We Are Not Worthy

Pop Quiz

What science fiction author said: “My favourite definition of an intellectual: ‘Someone who has been educated beyond his/her intelligence.”?

What writer said: “Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.”?

Who said: “There is nothing that an intellectual less likes to change than his mind, or a politician his policy.”?

Who said: “Why do elites hate the poor? It’s xenophobia. They don’t know any poor people – except their off-the-books Brazilian nanny and illegal immigrant cleaning lady from Upper Revolta who don’t speak English.”?

What political scientist observed: “The ’60s were a disaster in terms of social policy. The elites put in place a whole set of reforms which I think fundamentally changed the signals and the incentives facing low-income people and encouraged a variety of trends that soon became self-reinforcing.”?

Answers at the end of this post.

We have become a bifurcated society. This is not a reference to the various and sundry divisions that are enthusiastically forced upon us by the left, e.g. race, gender, sexual persuasion, etc. Rather evidence abounds that there exists a large cadre of self-identified intellectuals who truly believe in their innate superiority which, in turn, justifies an offensive and insulting noblesse oblige. That term is defined as the inferred responsibility of privileged people to act with generosity and nobility toward those less privileged, i.e. the deplorables, the rabble, the unwashed masses. Or as the Waco Kid says in Blazing Saddles: “These are just people of the land, the common clay of the West. You know … morons.” Our elites are our Waco Kids!

An intellectual is defined as a person who places a high value on things of interest to the intellect or the more complex forms and fields of knowledge, aesthetic or philosophical matters, especially on an abstract and general level. The Wizard of Oz tells the scarecrow that “back where I come from, we have universities, seats of great learning, where men go to become great thinkers. And when they come out, they think deep thoughts and with no more brains than you have.” In America the elites are defined by their educational pedigree. Mayor Pete has no real world experience, no substantive achievements and was a failed Mayor of South Bend, Indiana. Yet he is ballyhooed as a man of intellectual depth who is qualified, based solely on has CV, to run the US Department of Transportation. He can best be defined as supercilious which means “arrogantly superior”, all evidence to the contrary.

There are a number of recent examples of the disdain in which the majority of Americans are held by our leftist elites. Hilliary Clinton will forever be remembered for her reference to millions of our citizens as “deplorables”. Stephen Colbert gazed down the full length of his nose to tell his sycophantic audience that he would be happy to pay $15 a gallon for gas to assuage his ultra-sensitive conscience because, (wink, wink), he drives a Tesla. (Note that a new Tesla Model S ranges in cost from $94,990 – $129,990…median income in the US is $51,480) His total and complete disregard for the plight of those who make less than his indefensible and unjustified $15 million salary is breathtaking. Arrogant superiority on steroids.

A more tragic example can be seen in Ukraine. Many who oppose assisting Ukraine in the ongoing contretemps with Russia make reference to the fact that Ukraine is a kleptocracy, governed by a gaggle of plutocrats and is, therefore, not worthy of our support other than a meals on wheels program. When the fearless Biden team offered Ukraine President Zelensky an Uber ride to safety his response was: “The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.” Biden would have said he needed a ride to get ice cream.

But it is the “deplorables” of Ukraine who have to pay the price of the Putin invasion. The people of Ukraine are fighting and dying to protect their country. They are not fighting and dying for the oligarchs who have their wealth safely tucked away in foreign bank accounts. The people fighting and dying are the Ukraine equivalent of our Trump voters. This is not to say we should take an active role in the war but rather to suggest that our arrogant intellectual idiots should just shut up. The world is close to a reprise of 1914 when the totality of Europe stumbled into World War I. (Suggested reading: The Sleepwalkers by Christopher Clark)

What distinguishes our supercilious elites is their unwavering belief in the “perfectibility of mankind”. The French Revolution was based on this irrational wet dream. The American Revolution was based on the words of Jack Welch: “Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be.” Our Revolution, and the Constitution that resulted, are alive (barely after FDR, LBJ and Biden) while the Reign of Terror that was the French Revolution lasted 15 minutes. Our survival depends on our ability to relegate our “intellectual elites” (oxymoron alert) to Atlantis, never to be heard from again.

Today our truth challenged political superiors want to re-imagine our truckers, plumbers and farmers as computer coders much as the right would like to re-imagine AOC with a functioning brain. They want to create, in their own image, a world of blue collar workers that will be obedient to the tender ministrations of our unelected bureaucrats…aid workers sent by Harvard University…5,076 acres surrounded by reality. It is understandable why they fear Trump and his voters, our noble deplorables.

It is never the political elites such as AOC, Mayor Pete, Nanny Pelosi and our other leftist ringmasters who pay the price for the inevitably disastrous application of their naive, utopian ideology on a world they do not understand or care about. The gaping divide between the elites in this country and the real world is, to paraphrase Top Gun, that they are writing checks that the world’s deplorables may have to cash. (Suggested reading: Intellectuals and Society, A Conflict of Visions and The Quest for Cosmic Justice all by Thomas Sowell, The Ruling Class by Angelo Codevilla and Dictatorship of Virtue by Richard Bernstein)

We must stop protecting these authoritarians by censoring what they incorrectly identify as mis and disinformation.

Things to ponder:

A Critical Theory among obese people and white men is demanding that we address the problem posed by the laws of systemic gravity.

In her excellent book Slanted Sharyl Attkisson the author provides a wonderful example of media bias. She was asked to write an article on why the flat tax proposed by Steve Forbes “wouldn’t work”. Wouldn’t it have been better to write an article about the flat tax proposal and stimulate a discussion as to whether or not it would work?

MOT update: Facebook has revealed, in writing, that their so-called “fact checkers” are actually dispensing opinions with total disregard for truth.

Satirist P.J. O’Rourke observed: “The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work and then they get elected and prove it.”? QED.

We suffer from willful ignorance, dispensed in our schools and perpetuated by the media and the MOT.

COVID fact from 2020: India has 1.3 billion people and had 150,000 COVID deaths. The US has 330 million people and had 357,000 deaths. Explanation: India allowed the use of Ivermectin. Team Fauci fought to prohibit this cost effective prophylactic in favor of their pals in Big Pharma.

Russia passes a law on Monday banning fake news. On Tuesday CNN shuts down all Russian operations. Coincidence?

Answers to the pop quiz:

What science fiction author said: “My favourite definition of an intellectual: ‘Someone who has been educated beyond his/her intelligence.”? Arthur Clark

What writer said: “Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.”? Eric Blair, aka George Orwell

“There is nothing that an intellectual less likes to change than his mind, or a politician his policy.”? Theodore Dalrymple

Who said: “Why do elites hate the poor? It’s xenophobia. They don’t know any poor people – except their off-the-books Brazilian nanny and illegal immigrant cleaning lady from Upper Revolta who don’t speak English.”? The brilliant Thomas Sowell

What political scientist observed: “The ’60s were a disaster in terms of social policy. The elites put in place a whole set of reforms which I think fundamentally changed the signals and the incentives facing low-income people and encouraged a variety of trends that soon became self-reinforcing.”? Libertarian Charles Murray