(1) I’d like to start a poll. (Just for those on the right.) Who is more “intellectual”, Obama or Palin? I anticipated some might not consider the answer clearcut (that’s why I went with “Which is better food, steak or dirt?”), but respectable conservatives in this thread may be 1 for 1 on agreeing Moore is more sincere than Limbaugh; I wonder how they’d answer this question.
(2) To oversimplify Mr. PoleCat’s point: “Obama is stupid, but if he’s instead a genius, so what?” This is the kind of argumentation that annoys me. Make a claim, but state in advance you don’t give a shit if your claim can be refuted. :smack:
Being a genius is clearly a good thing. Being an intellectual is not necessarily a good thing. Try to remember that most people are not as impressed by intellectuals as you are. You didn’t merely oversimplify my point. You completely misrepresented it.
You are making the common mistake of confusing opinion with fact. That’s the point of my mention of “objective standards”.
Fact can be established by reference to an objective standard. Opinion may be based on facts, but cannot be established as clearly. One of the problems with a board so overwhelmingly liberal (by US standards) as is the SDMB is that liberal opinion gets confused with fact all the time.
Consider the following, if it clarifies:
[ul]
[li]Who is braver, Obama or McCain?[/li][li]Who is taller, Obama or Marvin Hamlisch?[/li][li]Who was the greater heavyweight, Joe Louis or Jack Dempsey?[/ul]Some of these are answerable, others are opinions. Keeping the distinction clearly in mind is key to understanding what can and cannot be achieved by debate.[/li]
Regards,
Shodan
We can agree to disagree as to who is confused. To help you you understand what you’re responding to, I’ll use a larger font: my suggested poll is Just for those on the right.
We seem to agree, without even consulting the American Enterprise Institute, that steak is a better food than dirt. I’m curious what other things that seem obvious to many of us are also obvious to rightists.
Let’s start with an easier one. For you, Shodan, is Obama’s birth in the U.S.A. a matter of fact or opinion? If the latter, what’s yours?
By SDMB standards, I am on the right. What exactly was your point?
That would be a matter of fact, because there is an objective standard on which we all agree that can be used to prove or disprove it.
Obviously there are people who will deny an objective standard when it conflicts with their ideology - Creationists, Truthers, some Dopers - but that does not mean that the facts change.
Let’s follow up with a question of my own - is the following statement soliciting a fact, or an opinion?
Obama is doing a good job as President.
Please note that I am not asking for you to answer the question - simply that you make it clear what kind of response can be given.
No. I’m discussing two separate phenomena:
(1) When people accuse other people ON THE SDMB of hypocrisy (which is all that I’m talking about. Accusing Fox News or Michael Moore of hypocrisy is something else entirely.) they almost always do so in vague terms… “you repugs” “you liberuls”. They very rarely say “MaxTheVool is a hypocrite”, and they SUPER rarely actually show two posts demonstrating that hypocrisy
(2) When people are talking about the malfeasance of a public figure, they fairly rarely make absolute statements about how “the fact that that democratic senator was caught doing X proves that all democrats are evil and all republicans are good”. If they DID, then there would be some point to bringing up similar malfeasance from the other side, as it would actually be relevant to the conversation at hand.
(2a) Actually, slight amendment to that. It’s fairly common for some public figure to do something, and for people to then say “well, I guess that proves that all that Republican talk of family values is BS” or “well, I guess that proves that all that liberal talk of tolerance and free speech is BS”, but that’s still not something which is meaningfully contradicted by bringing up a “well, the other side does it to”. (Although this is a bit of a tangent from the discussion as a whole.)
These two points are in no way contradictory.
OK, I withdraw my hyperbole. Accusations of hypocrisy are not literally near-universal. They rarely show up in Cafe Society, for instance. But they are far too common in political threads, and are a blight upon the face of the SDMB. (Note, btw, that I am in no way accusing just the right side of this sin. SDMB leftists do it plenty, as well. For instance, a fairly common and stupid meme is accusing conservatives of being hypocrites because they’re “pro-life” but also support the death penalty, as if, Zing!, gotcha!)
Uhh, what? Not sure exactly what you’re saying, but if you’re saying that it doesn’t bother me when liberals accuse conservatives of hypocrisy, you’re wrong. It does bother me. Granted, I’m probably a bit more likely to either not notice it, or just not respond, because (as is the basic premise of this thread) I am a flawed human being. But that’s true of all of us. And I do both condemn and disdain it (or whatever those two verbs from that silly Clinton-Obama kerfluffle were.)
Two responses:
(1) I think that because vocal conservatives posters are few and far between, each individual one is actually far MORE influential than equivalent liberal posters… at least as far as being able to start a discussion about something is concerned. I mean, who has been the centerpiece of more threads… magellan and starving artist on the right, or, I dunno who on the left? I guess Der Trihs has been the subject of a lot of threads, but mainly just pits of him for being a jerk, which is at least slightly different than the usual attempt-at-argument-turns-into-pileon that magellan and SA get.
Certainly, I can tell you quite a bit more about the arguing style and basic beliefs of, say, you, SA, magellan and Bricker than I can about any 4 liberal posters. (Diogenese and Der Trihs are up there, but after that…?)
