Hyde Park Citizen, Dec. 28, 1995:
Obama made mention that since America has fallen off as a dominant economic power in the world, race relations have worsened in America.
"In an environment of scarcity, where the cost of living is rising, folks begin to get angry and bitter and look for scapegoats. Historically, instead of looking at the top 5% of this country that controls all the wealth, we turn towards each other, and the Republicans have added to the fire."
The first sentence is paraphrased, but it nevertheless makes me wonder if Obama really thought that as of 1995, America had "fallen off as a dominant economic power in the world," and that race relations were worse in 1995 than in the past. The second sentence, meanwhile, suggests not that Americans struggling economically shouldn't be looking for scapegoats, but that they should be looking for the right scapegoat--"the top 5% of this country that controls all the wealth."
I think there is something to be said for a story that suggests a causal link between economic elites and increasing inequality in this country.
On the other hand, obviously not everyone in the top 5% is a bad guy. And I am pretty sure that this is not what Obama was saying. Rather, he is saying that their is a causal link between the actions of certain elites in the top 5% and increasing economic stress, and that instead of addressing that through peaceful political action, individuals respond to that stress by turning on each other.
I notice that the Republicans don't blame economic conditions on the poor; am I missing something?
"Standard" doesn't equate to "accurate", but it doesn't equate to "inaccurate", either. Nor, for that matter, does labeling it as such do anything to answer the central question: can class war qualify as a just war?
Only if you are a Marxist.
If one is going to criticize this approach, I think a better criticism would be that these quotes are out of date; a 12 year old statement doesn't necessarily reflect his current views. (OTOH, he's not 30; people change their views a lot between 18 and 30, but not so much between 35 and 47.)
And Brooks - yes, Republicans do blame poor economic conditions, suffered by the poor, on the poor.
In some instances. (Of course a lot of Republicans are d-bags too.)
But I'm a libertarian (registered Republican, basically just so I can vote in the primaries when relevant) and I mainly blame high taxes, high spending, a lot of regulation, and a fiat currency that can be manipulated by a central bank.
and then only if it actually exists.
"Standard" doesn't equate to "accurate", but it doesn't equate to "inaccurate", either. Nor, for that matter, does labeling it as such do anything to answer the central question: can class war qualify as a just war?
The class warfare stuff is generally Marxist claptrap.
The capital stock - the capital in the private economy that is used to create businesses and employ labor - is the only thing that creates and grows wealth in society. The government is dependent on it: no private economy to create wealth and pay salaries and taxes, no government. Since the wealthy provide most of the capital stock, attacking them is counterproductive - if you confiscated their assets this would tend to deplete the capital stock and actually harm the economy. So Marxist ideology in this case is actually a formula for creating more poor people.
That's not saying that there aren't bad rich people - there are lots of them. This is one of the things that makes Marxist ideology so powerful, even though its economically incorrect. It plays on envy, which is a very real and powerful emotion, and it also plays on the fact that there are some rich people that really are bad - crooks, thieves, frauds, swindlers, etc. So you can get people really riled up with it, but its a recipe for more poverty, a lower standard of living, a destroyed economy, often starvation, and lots and lots of misery.
Actually, I meant overall economic conditions, not those suffered (or enjoyed) by any particular group.
Certainly, as you point out that Obama points out, the poor do share some of the blame for their condition. Of course, much of this is (or ought to be, unless we like a totalitarian nanny state) beyond the reach of politics and government (except perhaps the public schools, which don't seem to be doing all that well in getting people out of their poverty rut).
Heavens to Betsy, we can't blame the people with the money, political influence, and connections for the country being badly run.
You're right, there is a lot of overlap between the wealthy and politics. But on the other hand the wealthy provide the bulk of the capital stock. And in many cases they are harming themselves as well by running the country badly.
I suppose there is also a causal link between economic stress and the actions of legislators, union officials, single women having babies, drugs, alcohol, Chinese competition, high taxes, and high school drop-outs.
Blaming the top 5% for economic troubles isn't correct in terms of economics or public policy, but it's probably more useful than blaming racism.
And in 1995 the US was by far the world's largest economy, but it didn't take a great leap to suggest that with the rise of Asia, capitalism beginning in Russia, and the increasing development of the EU, the US would be losing much of its pricing power.
Of course I have no idea if that's what Obama was thinking. But the statement is more reasonable than a lot of the blathering we hear from politicians on both sides of the aisle.
Where is your integrity Mr. Bernstein? Posting an ambiguous, context-less quote from 13 years ago instead of discussing Obama's stated positions isn't intellectual honesty or a search for "the real Obama." It's smear tactics.
And there's nothing more despicable than smearing a man with his own words.
Also, many of the national Democrats are very much socialists--even if they won't self-identify as such. Of Obama, Clinton, Gore, Edwards, Kerry, and Kennedy: which of them would not opt for "single payer healthcare" (i.e., nationalizing a private industry)?
Admittedly, they all have limits to their socialist ideology, but that seems to entail them getting to keep their wealth while taking everyone else's.
That's debatable. Let's see some test scores.
In any case he'smuch more dangerous.
There were those welfare queens that were driving Cadillacs per Saint Reagan. And something about those illegals taking all the good jobs.
I seem to remember a week before the 2000 election it came out that Bush had been popped for drunk driving 24 years earlier. What was the shelf life on that?
Maybe it is just a fluke in the time space continuum, loopy quotes or unethical behavior by Democrats is always ancient history, like Obama's quote, Hillary's cattle futures payoff, Kennedy's depraved indifference homicide, Byrds's KKK recruiting, Murtha's Abscam episode. But when Republicans do something wrong it always happened only yesterday. Actually that isn't quite true, when a Republican gets caught at something, even just infidelity, they usually get thrown out of office by their Republican constituents, Democrats keep re-electing their crooks.
