House of Eratosthenes

Another “why they hate Palin” piece, this one by Evan Sayet. This one I had teetering on the brink. In fact, I wasn’t even going to read it all the way through, but the way it starts is delicious:

It just happened again.

I spend a fair amount of time at my local coffee shop. I like to do my writing outside and, besides, it gives me an opportunity to try and initiate political conversations with the people who pass by — my hope always being to begin to enlighten them as to what conservatives really believe (and not just what the leftist media tells them.)

Today, the conversation turned to Sarah Palin and my latest acquaintance blurted out: “Oh I hate her.” Since she did not yet know my politics, and since we were in Los Angeles, it is clear that she expected to hear back what you usually hear back in this city: “Yeah, I hate her, too.” Instead, I asked her why.

At this point I could have predicted her response because it’s the same response you get from liberals no matter who on the Right you’re talking about: “Because she’s stupid.” I replied: “Being stupid is no reason to hate someone, but tell me, which one of her policies do you disagree with?” It wasn’t hard to predict her response: “All of them!”

I continued to push. “Well, then, if it’s all of them, it should be easy for you to name one.” Her reply? “They’re too many to list.”

“So don’t list them, just give me one,” I said.

This went on for awhile until my new acquaintance finally admitted that she didn’t know any of Ms. Palin’s policies. Before she ran off – Democrats always run off when asked to provide facts to justify their hatred for Republicans – I looked her in the eyes and said, “If you don’t know any of her policies, perhaps you should look into them.” She promised she would. She won’t. If there are two things you can count on with Democrats, they are filled with hate and empty of facts.

Now, I suppose any time you trounce someone in an argument one-on-one, and then write up a column or a blog post about it to describe a generalized phenomenon, it’s a treacherous business you undertake. It might feel good at the time to beat somebody, after all, but there’s always someone else who’s better at debating…and it is an important thing to take into account after you’ve finished wrestling with a true lightweight, and emerged victorious simply by asking questions.

But as most of us understand by now — extrapolating this as a generalized phenomenon is more than fair. More than fair. How often has the exact same conversation been repeated? Countless times. The average liberal can no more name what exactly it is he despises about Sarah Palin, than he can name what exactly it is he likes about Barack Obama. “There’s just something about” keeps floating to the top.

The middle of Sayet’s column, not wanting to be unkind about it, but it’s a retread. It might as well have been printed up in September of ’08. In fact, there’s at least one “fact” that’s wrong. So I was going to pass it on by…but then…Sayet runs into some points that, although they have been made before, haven’t been made before too often. Not given how important they are.

They bear repeating:

And Sarah Palin ran a small business. Democrats don’t run businesses. In fact, Democrats don’t do anything. If you eliminated from the voting roll everyone who did nothing other than talk – the academic, the newscaster, the actor, the politician – and those who game the system, collecting welfare and years of unemployment benefits and “workman’s compensation” and food stamps, how many people would be left voting Democrat?

Zing.

Let’s put it this way, if having had a job – having done something that required either physical labor or risking one’s own money – were a prerequisite to work in the White House, Barack Obama would have to fire 94 percent of his top advisers. That’s a real number. Ninety four percent of Obama’s top advisers have never done anything like run a small store, paint a bridge, wire a house for electricity or anything else other than flap their lips.

Double-zing.

This is the genesis of the notion that Palin is “stupid.” Liberals are convinced that there’s something “the matter” with people who have jobs. This is what they mean by “What’s the Matter with Kansas,” Kansas being a place where people work – Hollywood, Cambridge Massachusetts, the TV studios in Manhattan are places were people talk. To the liberal, anyone who has a job must be stupid, after all, not everyone is as good a talker as they are, but surely everyone can find one excuse or another to sit at home and collect welfare.

Trifecta complete.

Now, at this point we’re very close to the end of Sayet’s column and he doesn’t explore this too much further, insofar as how it would pose a danger to progressive institutions for Palin to be seriously evaluated as a candidate for high office. So he finishes off here, right where the real story has just begun.

Palin represents something much bigger than Palin. It isn’t hockey moms or Momma Grizzlies or lipstick or GILFs or nice-lookin’ legs. What she represents is perceptive intelligence, the kind of intelligence you have to have if you work for a living, but don’t have to have if you talk for a living. You need to perceive…and based on your perceptions…make a decision that affects how, and if, you’re going to be getting your work done.

If you paint that bridge, for example, it will mean something to you if the wind is blowing too fast that day. So to do this job you’re going to have to take in some facts, and not just use them to puff up a report that services your political agenda — but modify your behavior according to those facts. Can’t fly the plane, the runway is too icy. Can’t milk the cows, it’s too cold. People who talk for a living don’t need to think this way. Their behavior is unintelligent and unconditional. Really, look into it; check out what they do, and take special notice of how incredibly constant it is.

