands in Colorado; Austin is our island in Texas; Las Vegas is our island in Nevada; Miami and Fort Lauderdale are our islands in Florida. Citizens of the Urban Archipelago reject heartland "values" like xenophobia, sexism, racism, and homophobia, as well as the more intolerant strains of Christianity that have taken root in this country. And we are the real Americans. They--rural, red-state voters, the denizens of the exurbs--are not real Americans. They are rubes, fools, and hate-mongers.....

For Democrats, it's the cities, stupid--not the rural areas, not the prickly, hateful "heartland," but the sane, sensible cities.... The Republicans have the federal government--for now. But we've got Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, New York City (Bloomberg is a Republican in name only), and every college town in the country. We're everywhere any sane person wants to be. Let them have the shitholes, the Oklahomas, Wyomings, and Alabamas. We'll take Manhattan.....

To red-state voters, to the rural voters, residents of small, dying towns, and soulless sprawling exburbs, we say this: Fuck off. Your issues are no longer our issues. We're going to battle our bleeding-heart instincts and ignore pangs of misplaced empathy. We will no longer concern ourselves with a health care crisis that disproportionately impacts rural areas....

When it comes to the environment, our new policy is this: .... Fuck the mountains in West Virginia--send us the power generated by cleanly burned coal, you rubes, and be sure to wear lifejackets to bed.....

It's no secret what the urban population is against--the Bush administration and its red armies have done us the favor of making it a cinch to identify: We oppose their sub-moronic, "faith-based" approach to life, and, as stated above, we hereby relinquish our liberal tendency to sympathize with their lack of, say, livable working conditions, a family wage, and a national health care program.....

Unlike the people who flee from cities in search of a life free from disagreement and dark skin, we are for contentiousness, discourse, and the heightened understanding of life that grows from having to accommodate opposing viewpoints. We're for opposition. And just to be clear: The non-urban argument, the red state position, isn't oppositional, it's negational--they are in active denial of the existence of other places, other people, other ideas. It's reactionary utopianism, and it is a clear and present danger; urbanists should be upfront and unapologetic about our contempt for their politics and their negational values....

Let's see, what else are we for? How about education? Cities are beehives of intellectual energy; students and teachers are everywhere you look, studying, teaching, thinking. In Seattle, you can barely throw a rock without hitting a college. It's time to start celebrating that, because if the reds have their way, advanced degrees will one day be awarded based on the number of Bible verses a person can recite from memory. In the city, people ask you what you're reading. Outside the city, they ask you why you're reading. You do the math--and you'll have to, because non-urbanists can hardly even count their own children at this point. For too long now, we've caved to the non-urban wisdom that decries universities as bastions of elitism and snobbery. Guess what: That's why we should embrace them. Outside of the city, elitism and snobbery are code words for literacy and complexity.....

These, of course, are broad strokes. We all know that not everyone who lives in the suburbs is a raving neo-Christian idiot. The raving neo-Christian idiots are winning, however, so we need to take the fight to them.... It's time for the Democratic Party to stop pandering to bovine, non-urban America. You don't apologize for being right--especially when you're at war".

More here

posted by JR 7:26 PM

Monday, November 15, 2004

 

Why the Post-Election rage?


"The wrath of the losers is more than pique over a hotly contested election, even one contested in wartime. Bush haters feel affronted by America's failure to defer to their wisdom. Pundits, novelists, historians, movie stars, eminentoes, and glitterati of every kind told us that Bush was dumb, crooked, bigoted, bloodthirsty, incompetent, and unpopular the world over, yet 51 percent of the electorate ignored them. The election was worse than a defeat; it was a diss. All was lost, including honor."

More here

posted by JR 10:25 PM

Sunday, November 14, 2004

 

WELL-KNOWN LEFTIST BLOGGER TELLS US WHAT HE IS

Yglesias speaks:

"Declining revenues (and the fact that we lost) aside, I personally find the end of campaign season rather liberating. Over at The Gadflyer, for example, Jonathan Weiler says liberals need to be more careful about calling Bush (or his woefully underinformed supporters -- not all his supporters, to be sure, but a majority of them) stupid or ignorant or whatever lest we be termed elitists. This is probably right, but for the next several years I don't need to care and this is just a weblog written for the pleasure of myself and whoever chooses to read it. I'll be as elitist as I want to be which, to be perfectly honest, is pretty damn elitist."

And just one of the contempt-laden comments on the post: "FWIW, even rednecks have memories".

posted by JR 9:43 PM

Saturday, November 13, 2004

 

ELITIST CONTEMPT FOR THE LAW

Not just one offence but repeated offences: Drives illegally, speeds and then lies. But the law is only for "little people", of course

Labor [Leftist] Senator Ruth Webber has been ordered to appear in a Perth court to face two charges relating to her election day brush with the law, including wilfully misleading police. West Australian Senator Webber is charged with driving without a licence and wilfully misleading police, but failed to make a scheduled first appearance yesterday in Joondalup Magistrates Court. Magistrate Geoffrey Lawrence granted an adjournment and ordered Senator Webber to appear on November 22.