And they, as usual, were not joking. (sigh)
I guess my cousin is poor because he's lazy, and not because he has Huntington's disease which prevents him from working. All those silly people without health insurance -- I guess they just would rather be let their kids do without proper medical care than get a job at Walmart.
The words aren't the smear. They can't be. Taken alone, they are entirely ambiguous. The smear is to read into these words that Obama wants class warfare. The smear is to post them as evidence of Obama's "socialism".
I put the term in quotes because you seem to use it differently than the vast majority of the english-speaking world. A single-payer system, whatever it's merits and problems, is an attempt to solve market failures (at least in a society where we don't believe in denying emergency care). There is no good conceptual distinction between nationalizing health care and nationalizing education. So it is clear that what you call socialism is not socialism to most of humanity.
I suppose those who support Medicare/Medicaid are also socialists in your lexicon. What about government control of highways and drinking water? Pure socialism! Maybe, under some pedantic definition of socialism. But most Americans don't think of universal kindergarten, toll-free roads, government-run water utilities, or universal health care as socialism. It's all a spectrum, of course, but if we're labeling things as binary capitalist or socialist, you're in a fringe minority who would label any national control of an industry as socialist.
I have little doubt that all the remaining candidates, Hilary, Obama and McCain, are all more intelligent than Bush. The only one I'm not sure about would be Huckabee and even Huckabee is more articulate.
Admittedly, they all have limits to their socialist ideology, but that seems to entail them getting to keep their wealth while taking everyone else's.
Heck, on that definition every Democrat and every Republican candidate (even Ron Paul) is been a socialist. To the extent they hold a non-socialist position on any issue, they're just recognizing "limits to their socialist ideology."
What's the evidence for that? He won't publish his LSAT scores (a heavily g-loaded test). That leads me to believe that it's not particularly high.If it was he would gladly tell if asked.
None of those things taken individually is socialism. But at a certain point the sum total of nationalizations brings you close to state capitalism or a socialist economy. Medicine is a very big piece of the American economy, something like 15%. The Veterans Administration is a good example of a government-run medical services provider program. How happy are the veterans with it? If given a choice do they opt for VA doctors or private ones?
As for socialism, America has crossed any reasonable definitional line into socialism decades ago. We've been a socialist state since the late 70's and certainly since the late 80's.
If one public handout, individually, does not equal socialism, why do so many people (you too, it seems) say universal healthcare equates to a prima facie socialist government? Opponents even call it "socialized medicine."
I'm very much against government handouts and I don't believe in government programs. That was never the intent of the framers. There is no enumerated power to provide public benefits to the people aside from handing out patents, copyrights, bankruptcies, and letters of marquee and reprisal... to the extent those are public benefits. However, knowing that's just not the way it's going to be, I think free healthcare for all citizens/residents should be the one thing our government provides. Get rid of all the other stuff... HUD grants and crap like that. And legalize drugs and tax them, that will pay for it 10 times over. People should always have the choice of private healthcare, though. Which doctors work where (public/private) is something that can be sorted out.
Really?
Coming from this statement, I would bet that you have never signed the front of a paycheck (as opposed to the back). Have you ever been involved with hiring, firing or being part of the employment process, other than the employee side?
There are some people who are unemployable. In my time, I have seen:
Applicants showing up with no pen or pencil or resume
Smelling of pot and/or alcohol
Want to have a cigarette while they fill it out
Not know their basic info (i.e. street address, phone number)
These are just some of the quick examples.
In other words, the government doesn't control the unemployment rate. Individual actions do. If someone is a good employee, they will find a job. Plain and simple. It may not be at the rate that they would want BUT it should be enough to survive and work towards something more for themselves or family.
Article I, Section VIII
It would probably help if you actually read the Constitution.
And the winner of the Damning with Faint Praise Award goes to . . .
It would probably help if you learned about the Constitution.
He's fortunate that his main opposition is Hillary Clinton...
...and presumably John McCain...
I have a friend who, after retirement, works with Habitat for Humanity as a volunteer. Part of her work includes getting people into a situation where they can manage a home and a budget.
She is frequently in despair about her "clients" who see nothing amiss about grocery shopping at the gas station, for example.
Some of the simplest concepts, such as budgeting for seasonal swings in heating costs, using coupons and sales, not smoking, are completely unknown to a substantial cohort--from her point of view--of the population.
Others are poor because, after having one or more children, the man in question, husband or not, left.
The use of the poor in the aggregate as a tool with which to reproach, oh, practically everybody is not much use to the poor.
The idea that the poor are poor because the economy victimizes huge portions of the helpless is...useful for political purposes.
their capital hire or buy another few to labor for them."
Lincoln on Slave Labor vs Free Labor.
And when does he "discuss" these things on the campaing trail?
And, since when is the "uneven distribution of wealth" the government's business? (Note: nobody can name any society in the history of man where wealth was evenly distributed).
“ LSAT scores have little bearing on intelligence.”
There’s a large body of psychometric evidence spanning many decades, that a latent variable called “the g factor” indicates general intelligence. We can’t measure g directly, but we can design unbiased tests that correlate with it. The LSAT is a heavily g-loaded test. Meaning that you will get a high correlation with IQ tests such as the Raven’s progressive matrices test. Knowing Obama’s LSAT score or even his SAT scores (less g-loaded) would give us some idea of his general intelligence, and provide a basis of comparsion. If you don’t accept the concept of general intelligence then you will need to tell me what you mean by intelligence. Let’s not confuse it with wisdom.
