To my liberal friends:
I keep running into this “conservatives (by which they generally mean anyone the speaker thinks is not far left liberal/progressive) are stupid/uneducated” idea. And, frankly, the constant refrain is making you look bad.
Look, you and I disagree on political philosophy. Fine. We have different priorities on what we consider important. But this “conservatives are stupid/ignorant/uneducated” meme is getting old.
My degree is in physics. I graduated Summa Cum Laude. I work in “cutting edge” technology (Atomic Force Microscopy, one of the enabling technologies to nanotechnology). I am also a bona-fide “rocket scientist” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacecub) and have presented at space development conferences and seen concepts that I pioneered (commercial, manned, suborbital flight) go from paper to hardware reality.
I am not stupid, or ignorant, or uneducated. I just happen to think that “liberty” trumps “security.” That the best social program for the poor is a job. That a strong, vibrant, growing economy benefits everyone, rich and poor alike, that “government stimulus” is only able to put money into the economy that it took out of it in the first place and therefore does not help on any except the shortest of terms and actively harms the economy in the long term, and that the government should actually follow the Constitution, that something that is important enough that it must be done even if the Constitution doesn’t allow it, then amend. the. Constitution. to allow it.
And if the schools, that lead to “better educated” folk, have been telling people otherwise, well, so much the worse for the schools.
I’ve seen this refrain before, for at least 20 years. Disagree with someone (in the incident I am specifically thinking of, that someone being a “professional educator”) not on facts but on a matter of political philosophy, on relative values, and get told to “go back to school, a public school”. Since there was no disagreement on the facts of the matter in the case in question, but on what conclusions people drew from the matter there could not have been a better admission that schools weren’t teaching skills so much as providing political indoctrination.
So please stop confusing indoctrination with education, agreement with your favored policy for intelligence. Recognize that people can disagree with you and not be stupid. Otherwise, the results will turn around and bite you in the end.
The Writer in Black 