Friday, November 21, 2008
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Intelligence Is As Intelligence Does
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Posted by:
Carol Platt Liebau at
3:20 PM
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David Brooks seems awfully impressed with what he terms the "valedictocracy" filling the ranks of the Obama administration.
But as someone who shares Michelle Obama's almae matres of Princeton and Harvard, let me just say that Brooks' invocation of everyone's academic credentials, without more, is hardly reassuring. Wasn't it the "best and the brightest" who set up the situation leading to the Vietnam debacle?
Of course, one always hopes that the most intelligent people are the ones who will be leading this country. Where Brooks and the like go wrong is in necessarily equating intelligence with academic credentials. Trust me -- there are plenty of Princeton and Harvard summas I wouldn't trust to come in out of the rain without an umbrella. Book smarts and life smarts (otherwise known as common sense) don't always come in the same package.
And remember: Jimmy Carter was a graduate of the elite US Naval Academy (Annapolis). Ronald Reagan was a graduate of Eureka College. Now you tell me: Who was the smarter man, and the better President?
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Love that saying,my husband had no college, but he could fix anything.He worked for a company that built things,he could walk through the line see what was being done wrong and tell them on the spot how to fix it. When he finally got his own plant he hired 2 assistant managers, one a college degree, and one street smart. The street smart could fix a problem just like my husband wa able to do, but the college man would go into the office and figure, draw diagrams and take 2 hrs to come up with a solution. I have a simlair experience in my business. I was self taught and hired 2 like me, and I hired 2 with a degree. The one actually had been teaching before working for me, and he was absolutuley the worst interior designer ever. He could not see colors, and the girl with the degree could see colors but had no ideas,window treatments to her was a complete mystery. If a person has common sence and a god givn tallent they can do anything. If I had children college age now I would make darn sure who the professors were, and what their back ground was. Higher education is so full of left leaning liberals, that have values of an alley cat. Owning a business and running it is an art, I had a banker tell me once that there are employers and than there are employees. My husband was an employee, but extremely good at what he did. I have 2 sons that run their own businesses, and have drive you really don't see in most employees. If you want to see a liberal in action and see how really stupid they can be, watch Hannity and Colems. Every time Allen Colems opens his mouth you get a real clear picture of how the liberals think. Some of the things he says are beyond dumb.I sincerley hope the Republicans get their act together for 2010, by that time we will have a really good picture how Congress and the White House is working, it should be an open door for the righ. |
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Look at all those brainiac hedge fund managers who invented "black box" trading programs and the financial alchemists who invented the mortgage securities and credit risk models that failed so spectacularly. Intelligence created those things, but a lack of wisdom led to the meltdown. It doesn't take genius to realize that when everyone's playing the same side of a trade and using the same models, something really bad is about to happen. Wisdom would have reminded them that markets are made of people and people are emotional and can act irrationally, rendering any model useless.
A dummy can do considerable damage, but it takes someone with an Ivy League education and the intellectual superiority complex that comes with it to do the kind of damage that makes everyone stop and say, "Hooooly ****!" That kind of intelligence can get you something quite useful, like a hydrogen bomb, but you'd better run when you hear, "Shut up, I know what I'm doing!" |
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Thanks for the link.
It may be time for GOP-RIP |
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...versus willful ignorance.
I meet all sorts of theoretically intelligent people in my business, and it often seems that the ones who have the best credentials tend to be the ones who go out of their way to do the dumbest things - and then try to tell you that it's your problem, and that you misunderstood what they wanted to do.
If they walk into a closed door and bump their head, you merely didn't "get" their attempt at slapstick - or you should have leaped forward and opened the door for them.
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who has been an Air Traffic Controller, a Police Officer, and has served in the military, I'll tell you one thing that's for sure.......
Good logical common sense trumps "egghead" intelligence EVERYTIME!!!!!! |
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If you had been able to resist mentioning where YOU went to school. |
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Carol, without a doubt Ronald Wilson Reagan was the better president than Jimmah Carter! The key diference is that Mr. Reagan lived in the real world. It was that real world experience that led Mr. Reagan from New Deal Democrat to conservative Republican. Too bad many of these brainiacs do not live in the real world. |
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"how stupid liberals are as business men."
I think Warren Buffett might disagree with you
also brooks does more than simply say he likes their academic credentials. He also gives specific details as to why he likes the picks for various policy/moderate reasons.
Carol is just limiting Brooks' arguments in order to create a straw man to burn down. |
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You don't have to do much research to show how stupid liberals are as business men. Tell me how smart it is to strap the already failing auto industry with more green regulations--regulations they are not even ready to accept?
It doesn't take a Harvard Law Degree to see these regulations will not only destroy these companies but the thousands of jobs these same liberals are now so eagerly wanting to protect.
Yes, please, bring on more smart Harvard-educated liberal advisers, we need their infinite wisdom more than ever.
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