You claim that you can remotely rank order people’s intelligence. I’m skeptical of that. We are easily fooled by engaging personalities. However if you work with someone closely on cognitively intensive projects and watch how they approach and solve problems, then I think you can rank order them without using intelligence tests.
Unfortunately without direct contact we really know very little about politicians. They don’t even write their own speeches. Hillary and others surround themselves with handlers. I have never seen her get interviewed by a confrontational questioner. Similarily for Bush, McCain, Bill, and Rove. On the other hand, Ron Paul and Huckabee have been willing to face the heat, so at least I have some idea of how they stand up to stress.
Schizophrenia and Tobacco
Yes, but notice that this never applies to liberals. The Clinton's are easily in the top 5% of income earners, but of course they didn't take it from anyone. It's just all those other people dammit!
This is standard Democratic economic
boilerplateignorance. Obama knows less than McCain about economics which is why he makes comments such as these.Uh, you just described the Obama's.
........seriously?
Anyway, for my 2c, the debate here seems to be on off the cuff comments vs pre-prepared comments.
I do see a bit of a fundamental problem in using an old, off the cuff remark to make a permanent judgment about someone's policy views. We don't really know the entire context of this, nor what he meant by it. If it was truly off the cuff, he may well not have known what was meant by it. I can't count the times I've said or written something that, when reviewed days or weeks later, means something substantially different from what I intended it to mean.
I'd say this this makes analyzing it as if it were some carefully considered statement an essentially useless practice, and even at the risk of falling for "propoganda," I'd much rather rely on a carefully thought out opinion in a written work.
I think the point was to illustrate his mindset, not his policy views. His mindset of richer versus poorer does not inevitably mean that he will allow the Treasury to be looted by advocates for the homeless, usurping the traditional roles of farmers and pharmas.
I agree with American Psikhushka on this.
However, I would add to this part, and it also plays on the fact that there are some rich people that really are bad - crooks, thieves, frauds,
Yeah, and most of them are in Congress.
It might be worthwhile to remember that whether you have a right wing dictatorship or a left wing one, the people guaranteed to be rich are those that are part of the ruling class. Everyone else seems to be equally poor. We seem to be getting that in our own Republic and, with McCain-Feingold, it has and will only get worse.
Really?
Uh, at least Bush ran on substance, that is, he had actual policy proposals. Not vague promises where people wonder where he stood or what he meant (hence the postings on Obama here for example).
He also flew F-102's. I'm sure they let plenty of dummies do that.
Obama is clearly less intelligent than Bush.
Clearly.
Wow, BDS at its worst!
I have no wonder as to why liberals hate Bush so much: he is this complete dummy who has outfoxed them two times
Sooner or later, if someone keeps outsmarting and outmaneuvering you, you may just have to say 'maybe he is not so dumb'
I will give you that Obama speaks clearer. But at the risk of invoking the wrath of Godwin's law, Churchill had a speech impediment while his two continental opponents both spoke quite eloquently.
I remember Bush being interviewed on TV just after his defeat of Kerry. The interviewer asked something about the popular vote versus the electoral vote. Bush told the interviewer that his strategery was based on the Electoral College, and if he'd been going for the popular vote, he would have run his campaign differently. Then, Bush actually *smirked* at the interviewer! Ooh, that must have really stung the libs: the dummy fell upwards into the presidency -- twice -- never really understanding how it happened. To this day, our lib friends can't admit that Bush might know what he's doing.
Then there's Odumbo, a closet communist. And as we know, communists are just socialists in a hurry.
Indeed it can: those of us with [1] basic intelligence and [2] sufficient means will offer the better doctors more money--and a less onerous, more autonomous private practice system in which to work--to provide private/boutique care.
Just like law, the rest can wind up in "public interest." Good riddance.
Absolutely. If Robert Byrd can get a pass for being a KKK leader in the past, then any Democrat should get the same consideration.
It must take a Columbia and Harvard grad to make words mean so many different things - and things that might even contradict their obvious meaning, no less!
I view off-the-cuff remarks as far more significant indicators of underlying mindset than the insipid platitudes (about Hope! and Change! and the Hope of Change!) mouthed in prepared speeches.
I'm not sure that the Net Nanny on your computer is working properly Smokey. Odumbo. Closet communist. Maybe you should stick to your Hannah Montana fan sites.
Capture of bin Laden? Check, achieved.
Victory in Iraq? Check, achieved.
Peace and Stability in Afghanistan? Check, achieved.
Democracy in the Middle East? Check, achieved.
Social Security reform? Check, achieved.
Temporary guest worker program? Check, achieved.
Effective disaster relief? Check, achieved.
Yes, you really can measure intelligence by the achievement of one's goals...
If only so I could switch them to GBP.
Aah, the "Robert Byrd was a KKK leader(TM)" defense. I swear that comes extra with every Republican registration card. I bet 50 years after he's long dead young Republicans will still trot that one out.
And how much worse would it be if one of those other dummies had been in charge?
Yep:
Tricking Democrats into voting for a war they never would have supported with "lies" about WMD: check
1.1 trillion dollar tax cuts: check
Decimating al Qaida: check
Capturing and killing Saddam: check
Lebanon abandoning WMD programs: check
Become became the first President since 1936 to be reelected while gaining seats in the House and Senate: check
Preventing a terrorist attack on CONUS since 9/11/01: check
And let's not forget all those millions of young people without health insurance who choose to be without health insurance because they are healthy. Many a nanny may call them silly, but it's still their decision. Does anybody knw the percentage of law students without health insurance?
"Defense" of what, exactly?
You've obviously missed the point.