Give a speech, and make sure it’s wonderful. Spend money. Raise taxes. Give a shout-out to someone you know who’s sitting in the audience. Talk about civil discourse. Raise money for your campaign, or someone else’s campaign. Produce a report. Raise awareness. See to it people know how to get the benefits if they are eligible. Maybe you need to start a second program to raise awareness of the existence of the first program. Show your support for a progressive cause. Rally the crowd. Make people feel good about themselves. Raise more money. Give a speech. Remind people how far we have come. But also remind them there is still a long, long way to go. Raise taxes. Give a speech.

My point is not that these things don’t do what they’re supposed to do…although, most of the time, they indeed do not. My point is that these behaviors are constant. It doesn’t matter what the situation is. These are going to be the things to do. Because they are constant and not determined by any particular situation, they are inherently unintelligent. In fact, if you put an intelligent person in the position of doing these things, over time he will have to develop a disrespect, almost an animosity, toward truth, logic, evidence and fact.

You can’t afford to be doing that when you build a building, scrape the barnacles off a boat, or load logs into a truck. In fact, in those jobs if you’re unintelligent the way our “leaders” are unintelligent, someone might very well get killed. So you need to show the intelligence God gave you in those jobs, and in addition, you have to be resourceful. Every time you make the call that it’s too ____ to do ____, if the job cannot be delayed then you need to find some different way of doing it. And that, in turn, means wandering off the prepared script. So now you really have to use your brain to figure out how, following this new process you’re making up as you go along, people might get injured, and acting on the spot to prevent that from happening.

I suppose this might look like I’m saying we’ve metastasized into a society in which unintelligent people make rules for intelligent people to follow; which, obviously, would be a regrettable situation.

Yes, that’s precisely what I am saying.

And every status quo, for whatever reason, has its defenders. When the time comes to change it there’s going to be some resistance.

And that’s why the establishment hates Sarah Palin so much. Surely you’ve noticed a lot of the hate has very little to do with Trig. A lot of the hate has very little to do with ideological position. She’s upsetting the establishment; the non-partisan, non-intelligent establishment.

Hat tip to Linkiest.

Cross-posted at Washington Rebel.

Zing.
- rob | 01/19/2011 @ 10:32
Read it. That was good.
- philmon | 01/19/2011 @ 14:40
It would appear also that Progressive/Oppressive’s also like to give and get awards.
- wtng2fish | 01/20/2011 @ 07:02
The whole post was excellent. I want to archive it for myself en toto.

You brought out a couple of outstanding points that should not be glossed over. The first one is for the purpose of explaining how we end up with the John McCains and the Newt Gingrichs. i.e. people who start out ostensibly conservative and then end up becoming a moderate form of statist, political elitist.

“In fact, if you put an intelligent person in the position of doing these things, over time he will have to develop a disrespect, almost an animosity, toward truth, logic, evidence and fact.”

Your next statement reflects what the founding fathers new was inevitable in any government where people make government their career, especially when unconstrained by the people enforcing their Constitution.

“I suppose this might look like I’m saying we’ve metastasized into a society in which unintelligent people make rules for intelligent people to follow; which, obviously, would be a regrettable situation.”
- Moshe Ben-David | 01/20/2011 @ 08:20
I’m confused, Morgan.

You extolled the neurotic Chinese Mother’s brand of creating high achieving, Ivy League elitists the other day and now you’re championing the basic common sense epitomized by the every day, lowly educated, working man.

Where are you going with this set of opposing view points?
- Daphne | 01/20/2011 @ 18:34
I’m doubly- confused. When did they become mutually exclusive?

What happened to “if one guy can do it anywhere, then anybody can do it everywhere”? Is that not the spirit that built the country?

If we really have to choose between playing the violin with some genuine skill, and thinking logically & usefully…boy oh boy, we might as well just pack it in.
- mkfreeberg | 01/20/2011 @ 18:52
Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think that Mark ever extolled the idea of Chinese mothers creating high achieving, Ivy League elitists. Probably because that’s not what Chinese mothers do. What they do is instill discipline that doesn’t exist in the average Ivy League graduate school snot. They don’t coddle little Yang or fill him with silly ideas about self-esteem that wasn’t earned. They raise little Yang to understand that 99% of the world isn’t going to ever care where you graduated from, and that you had better learn lots of different skills and always remember that the world doesn’t owe you a living.

The only reason that Chinese mothers seem neurotic to the modern western mind, is because we’ve bought into so much idiotic nonsense that has crept into academia and colleges of education since WWII.
Lance de Boyle would probably back me up on this. I was married to a government school teacher for 21 years and helped her get her master’s degree. I know up close and personal what they teach in the colleges of education.

I’ve watched seven nieces and nephews be home schooled and when they were reaching high school graduation, they were bombarded by offers from Ivy League schools because it turns out that such “classically” trained students can run rings around their government school cohorts and need virtually no attention from academic “counselors.”
- Moshe Ben-David | 01/21/2011 @ 06:00
Many people who find conservatism can trace that beginning to a conversation which they could not answer. Conservatism is a process, an attitude. We cannot learn that which we believe we already know.
- xlibrl | 01/21/2011 @ 11:40

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Wednesday, January 19th, 2011