[ninurta]

I heard the liberals not wanting to be called elitist, so what is it? And whats wrong with being a elitist?

[grypo]

This seems to be an anti-intellectual sentiment that stems from the fact that colleges and universities in the US have become dominated by liberals since WWII. I hear it a lot in the conservative media referring to "elitist" or "intellectual" liberals and it seems to be a rallying cry for conservatives who consider themselves "common folk". There is also a Christian aspect to this. Since people like Richard Dawkins have gone on an anti-religious crusade, the push back has come in the form of referring to atheists as elitists. It doesn't even end there as it seemingly moved into sciences well, as the AGW scientists is referred to as an elitist group and even the evolutionists have taken this hit. Not that it really matters all that much.

As a liberal, I think it's one of the great accomplishments of progressive politics that the higher learning institutions are now considered "liberal". I find nothing wrong with being called elitist. It means more liberals teaching, more liberals in the professional media, and hopefully more will enter into classically conservative positions like producers and publishers and media moguls, etc. Antonio Gramsci was right.

Do I think this will maintain forever and mean real change in the US? Probably not. I would guess that this anti-intellectual movement the conservatives are into will come to an end and the backlash will be a more politically potent maneuver in the coming decades. We'll see.

[DanDaMan]

I heard the liberals not wanting to be called elitist, so what is it? And whats wrong with being a elitist?

Those for Liberal government hate elitists because they are a class of rich capitalist people.
Yet these same liberals want to remove independence from the people and place it into an elitist oligarchy.
This is the idiocy of liberals today. They cannot see they want what they supposedly despise.
They have a mental defect.

[hip hop bunny hop]

DanDaMan, why do you feel the need to argue not with the statements made here, but with those of some strawman which exists in your imagination?

Anyways, the "liberal elite" is a term which gets thrown around, it's meaning is amorphous. In the case of immigration, the "liberal elite" are pro-immigrant because "?" and don't care about the harm this does to "?". Etc.

[DanDaMan]

DanDaMan, why do you feel the need to argue not with the statements made here, but with those of some strawman which exists in your imagination?

It's not my imagination. I have seen many intellectuals also argue that they have mental defects.

[Genghis Khan]

It's not my imagination. I have seen many intellectuals also argue that they have mental defects.

Face it. You're a hateful partisan. It's enough for someone on the phone to ask you how's the weather and your answer will be: "It's chilly out, which proves global warming is a hoax and liberals just want to raise taxes."

There's absolutely nothing you won't turn into a anti-democrat argument.

What is elitism and what is wrong with it?

Being elite, in any other field in life, is a good thing. Lebron James is an elite basketball player. If I'm going through open heart surgery, I would like an elite doctor. If I'm looking for good investments, I would seek out an elite investment banker.

But in politics, the word has been demonized beyond repair. I still think there's nothing wrong with being called an elitist, but the general perception is that you are an out-of-touch ivory tower kind of guy who doesn't get the problems the middle class are facing.

[DanDaMan]

Face it. You're a hateful partisan. It's enough for someone on the phone to ask you how's the weather and your answer will be: "It's chilly out, which proves global warming is a hoax and liberals just want to raise taxes."

There's absolutely nothing you won't turn into a anti-democrat argument.

Correct. I know, just as our founding fathers did, that democracies fail.
This is why I am a classic Republican arguing for keeping a republic.
Why is it you constantly argue for something fraught with more failure and loss of liberty and freedoms?

[Wolfman]

DDM, if Democracies fail, why do we live in one? The Founding Fathers didn't like Athenian Democracy, but a Representative Democracy and a Republic are the same thing.

[Wyndorf]

Classic republican?

Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose, and you allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after having given him so much as you propose. If to-day he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, — "I see no probability of the British invading us"; but he will say to you, "Be silent: I see it, if you don't."

To provision of the Constitution giving the war making power to Congress was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons: Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This our convention understood to be the most oppressive of all kingly oppressions, and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter, and places our President where kings have always stood.

- Abraham Lincoln

Why then does a modern conservative present (Bush) do exactly what Lincoln, one of the first rebublican presidents, opposes so obviously?

You have no idea what classic republicanism even is. Just another Rush-OD.

[ninurta]

If elitism is being a successful elite, I want to be a conservative elitist, nothing wrong with that. You'd have to have a mental defect to think that isn't a great thing to accomplish.

Grypo, there are well educated conservatives out there with great elite jobs, but they are the libertarians, all others live in the stone age. When global warming is just God punishing mankind for some sin. That isn't the difference between elitist and nonelitist, just modern man and the remnants of the stone agers.

[Genghis Khan]

Correct. I know, just as our founding fathers did, that democracies fail. This is why I am a classic Republican arguing for keeping a republic.

You don't even know what a Republic means. If you did, you would realize that the founding fathers (you know... those people you have zero knowledge about) defined a republic as a "representative democracy", which is also what a democracy is defined as.

[Nattering Nabob]

I heard the liberals not wanting to be called elitist, so what is it? And whats wrong with being a elitist?

George Wallace (the racist Alabama governor who stood in the door of the University of Alabama to deny entry to black students) used to rail against "pointy headed intellectuals" who were pro-segregation...