Libya :-)
Is that the same 5% that pays well over 50% of all income taxes?
Is it the same 5% that made possible every paycheck I've ever received?
Just wondering...
Lack of insurance and lack of care are 2 different things.
You, nor anyone reading, can provide proof these children go without medical care.
So when Hillary said "We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good", she wasn't thinking like a Socialist?
Both Hillary and Obama worked with Saul Alinsky's organization - Hillary with Alisnky, Obama after Alinsky died. Unlike Christopher Hitchens, we have no reason to believe that their views have changed.
Decider: "Capture of bin Laden? Check, achieved."
NBC Nightly News, 2004: Former President BILL CLINTON: We will use all the means at our disposal to bring those responsible to justice....
MYERS: What you're about to see is extraordinary secret video shot by the US government and obtained exclusively by NBC News. It illustrates an enormous opportunity the Clinton administration had to kill or capture bin Laden. Critics say, a missed opportunity."
Mr Liberal: "There is no enumerated power to provide public benefits to the people." Unfortunaltely most Democrats seem to think that "general welfare" means "welfare sate".
I know that back in early to mid '90s during the horrific KKKlinton Admin, there were all those books and articles about how America was over that came out just before the boom.
Now they are coming out again. Guess what - idiots - Americans are richer than ever. Even with a "credit crisis" home ownership is at or near record. Americans eat out more. They spend more on entertainment (including the broadband connection I'm currently using). Car ownership is at an all-time high. If people were really hurting, they'd cook at home; cancel cable, internet, and cell phones; cut travel; etc.
The fact that they don't do these things proves that they're not short of cash.
"I'm for Change because after I'm elected that's all you'll have left -- Change."
Of course they will. How could anyone let that one go? Maybe a poster on the left showing Byrd in his sheet in front of a burning cross, and another on the right showing him as the elected Democratic Majority Leader? And a caption, "You've come a long way, Baby?" And, we shouldn't forget it's not an issue from the past; he's still caucusing with the dems in the Senate. Probably even a super delegate.
And only a few months out from the Simpson verdict.
The Simpson verdict created a national dialogue about race relations, and one could conclude at the time, just by looking at the vehement diversity of viewpoints being expressed, that all was not well.
In that context, I don't think that Obama's comments about race, and indeed about wealth, were too off-the-charts.
A. Zarkov: after 7 years of Bush, I have no doubt that he's an incredibly unintelligent individual. I'm not a republican hater (though I do hate religious people) and I even voted for Bush the first time he ran for governor here in Texas.
I agree that there is some general intelligence, but I dont think there's an accurate way to quantitatively measure it. I think we can develop averages for people and determine that some people average higher intelligence than others. The notion that one person is x points smarter than another is simply nonsense in my opinion. Maybe Obama did poorly on his LSAT because he was sick, or because he has slight ADHD and got screwed over by the time limits. Why should there be a time limit on an intelligence test anyway? Rushing someone seems like a piss poor way of measuring their innate intellect. The LSAT is horribly rushed, by far the most rushed test I've taken in my life, far worse than any portion of the bar exam. Certainly worse than the SAT.
From everything I know about Obama and everything I know about Bush, I'm more than satisfied in the fact that Obama is more intelligent than Bush. And while I can't say how much more intelligent, I don't think it is very close at all. Bush is a truly dumb human being. From lacking inquisitiveness to still being unable to say "nuclear" (after 7 years he still says "nookular"), he is simply not intelligent. Maybe the best comparison is to animals. We don't give dogs, monkeys, dolphins, or horses standardized tests, yet we can still tell one dog is smarter than another. Some breeds are known as being very smart, some are known as being very dumb. Intelligence is like porn, I know it when I see it. Likewise, I know stupidity when I see it. Bush is stupid. Even worse, he's been a horrendous president.
What's truly dumb is judging someone's intelligence on their regional pronunciation. I guess you would've thought Einstein's German accent made him an idiot too.
The "lack of inquisitiveness" is bunk too. Bush is an avid reader. He just doesn't read the NYT editorial pages, which makes him persona non grata among the self-anointed elites.
Also, after reading many entries I would suggest that an individuals intelligence is inversely proportional to their speculations on Bush's intelligence.
No, clearly all you need is to hear repeated unfounded claims from polemicists.
Pop quiz: how smart do you have to be to keep your pants on in the Oval Office when chubby interns are flirting with you?
Extra credit: how dumb do you have to be to leave your DNA on their clothes?
Really?
"Bush is a lot of things, but intelligent is not one of them. I don't need IQ tests to let me know one person is smarter than another."
I heard a question once, "How many Americans said that they were smarter than President Bush?" The answer is probably, "Almost all of them." The dumb ones thought they were smarter than Bush because they were dumb, and the smart ones thought they were smarter than Bush because they were. My guess is that Bush's IQ is somewhere in the 125 range. There is a pretty good that he is then smarter than someone that doesn't think there is a correlation between LSAT scores and intelligence.
Bush is alot of things, but eloquent on camera he is not. I don't think I've ever seen a politician exhibit so much stage fright on camera as Bush. I've heard him speak in person, and he comes off very differently. My suspicion is that if you think Bush is unusually stupid, or even just unusually stupid for a politician, is that you aren't a very good judge of intelligence.
I heard a story about the young Bush at Yale. It was said that Bush was a poor student, but that he the name of every single person on campus. Now, I am an intelligent person and you'll just have to take my word for it because I'm not going to spend time trying to prove it to anyone. But, most of the time I can't remember the name of someone I met 3 minutes ago. If you put me up on stage, I'd look at least as tongue tied and stupid as Bush, and my IQ is higher than all but less than 1% of the population. He's not an intellectual by character or inclination. He's not uncommonly intelligent. But he is not stupid either, and if you say he is it reflects more on you than him.