On October 9, the day of the federal election, as she travelled between polling booths, Senator Webber, 39, was issued with a speeding fine after being stopped by police on Grand Boulevard, Joondalup, in Perth's northern suburbs, at 11.30am. She was allegedly clocked driving a commonwealth car at 67km/h in a 50km/h hour zone.

The matter did not end there because police claim Senator Webber did not have a valid West Australian driver's licence. It had been suspended because of unpaid fines. When questioned by police, Senator Webber is alleged to have said she held an ACT driver's licence. According to police, it was later determined she did not, and she was charged with wilfully misleading police, an offence that carries a maximum penalty of a $1600 fine. Senator Webber was also charged with driving under suspension, which if she were convicted could result in further fines, jail or a licence suspension of up to a year.

More here.

posted by JR 9:19 PM

Friday, November 12, 2004

 

CONFESSIONS OF A CULTURAL ELITIST

By UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE/TED RALL

Win or Lose, Kerry Voters Are Smarter Than Bush Voters

NEW YORK--Democratic hand wringing is surrealy out of hand. No one is criticizing the morally incongruous Kerry for running against a war he voted for while insisting that he would have voted for it again. Party leaders have yet to consider that NAFTA, signed into law under Clinton, may have cost them high-unemployment Ohio. No, Indiana Senator Evan Bayh, darling of the "centrist" Democratic Leadership Council, blames something else: the perception "in the heartland" that Democrats are a "bicoastal cultural elite that is condescending at best and contemptuous at worst to the values that Americans hold in their daily lives."

Firstly, living in the sticks doesn't make you more American. Rural, urban or suburban--they're irrelevant. San Francisco's predominantly gay Castro district is every bit as red, white and blue as the Texas panhandle. But if militant Christianist Republicans from inland backwaters believe that secular liberal Democrats from the big coastal cities look upon them with disdain, there's a reason. We do, and all the more so after this election.

I spent my childhood in fly-over country, in a decidedly Republican town in southwest Ohio. It was a decent place to grow up, with well-funded public schools and only the occasional marauding serial killer to worry about. The only ethnic restaurant sold something called "Mandarin Chinese," Midwestese for cold noodles slathered with sugary sauce. The county had three major employers: the Air Force, Mead Paper, and National Cash Register--and NCR was constantly laying people off. Folks were nice, but depressingly closed-minded. "Well," they'd grimace when confronted with a new musical genre or fashion trend, "that's different." My suburb was racially insular, culturally bland and intellectually unstimulating. Its people were knee-jerk conformists. Faced with the prospect of spending my life underemployed, bored and soused, I did what anyone with a bit of ambition would do. I went to college in a big city and stayed there.

Mine is a common story. Every day in America, hundreds of our most talented young men and women flee the suburbs and rural communities for big cities, especially those on the West and East Coasts. Their youthful vigor fuels these metropolises--the cultural capitals of the blue states. These oases of liberal thinking--New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Boston--are homes to our best-educated people, most vibrant popular culture and most innovative and productive businesses. There are exceptions--some smart people move from cities to the countryside--but the best and brightest gravitate to places where liberalism rules.

Maps showing Kerry's blue states appended to the "United States of Canada" separated from Bush's red "Jesusland" are circulating by email. Though there is a religious component to the election results, the biggest red-blue divide is intellectual. "How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?" asked the headline of the Daily Mirror in Great Britain, and the underlying assumption is undeniable. By any objective standard, you had to be spectacularly stupid to support Bush.

72 percent who cast votes for George W. Bush, according to a University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) and Knowledge Networks poll, believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or active WMD programs. 75 percent think that a Saddam-Al Qaeda link has been proven, and 20 percent say Saddam ordered 9/11. Of course, none of this was true. Kerry voters were less than half as idiotic: 26 percent of Democrats bought into Bush-Cheney's WMD lies, and 30 percent into Saddam-Al Qaeda.

Would Bush's supporters have voted for him even if they had known he was a serial liar? Perhaps their hatred of homosexuals and slutty abortion vixens would have prompted them to make the same choice--an idiotic perversion of priorities. As things stand, they cast their ballots relying on assumptions that were demonstrably false.

Educational achievement doesn't necessarily equal intelligence. After all, Bush holds a Harvard MBA. Still, it bears noting that Democrats are better educated than Republicans. You are 25 percent more likely to hold a college degree if you live in the Democratic northeast than in the red state south. Blue state voters are 25 percent more likely, therefore, to understand the historical and cultural ramifications of Bush's brand of bull-in-a-china-shop foreign policy.

Inland Americans face a bigger challenge than coastal "cultural elitists" when it comes to finding high-quality news coverage. The best newspapers, which routinely win prizes for their in-depth local and national reporting and staffers overseas, line the coasts. So do the cable TV networks with the broadest offerings and most independent radio stations. Bush Country makes do with Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity syndicated on one cookie-cutter AM outlet after another. Citizens of the blue states read lackluster dailies stuffed with generic stories cut and pasted from wire services. Given their dismal access to high-quality media, it's a minor miracle that 40 percent of Mississippians turned out for Kerry.

