At times you just have to ask what is wrong with people. The tea partiers are mad again and are allowing themselves to be led by Sarah-frickin’-Palin. Political discourse on the Hill has degraded to name calling and temper tantrums. America is really angry right now, but very little of this anger, it seems, is built on any sort of substance. Just hearsay and party talking points. Repubs hate Dems and Dems hate Repubs. It’s a sad and non-constructive state of affairs…
…never fear though. We at Slightly Off-Topic are here to do our jobs and elevate the political discourse to a more meaningful level. I’m thinking a book geared towards the first and second grade reader ought to do the trick, right?
I wonder how many people remember A Bargain for Frances (I Can Read Book 2)
I’m starting a new party. Vote any incumbants out of office and start fresh.
I shall join your party. Hopefully, the “fresh start” will have some form of common sense.
I’m on board. However, new candidates will need to be restricted to home makers, farmers (and/or their spouse) and reliable, honest mechanics. Anyone with a law degree, medical degree, doctorate or anyone in the financial industry is strictly forbidden…
You know, I’ve thought about that, and I can’t help but think that a law degree would be a useful thing when constructing the laws of the land. Of course that could be outsourced to an appropriate staff pit, but you have to be smart enough to read legalese. As per the MDs and PhDs, I’ve known great ones and poor ones, so as with anything it has to go on a case by case basis. However, as long as we’re rebooting, we need mandatory term limits, and anyone who isn’t willing to accept them should be booted from the system.
Ah, but you don’t need lawyers to construct laws and you don’t need to read legalese if you don’t write legalese. Legalese = another word for job security. Plain, common sense wording will suffice. How many MDs and PhDs have you run into that can stick to being plain spoken and using common sense? Yes, I know issues get complicated fast. All the more reason to keep the people in charge thinking practically.
I question your definition of “smart” if you think lawyers are (I know I’m generallizing here so forgive me you lawyers putting up the good fight and avoiding B below…all 2 of you). There is a HUGE difference between A:intelligence and B:”devious/conniving/manipulative/deceitful” thought processes. A typically precludes B, and B is oft mistaken for A. Some are definitely savants given their skills at B and I won’t rule out completely that there isn’t a bit of A in there somewhere at times, especially for the most proficient B types. But wisdom from the over educated is far too rare. I’ll take my chances with the home CEOs, farmers and mechanics I’ve met over the years rather than any of the seemingly “smart” people I’ve worked with or known over the years. (docs, lawyers, profs, nobel laureates, etc.). As exhibit A1 I point to the oft used phrase (or similar), “The smart people work on Wall Street, not the SEC.” I say the Bs work on Wall Street and the As work at the SEC.
The psych folks tell us that 1 in 25 (roughly) of the general pop meet the criteria for being a sociopath and 1 in 100 the criteria for being a psychopath. Most don’t progress to being serial killers, thank goodness, but I wonder if most progress to being the next worst things- lawyer, wall street buggerer, politition, sexual predator, my ex, some combination…
I’ve heard good things about flow cytometrists though. Maybe they should make the cut? 🙂
Wow, just looked at my post. My apologies. I’m apparently one of those long winded, wisdomless, over educated, possibly sociopathic people I was raving about…
Well, there is a class view and then there’s the individual view. Lawyers are money-grubbing bastards. PhD’s know too many minutia and are worthless at the big picture. I get the temptation of the generalizations. While I’ve seen all the examples you site above, I’ve seem a seemingly endless supply of ignorance from the common man as well.
Borrowing from the Tao of Dr. Cox, though, generalizations, like statistics, are meaningless when it comes to the individual, and when electing leaders, it should always, ALWAYS be about the individual. Too often, of course, it’s about party membership or some bit of trivial crap that the press has dug out of some closet somewhere.
Therefore, when it comes to choosing leaders, We need to look at the individual. Is he/she smart? wise? have a plan? stand for something (anything)? Does he/she understand that the job means representing the people rather than protecting his/her seat? Is he/she willing to do what is right even if it means potentially losing one’s job? If the answers to the above questions are “yes,” the person gets my vote.
As per the legalese, I’d love to see it go away, but in this litigious society, I’m not sure I see that happening. You shouldn’t need a law degree to serve, but you should be willing to take the time to learn to read the stuff. It’s the safest way to be sure no one is attaching things to your bill that shouldn’t be there.
Also, yeah… flow cytometrists are a good bunch…