I've heard this song and dance before. They said the same things about Reagan. Endless skits, comedy reutines, and even puppet shows demonstrating how stupid Reagan was. They said that he simply read from the teleprompter. That he was just an actor. That he was dumb. Nevermind that back in reality, he made far more money and achieved more success working as a professional speech writer than he ever did as an actor because he was never a very good actor but he was a really good speach writer. Never mind that back in reality, he was probably the only President in my lifetime that wrote most of his own speeches. Never mind that you read the man's diary you see the thought processes of subtle thinker. No, it was the recieved, unchallenged, conventional wisdom of the day that Reagan was an idiot.
Bush is a very inelloquent man, but one thing that he isn't is stupid. Or least, not stupid by comparison to his peers and rivals.
"How much smarter, quantitatively, yes. But just like you can tell one person is more drunk than another (but not what their actual BAC is), you can tell one person is smarter than another. Obama is clearly more intelligent than Bush. Ditto for Hillary, McCain, Huckabee, Romney (magic underwear aside), Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Bill Clinton, Ron Paul, and countless others I can think of."
So, do you think that you are smarter than Bush?
Gotta say, that's pretty damn persuasive.
For a self aggrandizing boob (you use "I" in your posts a whole lot)
Jimmy Carter was a nuclear engineer and Woodrow Wilson and Ivy League University President and they are probably the two worst Presidents of the 20th Century. In contrast, Eisenhower for example was an average student at West Point. Raw intelligence or scholarly ability does not necessarily translate into wisdom or decision making ability. Further, you can't judge a President fully until a few years after he leaves office. History will most likely prove Bush right about taxes and right about Iraq, despite making numerous mistakes in the first three years after the invasion. When that happens it is going to be very difficult for the smugarati like you to explain.
As far as Obama, I don't care what his LSAT score was; anyone who in 1995 thought the US was no longer the dominant economic power in the world is stupid or worse yet willfully ignorant.
I'm sure that would never happen in America! Not with all those benevolent, caring, liberals in charge.
Change!
Hope!
42 million uninsured!
Then you die in an ambulance outside the hospital.
I suppose that's true unless we are looking for someone to fill a job with tremendous stress and demands for rushed decisions effecting millions of people, often with little time for careful consideration. I imagine those secret LSAT scores will prove very amusing in the coming months.
At the risk of sounding like a Scrooge, the TV show Extreme Home Makeover bothers me because in their extravagance of masturbatory charity they lavish on one family resources that could have easily made a life changing difference to 3 or 4 equally "deserving" families. One always wants to know the followup -- a couple years later has the property been maintained, lost for lack of paying vastly increased property taxes,lost as collateral on a defaulted "cash out" loan?
Sometimes I think Habitat for Humanity is Extreme Home Makeover writ small. Everyone pitching in gets to feel good, someone gets something for [next to?] nothing... but a roof over ones head does not make a homeowner/solid citizen. You have to wonder how many people are able to hold on to a Habitat house for long. It seems like putting the cart before the horse -- basic self-sufficiency and discipline are the prereqs that foster ownership. It doens't work that well in reverse.
Like EHM, HH seems a bit over lavish -- what if instead of giving one or two people a house, HH instead built some kind really cheap but safe temporary quarters, dorm style (like the big city YMCAs used to have decades ago) where people looking for a fresh start could have a place to stay? A place not at all shy about evicting slackers or troublemakers. To me *that* seems to be in short supply, something between living in a crack house or cardboard box,and an actual apartment.
It seems to be a hard word for even smart people to get right. I think Mondale pronounced it wrong too. Maybe because it is confused with similar words like secular and jocular and others.
To be fair, that would only happen if you would mess up their statistics on emergency care. If not, they'll let you in, then make you wait anyway.
Workers compensation covers a quarter of the employee's week, more of his waking hours. Auto insurance in its various configurations in the several states covers people hurt in auto accidents.
And, as an acquaintance said, if there's some other kind of accident, there's always somebody to sue.
I knew of one guy working from his home--for an insurance company-- who fell off his porch. Sued his employer. It was so stupid that I was always too embarrassed to ask how it went. But I'm guessing 50-50 he won.
The 43 million number is put together by counting everybody who had a period where he was not covered. Even if a few days. The permanently non-covered are considerably less than that. But with activists, if some is bad, more is better. So the books get cooked. Not the first time.
THAT's the key. Good luck with that. Remember what fun public housing was/is.
In terms of IQ, Carter was probably the smartest man to hold the office. We don't know the actual IQ's of many of the Presidents, but we do know that JFK's was about 120. That's probably a tad lower than Bush's, but you'd never guess it because JFK has gobs of something Bush doesn't - charisma. We know that Nixon had an IQ of about 143, and that he was intellectually one of the smarter men to hold the office. We know that Al Gore has an IQ of 134 on the public record. I had to guess, it would be that the IQ of the two Clinton's (not on the public record) is similar, but its always dangerous to try to guess these things. Most of the smartest people I met were at a distance superficially similar to mentally retarded people.
My understanding is that Carter is the only president to have tested out on an IQ test in the super-genious range - I've heard 170, which puts him well above even Nixon's genious level score by about 4 standard deviations.
But of course, if you are really intelligent you've probably met alot of people in the 160+ IQ range and you are well aware that there gifts don't necessarily make them good leaders. Most of them can barely manage thier affairs, much less anyone elses.
Wickedly smart people often lack common sense. Common sense is apparently more important.
If things weren't so grim, we wouldn't need hope, and hope wouldn't be audacious.