Elitist is another word for pointy headed intellectual...

[DanDaMan]

You don't even know what a Republic means. If you did, you would realize that the founding fathers (you know... those people you have zero knowledge about) defined a republic as a "representative democracy", which is also what a democracy is defined as.

A) wherever you went to school..go back and demand a refund.
B) the word "democracy" is not to be found in the constitution.
C)"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

[Cartertonian]

liberty and justice for all

'
Isn't that supposed to be, "liberty and justice for all." not just all conservatives...?

[Genghis Khan]

the word "democracy" is not to be found in the constitution.

So is the word "ice cream". Maybe we should get rid of ice cream as well. Ice cream is NOT what the founding fathers wanted!

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Here are some other republics: The people's republic of China, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Republic of Kazakhstan, Federative Republic of Brazil, Republic of the Congo...

Oh my god!! You want us to be like to be like China! Obama loving fascist!!

Someone needs to invest an action figure of you with a string in the back, that gets pulled and the doll says: "Liberals are evil", "Democrats want death" etc.

It'll be an accurate description of who you are as a person - An ideologue who doesn't know the first thing about a republic or a democracy.

[DanDaMan]

Quote:
liberty and justice for all

Isn't that supposed to be, "liberty and justice for all." not just all conservatives...?

I think that, with the placement of Sotomayer because for her position on social justice, we will see far less justice for all and more for her special interests.

DanDaMan wrote:
the word "democracy" is not to be found in the constitution.

So is the word "ice cream". Maybe we should get rid of ice cream as well. Ice cream is NOT what the founding fathers wanted!

Why not use your logic to just remove the Constitution completely?

[PBVBROOK]

GK said: So is the word "ice cream". Maybe we should get rid of ice cream as well. Ice cream is NOT what the founding fathers wanted!

Tyranny and oppression! How could you claim this? They must have forgot to put it in there, for I will tell you sir that the founders most certainly WERE for ice cream! They wanted it badly! That it is not in the constitution must have been some sugar-crazed accidental ommission. Just look at this:

After the dessert was imported to the United States, it was served by several famous Americans. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson served it to their guests. In 1700, Governor Bladen of Maryland was recorded as having served it to his guests. In 1774, a London caterer named Philip Lenzi announced in a New York newspaper that he would be offering for sale various confections, including ice cream. Dolly Madison served it in 1812.

Jefferson and Washington! (genuflecting) You can't get more 'merican than that. I don't know who the fuck Governor Bladen was but he must have been a pretty good host to give his guests ice cream. And Dolly Madison? What would be those little cakes she is famous for if not for a generous dollop of good American ice cream on top of them? And she served it in war time!

You see Dandaman what happens when you only read the constitution? You run the risk of not getting ice cream! And some of your heroes love ice cream. Bill Gates (capitalist extrordanaire and the reason you can post here unless you are a MacIntosh stroking liberal suck) and Barroness Thatcher (who once devoted part of her life to improving the marketability of Ice cream even though she was not an American but rather a British blue-blood and pawn of Ronald Reagan ((genuflecting again)) were both more than fond of Ice cream.

You call yourself a conservative and yet you would deny us ice cream just because it was accidently forgotten when the constitution was being written. Some conservative you are. Now that I think about it. I wonder what ELSE the founders left out? The womens vote? Slavery? Forgetfull old farts, weren't they?

[William_H_Dougherty]

What is elitism? In politics it is the belief that a "few" are especially fit to govern or inform public policy.

I think this word has become perverted over time to simply mean a business or academic elite, influential above and beyond their own contributions to society and knowledge. That is why liberals don't like to be called elites, because they have a reputation (earned or not) for inordinately deferring to the judgement of various special interest groups that many people have serious problems with.

However, while some "elites" might be worth despairaging, there are other "elites" you probably very much believe in. For example, if you believe in a meritocracy, you are still an "elitist" but you believe people should advance in society based on their contributions to that society.

If you have a public policy question concerning health care, does anyone here think that Medical Doctors shouldn't somewhat inform decision making? If you believe this high-paid and educated "few" is uniquely qualified to inform government decision-making, that their opinion on health care might matter more than that of a plummer (although that plummer has his/her own area of expertise), you are an "elitist".

And there is nothing wrong with that.

- WHD

[politburo player]

Elitism~

Perfect Example #1

Al Gore lecturing the world on how we should drive teacup cars and live in small apartments, all the while he drives around in a limousine motorcade, lives in a 20,000 square foot house and flies private jets everywhere. He certainly doesn't practice what he preaches, because in his own mind, he is entitled because of his noble cause.

Perfect Example #2

Chicago-style aldermen from poor districts, poverty pimps, "reverends", and section 8 housing profiteers who drive Bentlys and wear alligator skin boots. Knowing or being associated with these types of people is how elitist white mayors get elected in majority ethnic cities.

Perfect Example #3

Academics, activists, and activist lawyers of Marxist persuasion who denounce small business owners, suburbanites, farmers, white people, and others who do not conform to their dreams of using high taxes and social engineering to alter the social and economic landscape.

[NYYS]

Everyone should strive to be elite and respect those that have become elite.