He’s not communicating — he’s playing a propaganda tape. The answer is Obama is Teh Debil, and Democratic Elitist Liberals are plotting to destroy Mom and Apple Pie. The question is irrevelant.

Really good posts. I am fortunate enough to have travelled extensively in Europe and Asia as well as throughout Canada and the USA/Mexico. I meet many Americans who have never been outside their county!

They say travel broadens the mind and it is true. Many narrow minded people have never been abroad, never tried to converse with people from a different culture, never eaten anything except stodge and fries. Not once have they been so far away from civilization that all modern conveniences are many hundreds of miles away. Never sat in a desert gorge and watched the stars so far away from light pollution that it seems you can almost reach out and grab a handful.

Sad really but hey, it means more space and less aggravation traveling!

Your reply I find thoughtful and though I did not bring up “elitism” it is a good topic. Elite without any negative connotation generally means the acknowledged best or excellent among a group of similar things, such as an elite class of athletes, soldiers, builders. Elite in the negative sense which goes with the charge of “elitism” seems to indicate a type of education plus a certain arrogance that said education brings with it the ability to decide for (non-elite) others what is best for them. I do not think it is appropriate to call the founding fathers “elite” in the second negative sense of the word. While they certainly thought that their proposed structure of Government was better than the King’s their obvious and explicit sentiments that such Government should be limited and protect individual’s inherent freedoms to live, choose their path and become happy. Federalism itself a testament to letting people chart their own course without excessive Federal government interference or oversight.

No wonder you prefer bombastic prognostication – ’cause you certainly struggle with historical facts.

I don’t have a pretty graph to show you, but here are the reported quarterly changes in GDP:

2008:
-0.7
+1.5
-2.7
-5.4

2009
-6.4
-0.7
+2.2
+5.6

2010
+2.7

Gosh, do you think that maybe, just maybe, all that economic destruction at the tail end of the Bush years might, just might, have something to do with the present unemployment?

What a maroon.

Regarding your request for evidence in my post, I was referring to numbers that Terry had offered earlier in this very conversation. They’re very easy to verify if you don’t know them already. They refer to Obama’s generally healthy numbers in the wake of a fairly disastrous time period which leads me to my (speculative) conclusion that America is not, in fact, filled with fools, but rather, most people can understand that no president can alter in a year or two the damage done by the preceding one, when the preceding one was Godzilla. Obama has his flaws, but as American politicians go, he’s basically as good as it gets.

I don’t believe I made any other claim that can be backed up with numbers. Regarding Americans’ lack of general education (or intellectualism), firstly I’m simply arguing that it’s become fairly common to regard “elitism” as something bad (this is also evident in this very thread) and I think the one fact that speaks to this more than any other is that most Americans (who were not born outside of this country) are mono-linguistic, and entirely unashamed of this fairly sad reality.

Most Americans have never read War and Peace (not even the English translation). Most Americans can’t tell you much about the French revolution (or the Russian one). Most Americans have never heard of Albert Schweitzer, or Rousseau, or Brahms, or Rodin, or Charles Mingus. Most Americans, without realizing it, believe in some variation on Egyptian mythology which proves that they
a) don’t know where their belief systems come from and
b) aren’t aware of how silly those belief systems are.
And the ones that claim to care so deeply about the Constitution behave as though it was written by some super natural deity rather than by a bunch of highly intellectual men, who were products of their time and WERE elitist by definition! Additionally, they were all flawed humans (like we all are) and deserve to be regarded as such.

I can go on and on but obviously don’t have the time (or inclination), to try to dig up statistics on all this to prove to you that it’s true… but if you doubt these assertions, I’m quite sure you can verify most of them fairly easily by doing some research of your own.

“If [someone] is projecting a distorted view of reality, how can that possibly help Republicans win public office?”

Yet, oddly, you accuse the Left of doing the exact same thing, and that makes perfect sense to you.

Oh! I get the difference. Liberals are evil. Got it.