Are you proposing that the US change its economic policy to enable a 0% unemployment rate? If so, do you realize that the only way to reach a 0% unemployment rate is to stop job transfers between companies? If a person is unhappy with their job and quits then they are included in the unemployment rate until the begin a new job.
So now under our new and improved economic system, an individual is no longer able to quit his job. Say hello to slavery.
If you are a business owner who is losing money, should you be allowed to fire employees so that you don't have to fund losses in perpetuity out of your bank account? If not, why would anyone every hire an employee? Say goodbye to any new businesses or any new job creation in the economy.
What starts out sounding like a simple proposition quickly turns into a complete disaster. Essentially, the only way to ensure full employment is a totalitarian communist government. I think history has shown that this isn't the best route for ensuring people good lives.
I totally understand many of the faithful Volokh commentariat disagreeing with the substance of Obama's campaign, but the whole "lack of substance" meme is just silly. These dozens of position papers and proposals and speech transcriptions have been up there for months.
It's almost as if people here believe the "conservation of virtues" myth—that if one is an inspiring speaker he must needs not have much of substance to say. Is a leaden speaking style then be a clear and unambiguous sign of pithiness?
does not necessarily mean
So when you declare Obama "stupid or worse yet willfully ignorant" regardless of his LSAT score, is that your way of saying you don't think much of reading comprehension as a measure of intelligence?
TheAce: I suppose I do use "I" a lot. It's gotta be because I'm always defending things I've said in previous posts. I'm not talking about myself, though. It's not "me me me." Lots of my sentences start with "I think" or "I believe" which is preferable to bare assertions of fact (at least, I think and believe it is). Looking at other people's posts, I would say my use of "I" is about average, maybe slightly above, at least on this thread.
JohnCK: I readily concede that intelligence is not directly proportional to quality of presidency. It's not like Bush is deciding things. He may claim to be "the decider" but Cheney, Rove, Wolfowitz, and many others have been the ones telling him what to do. However, all else equal, I'd rather have a more intelligent guy in the office than a less intelligent guy. And for what it's worth, I'm sure Bush will be remembered as a worse president than Carter or Wilson. Both were bad, though... I certainly concede that. And just because Obama is smarter than Bush is no guarantee that he'll be a better president. Until the Bush administration, I have hated liberal ideology just as much, if not more, than conservative ideology. Calling Bush a "conservative" maligns and twists the very meaning of the word. Conservatives don't go to war and cut taxes at the same time. When I think of conservative, I think of small government and fiscal responsiblity. Barry Goldwater is surely rolling in his grave, and has been for 7 years. I'd give my left testicle to have Barry Goldwater brought back to life and elected the next president.
Elliot123: That's a good, very valid point. If nothing else, the LSAT tests your ability to read, parse info, and think quickly. Making quick decisions is certainly an important aspect of being president, as you point out.
...like, "The man holdin' me down!"
That one's always good.
.
Bruce M,
If revenues to the Treasury dropped by cutting taxes, I would agree with you. But, they haven't. They have risen dramatically because they got us out of a recession that started at the end of the Clinton Administration and was made much, much worse by 911. I would call anyone who engages in something that will cost a lot of Government money (nationalized health care, anyone?) and raises taxes even though historically that will reduce revenues to the Treasury, stupid and dumb.
Please remember, 75 cents of every Federal tax dollar goes to entitlements with Social Security at the head of the list. That leaves 25 cents to pay for everything else including the war in Iraq. Obama and Hilary want to raise taxes and start many new entitlement programs. By raising taxes they will reduce revenues to the Treasury and increase cost to same, dramatically. That's smart?
This is going to get very interesting when Social Security starts paying out more than it takes in in 2018 and the Treasury is hit by the bills for huge new entitlement programs at the same time.
Bush had a great plan for Social Security, but the Democrats refused to go along with it. They even said there is no crisis. Of course, now they are talking about the Social Security crisis. I am still trying to figure that one out.
Of course, if Johnson hadn't thrown Social Security into the general fund to pay for Vietnam and the Great Society, we wouldn't be in this mess.
Also, Bruce, you wrote,
Every single one of the above deny that and that was not the conclusion Woodward came to. How smart is it to believe people who are not and have never been part of the process and have no way of knowing?
I'm sorry, but I thought that was my point. Or, at least if not my only point, I thought it was one of my central points. Why else would I point out that the capacity to remember the names of thousands of casual acquiantances was an intelligence of a sort not covered by IQ? Why else would I point out that one of America's most incompotent Presidents had the highest IQ? Why else would I point out that many really high IQ individuals are barely able to function outside of very specific areas.
Intelligence is something I'm deeply intested in. I'm well aware that the word doesn't mean what most people think that it means. I used IQ only because it is one commonly recognized standard of intelligence. People with above average IQ are not stupid by any common language use of the word. But, on the other hand, a sub-standard IQ person once commented to me that, "He may be smart, but he's an idiot." I think there is alot more to that than the speaker either realized or could articulate, but it was a really smart thing to say even so.
Conservatives don't go to war and cut taxes at the same time. When I think of conservative, I think of small government and fiscal responsiblity.
I don't think you understand economics any better than you understand intelligence. It is idiotic to increase taxes (or leave them at rates that are too high) in wartime in order to enforce shared sacrifice, the name of the game in total war is isn't fiscal responsibility it is winning, and the key to winning is industrial production. And if you don't believe me look at what happened to the national debt during WWII.
Lowering taxes will do two things in wartime: free up private investment for war industries and motivate the labor force to work harder for longer hours.