So our guy lost the election. Why shouldn't those of us on the coasts feel superior? We eat better, travel more, dress better, watch cooler movies, earn better salaries, meet more interesting people, listen to better music and know more about what's going on in the world. If you voted for Bush, we accept that we have to share the country with you. We're adjusting to the possibility that there may be more of you than there are of us. But don't demand our respect. You lost it on November 2.

Source

I have put up the above article by Ted Rall in full because Yahoo articles tend not to stay up for long.

The article is of course an unashamed claim of superiority for Democrats and "Blue State" inhabitants. Insofar as it is an argument rather than mere assertion, however, it is easily demolished.

The only real support that he can find for his claim that smarter people vote Democrat is that more highly educated people tend Left. That is only partly true. As it shows here, Bush and Kerry in fact split the college-educated vote evenly. It was only among those with a postgraduate education that Kerry got a majority -- and that is hardly surprising given the heavily Leftist nature of the educational system -- particularly at its upper levels. The wonder really is that all the Leftist propaganda of the educational system had so little effect on those with only a first degree. What could be preventing all the Leftist indoctrination from working? Could it be that smarter people are so inherently conservative that lots of them resist the indoctrination? If we allow for the indoctrination, I think the education data suggest that smarter people tend to be inherently conservative! And there is of course direct evidence that Leftist attitudes are most characteristic of people with LOW IQ!

Rall's second argument is that "Blue States" are better places to live. Whether that is true of course depends on whether you think that places like New York and Detroit are good places to live. And there are certainly differences of opinion about that!

Even more questionable, however, is Rall's assumption that the Democrat majority in the "Blue States" comes solely from the highly achieving people there. It does not. It is mainly the huge minority presence in the coastal cities that turns their States "Blue". Without the minority vote, the "Blue States" would probably be redder (more conservative) than the "Red States"!

As for Rall's claim that Democrats do better economically ("We eat better, travel more, dress better, watch cooler movies, earn better salaries... ") the fact is that among people earning over $50,000 per annum, 56 percent voted for Bush versus only 43% for Kerry (reference again here). But one must not trouble Leftists with facts, of course.

So Rall's attempt to provide some sort of objective support for his view that Democrat voters really are superior falls by the wayside and leaves him as simply and baselessly arrogant.

posted by JR 7:33 PM

Thursday, November 11, 2004

 

LEFTIST ARROGANCE IN AUSTRALIA

Voters in Western democracies tend to be a tough-minded lot. On October 9, a clear majority of Australians decided to re-elect the Coalition. This outcome was despite actor Toni Collette's threat that she would slit her wrists "if Howard gets in again" and irrespective of Julian Burnside's intention to consider "leaving Australia if John Howard were re-elected".....

In September 2003, the Australian leftist, John Pilger, declared that the evidence in his documentary Breaking the Silence could cost George Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard their jobs when each leader went to the polls. In a piece-to-camera at the end of his film, Pilger suggested that "public opinion" might ensure the defeat of the governments that constituted the Coalition of the Willing. But Howard - and now Bush - achieved re-election with an increased vote and Blair has a reasonable chance of winning the next general election in Britain.

The US, like Australia, is a politically divided nation. Bush received the support of about 51 per cent of voting Americans last week; Howard's comparable figure was about 53 per cent. Yet Bush's total vote is higher than that achieved by the Democrat's Bill Clinton on two occasions and Howard's total vote in 2004 almost matches popular Labor prime minister Bob Hawke's best result.

It is understandable that those citizens of the US, Britain and Australia who oppose the Coalition of the Willing in Iraq will wish to point out that many of their fellow citizens agree with them. Yet it is unreasonable for those who oppose the Bush/Blair/Howard position to dismiss those who disagree with them as idiots or greedy or whatever.

Such sentiments were heard in the lead-up to the Australian and US elections. In Australia, for example, ABC Radio National presenter Terry Lane declared that "the voter is incorrigibly self-centred, self-regarding and just plain selfish". Unlike Lane, it seems. Actor Chris Haywood maintained that "everyone" was "blackmailed by mortgages". Film critic Margaret Pomeranz told a rally: "We always thought we were a decent country; I think that the word decency has been forgotten."

After the election, writing in the New Matilda online magazine, Julian Burnside railed that Australia's "most basic values have been betrayed - sold away for a $600 hand-out". He seems unaware that, for millions of Australians, a $600 payment for each child is a lot of money and that there is no incompatibility between banking a government cheque and supporting "basic values".

During the election campaign Melbourne academic Judith Brett complained that "it is hard for people wanting to cast their vote on the basis of their view of the national interest rather than their self-interest to find arguments about the national interest from either party". In fact, both John Howard and Mark Latham argued that their policies were in the national interest. Brett, however, had a different idea about what the nationa