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Location: Visitation between Wal-Mart & Home Depot
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Quote:
Originally Posted by leftydan6
I see a lot of talk on these threads on how someone is being "elitist". So that begs the question, what's wrong with being elite?
Aren't we taught as children that we should always try to be the best we can be? Aren't we told in this country that the dream of being an American is that anyone can grow up to be anything they want? Don't we work hard in high school so we can go to an Elite college so we can get an elite job so we can send our children to elite schools? If those are all true, how is being an "elitist" a bad thing?
The problem with being elite is that there is an enormous, fat, blind biomass of "non-elites" who resent you for it.
Location: Visitation between Wal-Mart & Home Depot
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Redisca
There is a big difference between being elite and being elitist. For example, copious self-aggrandizement and putting down others does not make a person elite -- but it certainly makes him elitist.
I disagree on a semantic level. Golf is an elitist sport. Being a member at a country club is an elitist activity. There are elitist neighborhoods that are priced out to the majority of the populace. Nothing inherently negative about any of these things that are generally associated with elite people.
Copious self-aggrandizement and putting down others makes a person an *sshole and demonstrates trashiness. Nothing wrong with success, associating with successful people, pursuing material wealth or even thinking you are better than others. The problem is believing that people you are better than have less rights. It's just plain stupidity and trashiness if one is overt in said beliefs.
So calling out people for being elitist is now being elitist?
Hannity, O'Reilly, Limbaugh, and Coulter don't attack people for seeking education and do well in life. This is yet another lie being put forward by the left, the myth of "Right wing anti-intellectualism." The Right encourages people to seek education, but there's a difference between education and indoctrination.
It's the Right who point out the oppressive "speech codes" on campuses that punish free speech. It's the Right that points out the outright bias of many college professors against Conservative ideas. It's the Right that has to demonstrate the misstatements and outright lies in "documentaries" such as "Fahrenheit 9/11" and "An Inconvenient Truth."
Ann Coulter is a graduate of one of the top law schools in this country. Rush Limbaugh speaks about the benefits of college, while saying it wasn't right for him. Sean Hannity speaks about working his way through college and the great sense of achievement he received. O'Reilly continuously speaks about his educational background.
But none of those people use their education to bash others. When is the last time you heard Ann Coulter disparage someone for attending a less prestigious school? When did George Bush use his academic credentials - Harvard and Yale - to attack his political opponents, or use their lack of academic credentials against them?
Hannity dropped out of college.
Coulter is as elitist as they come: "If Democrats had any brains, they'd be Republicans" was her last book.
O'Reilly is one of the people who uses the term "elitist" to describe anyone who is not in agreement with him. Generally, those are Liberals.
Bush's people called Kerry an elitist, even though Bush is as elitist as they come...using family connections to "succeed" in life.
Rush Limbaugh is also a drop-out.
So what was your point?
It's not about academic credentials (though I think that Palin's academic credentials make her unqualified to lead a country or a state, but McCain's make him qualified to be a military leader, and Biden and Obama both have JDs), it's about intellectualism. It's about looking at problems with an intellectual view and not just a black and white one.
When I heard Ron Paul speak and then heard Fred Thompson, I couldn't help but cringe. Paul was vastly more intellectual and intelligent than Thompson, yet the Media went crazy over Thompson because he's a "regular guy" who drives a pickup and who speaks like Dr. Phil...forgetting the fact that he's actually part of the Hollywood Elite.
Why is it wrong to say someone is an idiot when they clearly are not thinking intellectually. I can say Mark Pryor (D-AR) is an idiot because he plainly said "you don't have to take an intelligence test to be in the senate", does that make me elitist? Does wanting leaders smarter than I am make me an elitist?
Since I am from a pretty elite background, why is it such a bad thing that I don't want people who are not as smart as I am being the leader of the country? As a Republican, I was insulted by the choice of Palin for the VP. I wanted Chuck Hagel or Ron Paul to be the VP nominee. Both men are truly intellectual elites in the Republican party, so why are the two so hated by the hardcore GOP base?
There is a big difference between being elite and being elitist. For example, copious self-aggrandizement and putting down others does not make a person elite -- but it certainly makes him elitist.
Pretty well my view, and less typing :-p
Being elite is good, being great at what you do. Being elitist is, what I believe, disparaging people who are not in the same class as you at the same thing. They are no where near the same thing, one you are and one you believe, but they are not mutually exclusive. People can be elitist without being elite...I've seen people who work at minimum wage act elitist.
There is a big difference between being elite and being elitist. For example, copious self-aggrandizement and putting down others does not make a person elite -- but it certainly makes him elitist.
Location: On the "Left Coast", somewhere in "the Land of Fruits & Nuts"
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"Elitists" is simply the new, "improved" version of Spiro Agnew's famous "nattering nabobs of negativism". It's also been noted that "elitism" is in fact a kind of "mind crime" invented by conservatives, akin to such offenses as "bourgeois sentimentality" or "rootless cosmopolitanism" in the Stalinist Soviet Union. And of course the Nazis were famously anti-intellectual, or as Hitler said, “Unfortunately one needs [intellectuals]. Otherwise, one might, I don’t know, wipe them out or something. But, unfortunately, one needs them." "A thinking mind is a dangerous thing.""We think with our blood”.
But the election has shown that the Republican obsession with exploiting anti-intellectualism and the "culture wars" has gone out of control, and as David Brooks of the New York Times wrote, "conservatives' disdain for liberal intellectuals has slipped into disdain for the educated class as a whole" and "the Republican Party is alienating educated voters."
"There was a time when conservative intellectuals raised the level of American public debate and helped to keep it sober. Those days are gone. As for political judgment, the promotion of Sarah Palin as a possible world leader speaks for itself. The Republican Party and the political right will survive, but the conservative intellectual tradition is already dead."
When people describe themselves as "elite" or "intellectuals", they mean they are smarter and know better than you. That's why the Dems get that label. The "Liberal Elite" like Obama want to play God and social engineer our society to death because they know better and feel they have the right to dictate to us.
I see a lot of talk on these threads on how someone is being "elitist". So that begs the question, what's wrong with being elite?
Aren't we taught as children that we should always try to be the best we can be? Aren't we told in this country that the dream of being an American is that anyone can grow up to be anything they want? Don't we work hard in high school so we can go to an Elite college so we can get an elite job so we can send our children to elite schools? If those are all true, how is being an "elitist" a bad thing?
Yup not necessairly a bad thing, but the question is why we teach our children to simply be elitists and spoiled rich kids. Why don't we teach them to also care about their neighbors and our society. Perhaps we should do both and in consequence the world would be a better place.
When people describe themselves as "elite" or "intellectuals", they mean they are smarter and know better than you. That's why the Dems get that label. The "Liberal Elite" like Obama want to play God and social engineer our society to death because they know better and feel they have the right to dictate to us.
Whereas the conservative elite want us to work for peanuts with no safety and health regulations and live in squalor while they drink martinis at the country club.
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