Randy R/,
I am sorry for your cousin. This, however, is where we must, as Thomas Sowell has pointed out, distinguish between fate and choice. Of course your cousin and anyone else hit with a terrible illness that is beyond their control should be helped. There would be a lot more money to help these people if there were not so many folks who are poor by choices they have made and continue to make. For instance, there is an abundance of help for homeless Vets. However, until we choose to live in a country where people are forced to accept treatment, you will always have homeless Vets. Until and unless they choose and decide to change and give up drug and alcohol addictions, they will remain homeless and all the programs in the world won't help them.
Richard Aubrey,
As one who spent many years as part of the Great Society, I know that your friend is correct. It is much easier to just tell people to blame "the rich" than it is to teach people how to become rich or at least middle class. After all, if the "poor" ever figure it out, they may demand quality schools that are not run by the Teacher's Union or school voucher's. Our local food bank was always running out of food long before the current economic downturn. They are still running out of food. I have to wonder if the fact that we have two casino's in our community doesn't have something to do with that? I did notice during the 2004 election that the vast majority of cars in the parking lots of said casino's had Kerry bumper stickers.
I have an acquaintance who works in a computer store. She is in school and seems very intelligent. However, she is always complaining that she and her husband can't afford the down payment on a house. I don't know where she has been during the entire sub-prime mortgage experience, (I think it is bad credit from husband #1) but she gave a computer class and displayed her ITunes. She had to have at least 20,000 to 30,000 dollars worth of DVD's CD's TV series, movies, etc. on her computer. In addition, she bought her husband a brand new truck even though he can't hang on to a job more than 6 months because he is a drug addict. I guess she pays for that, too. She has blown more than enough money to have a down payment. Somehow, unlike Randy R's cousin, I can't feel too sorry for her. How is it Obama is going to "help" her?
That's right: seventeen years. People who have never lived through a recession are almost old enough to vote.
People think Obama is smart because of the pleasing cadence of his speeches. The substance of his speeches isn’t overwhelming—it’s just delivered well. As a result, some people like him and have a high opinion of his intelligence.
I realize that many people do not like Bush. That's fine. Too many people, however, allow their disagreements with some of Bush's policies (mostly his decision to go to war), his speaking abilities (style over substance – this factor probably accounts for 90% of people’s opinions), and their resultant hate to become the determining factor of their opinion of his intelligence. This says more about the perceiver than it does about the perceived. It seems that a person’s hate for Bush and that person’s opinion of Bush’s intelligence are inversely proportional.
Bush isn’t stupid. He was demonstrated to be smarter than Kerry (and this has nothing to do with Bush beating Kerry in an election). People just disagree with Bush. It’s a lot easier for a person to distill his reasons for disagreeing with Bush down to “bush is stupid” than articulate the reasons that Bush may be wrong.
I also saw someone say that bush wasn’t inquisitive. How on earth could any of us know that? I think the best argument would be that he once said that since being in the white house, he hadn’t read the newspaper. This could have something to do with the fact that most of what is reported in the newspaper is about stuff he’s doing, has been (or will be) reported to him by underlings, or is irrelevant to the job of POTUS. It would seem a horrible waste of time, to me, for a president to read a NYTimes article about an event that he was already/will be briefed about.
As far as knowing intelligence when you see it, that’s style over substance. We only ever see Bush give speeches, etc. Candidates just give their opinions as to the best way to solve problems. We don’t see him work through problems (complex or otherwise). In essence, we’ve never seen the guy tested. No useful opinion can be generated from this sort of stuff.
I think, for some, it’s just cathartic to say that Bush is stupid. Others, however, might not understand what intelligence is (never having been exposed to it themselves).
Smokey, I initially stated that my prime reason for wanting Obama to be president is for racial estoppel. Once an African American becomes president, you'll never hear "the man is keeping me down" again. Ever. I'd be the last one to make racial excuses for Obama's deficiencies.
As for the prudence of cutting taxes during a war, it comes down to economics and that means everyone can pick and choose numbers and statistics which purportedly make their case. The economy is crap right now, the dollar is worthless, and the federal government is running the biggest debt in a very long time. But some say the Bush taxcuts were beneficial to the economy and to the war in iraq. I don't buy that for a second. Forget about notions of trickle-down economics, it's financially irresponsible if nothing else. We're spending like 8 million dollars an hour in Iraq, and the government is cutting taxes? Cutting the taxes of primarily the same people who support going to war in the first place? If taking out saddam and policing Iraq is so important to you, you should be willing to pay more taxes (at the very least) to support the war effort. You really want to argue that you paying less taxes helps us in Iraq? Really? I've heard the huge debt justified, but I've never heard that one.
I would guess that almost every poster here (who all seem very intelligent, whether I agree with them or not) hates the way the media gives us only sound-bites and how any candidate's policy gets reduced to a bumper-stick sized explanation - if it's even mentioned at all. And yet here we are with thousands of words trying to interpret and extrapolate from a whopping two sentences.
If lowered tax rates result in higher treasury revenue, then one can argue it is helping in Iraq. That's what our experience shows. This happens because the money that would have gone to the government is invested in various enterprises which increase jobs and the entire economy. This results in higher a tax base that delivers an increased amount of total taxes.
“I agree that there is some general intelligence, but I dont think there's an accurate way to quantitatively measure it.”
There is, and that’s what the subject of psychometrics is all about. We can measure a person’s general intelligence using a variety of techniques. We can also predict outcomes using intelligence tests, and that’s why the military uses them.
“The notion that one person is x points smarter than another is simply nonsense in my opinion.”
Why is it nonsense? What can’t we rank people on g?
“Why should there be a time limit on an intelligence test anyway?”
We don’t have to put a time limit. Some versions of intelligence testing have no time limits. But we can correlate reaction time with g. You give everyone the same easy task, but measure the time it takes them to do it. Reaction time correlates with other measures. Also remember everyone gets rushed on the LSAT.
I probably dislike Bush more than you do, but my objections to him are based on policy.
Oh please, that's never going to happen. Never! Especially if you think this will lead to the dismantling of the vast apparatus of racial preference. Why would Obama dismantle this, when after all, he is the primary beneficiary of racial preference? There is simply not a chance in the world he would be where he is now if not for the fact that he is black (he wouldn't even be a Senator now if he was a white Democrat of his age and experience, much less the leading Presidential candidate). It is particularly absurd to think that two people as clearly race-obsessed as the Obamas are somehow going to pave the way to a Truly Color Blind Society. If anything, I would expect them to expand the preference regime to even greater extremes.
I'm waiting on the McCain is dumb meme. Apparently, he managed not to be dead last in his Annapolis class, but just barely.
Don't forget he broke a lot more airplanes than Dubya. =)
As Thomas Sowell (I think) said, cultures vary and differences have consequences. I think the same could be said for lifestyle choices.
Last I heard, the per-cap income for intact black families had caught up with the per-cap income for intact white families. Both are substantially higher than the per-cap income for unwed mothers, white or black. From which we can deduce that economics, raw and unnuanced, count for more than racial discrimination.
Correct for the imbalance in unwed mothering--not a result of the evil rethuglicans--and you would flat lose one of the most important clubs of the race/privilege/culture wars.
Which is why certain statistics could get you into trouble with speech codes on campuses.
And we could be even more politically incorrect if we pointed out that it is the Government who promoted unwed motherhood via it's policies, see the Great Society. Welfare has managed to do to the Black culture what 200 years of slavery and over 150 years of Jim Crow laws couldn't do. It destroyed the Black culture. In 1968, 66% of Black families were intact. Today it is 17% and Bill Cosby is vilified for pointing out that this could be why the Black community has so many problems. Go figure. All the whining in the world about the top 5% isn't going to change one life unless this problem is dealt with.
The same goes for all races. If you are a product of an unwed mother, you have a far greater chance of being poor, having psychological problems and ending up in prison.
It is an unfortunate fact. It's not going to help one person to blame "the rich", but it is a hell of a lot easier.
The same people who agonize over "the Poor" are the very ones who won't hear of school vouchers. How many more generations do we waste waiting for the nationalized education system to get it's act together? Obama is for the Teacher's Union, not the children. He will throw more money at it. I never understand how giving the same people who are not doing the job now more money is going to get the job done. What, are they holding back?
HH?
One of the good reasons for having a time limit on intelligence tests is that it becomes increasingly hard for a test creator to design problems difficult enough to measure a difference in intelligence between people at the upper end of the bell curve if we don't also measure time. The problem you run into is that these people are as smart and almost certainly smarter than the person creating the test. You are likely to get very large numbers of them with the same (perfect) score. How can we distinguish between different levels of ability? Probably not by making the problems harder. Possibly not even by making the test longer (because there is such a thing as mental endurance and at some point we start measuring that). The only reasonable way to do it is by measuring how much effort they expend solving the problem, that is, how long it took them to do it.
Granted, to a certain extent this isn't intelligence either, but by the time we realize that we are beginning to have sophisticated enough notions of what intelligence is and isn't that we are likely to be much more humble about our own or any percieved difference between our own and anyone elses.
Until you get inoperable lung cancer at age 43, like a schizophrenic of my acquaintance. He still smokes, and he's still calmer than without it, but he's only got a year of life left. Apparently there are "side effects."
I blame the top 5% of this country.
No, their wives do!
A group of very nice people who think every poor person is really a middle-class person with strong inclinations to deferred gratification but who are down on their luck.
Problem is, as the economy gets better, the down on their luck crowd gets to be a smaller piece of the group. I mean, it's a problem for those who reproach our society.
My wife has been on several mission trips to Costa Rica. I expected to hear about the poor being the victims of an inadequate economic structure. Wrong. Two reasons: The influx of Nicaraguans, first to escape the Sandanistas, and, second, to get to Costa Rica which is generally better off, anyway. There is a huge labor surplus. And the other is that most of the poor were women with kids whose men--husbands or not--had left them.
Mac. Yeah. Shelby Steele said it took white liberal guilt to destroy the black family which had survived what would, ordinarily, be considered worse.
Unless the legacy of slavery is a sort of harmonic thing which submerges, humming along, for decades or a century or something, only to reappear later.
"Thank God Jeri Ryan has scruples."
And America can proudly claim the fattest poor people of any country on Earth!
I don't think the poverty pimps and race hustlers would give up so easily, nor would white liberals give up their masochistic guilt just because Obama is president.
Uthaw: people of one race will always be somewhat unselttled by people of others, particularly when they look very different. That will never change. But I think we've eradicated institutional racism (at least against African Americans). What more could we do? Any remaining problems are either private, insular instances of racism by racist individuals (a white guy hires a white guy over a black guy... but there are black guys hiring black guys over white guys... you'll never remediate that), or disparate impacts caused by certain facts of life that may stem from a racist history, but are not caused by current racist intent. Those disparate impacts dissipate with time.
I think a better example is to say the goalposts have always been moving - away from the kicker. President Obama would cause the goalposts of opportunity to finally be planted firmly at the endzone. Now fieldgoals are possible for everyone. It's then up to each indivual to kick their fieldgoals. Sure, some might have to kick farther than others. But that's life. Some people are born first and goal.
Try to understand this clear and simple statement from Uthaw. Maybe reading it again might help it to sink in:True. All true.