In fairness it’s not really clear that “is talked about a lot” or “people are quite familiar with their beliefs and argument style” is the same as “influential”. But honestly, I don’t know who the most influential liberal poster is, if there is one. It’s not like there’s some wise council of learned liberal posters who the rest of us all get our ideas from.
I mean, I’m a liberal poster, and I certainly don’t feel influential
(2) I actually think it’s a TERRIBLE problem that the SDMB doesn’t have more conservative posters. I have no idea what to DO about it, unfortunately, and there doesn’t seem to be much point in ranting about it, but the SDMB would clearly be a much better place if it weren’t so liberal-dominated. I have one good family friend who is a very smart and nice and knowledgeable guy and also a staunch Republican, used to be the chairman of his county’s Republican party, went to Bush’s inauguration, etc… I’m always trying to convince him to join the SDMB, but with sadly no success.
I’m not sure what point you’re making. If a particular news outlet that presents itself as honest and non-partisan (which MSNBC may not do, but CNN and the networks certainly do) reacts to equivalent scandals on the left and right with markedly different responses, that is clearly bad, and a sign of bias. But what does that have to do with Sarah Palin?
I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make.
Sarah Palin has obviously and undeniably said some fairly dumb things in public. (As, in fairness, have many public figures on all sides). Therefore it’s quite possible and natural that if she says something that superficially sounds dumb, but isn’t (and I don’t recall any specifics of the incident you’re referring to) people who don’t like her will assume the worst. I mean, newsflash! People who don’t like someone make fun of that person!
There is not always a clearcut distinction between fact and opinion.
Which of two basketball players is taller? Matter of fact.
Which of two pro players is more skilled at basketball? Perhaps matter of opinion.
Is septimus or a pro player more skilled at basketball? Definitely a matter of fact.
Barack Obama got a B.A. from a very prestigious University. He then graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Law School, where he also served as President of the Harvard Law Review. (Harvard Law School is ranked the best Law School in America.) Sarah (Heath) Palin seemed to have difficulty getting a B.A. in communications, not even participating with her college newspaper.
Competent pundits agree Obama appears intelligent and well-informed. Palin had trouble naming a magazine she reads, misspoke “refudiate” (and then compared herself to Shakespeare as a word-coiner) and in fact, like GWB, adopts a deliberately non-intellectual persona.
It would be a pointless detour into semantics to classify the question I raise above as one of “fact” or “opinion.” The simple question remains: which of the two is more “intellectual”?
I have no doubt that intelligent, sincere conservatives can answer that question correctly. Can you, Shodan?
(And this is not off-topic to the thread. Pretending that true statements are false, or ambiguous matters of “opinion”, is hypocrisy.)
Shodan, are you trying to provide an object lesson that proves the OP is correct?
All you want to do is prove that liberals are hypocrites. That’s a pretty low standard. I mean, aside from you, who cares that liberals (like most people) are hypocrites? Is it hypocritical of you to blame liberals for hypocrisy but give conservatives a pass?
Oh, but there are so many liberals here, and if you don’t accuse them of hypocrisy no one will?
Eh. It seems like a very unproductive hobby, one that benefits neither you nor your audience.
Hypocrite hunting, as was mentioned before, is a game of ad hominem, and it adds virtually nothing to the conversation. Rather the reverse.
As I have pointed out, there are many mediocrities with degrees from prestigious universities. Al Gore, for example.
However, his sole contribution to the Harvard Law Review was an anonymous, undistinguished six page paper on an abortion ruling. He doesn’t appear to have had a stunning career as a legal scholar, nor does he seem to have any significant accomplishments of any kind as either an undergraduate or a graduate student.
Lots of people have trouble getting through school because of matters that have nothing to do with their scholastic ability.
Equally competent pundits have noted that Obama seems to have a problem appearing intelligent and well-informed without a teleprompter. Obama said he had visited “fifty seven” states and had one more to go, and apparently had no idea how to pronounce the word “corpsman.”
Certainly he tries to project an intellectual persona. However, his intellectual accomplishments–a couple of mediocre books, an anonymous six page article in the Harvard Law Review, and a lot of vacuous political speeches–are much too meager to back it up. So, no, Obama isn’t “more intellectual” than Palin, at least not in any way that actually matters.
Wow, that’s a strech. I can agree that certain things can appear to have more substance than they actually have but you’re really exaggerating the point to dismiss his every accomplishment and make a statement like that. His degrees alone, disregarding everything else, makes him more intellectual than Palin and most people in this country.
My experience that IQ and intellectual accomplishments do not always equate to being well grounded emotionaly, or having some good ole common sense about things outside your area of expertise, but since we’re talking just intellect here. He trounces Palin without half trying.
I’d like to think he might not, that he would evade the situation gracefully. If that were not an option, he’s whip her sorry ass six ways from Sunday. Because he couldn’t help it, good hearted as he may be. There’s a cheerful glint of comptetitiveness in his eye, if he plays, he plays to win.
If you had to answer which of the two was more athletic, I think you could respond as you did above: he’s not, at least in any way that actually matters.
But if the question is intellectualism, there’s a fair-minded use and understanding of the term that weighs heavily in Obama’s favor. He not only secured graduate degrees – he taught at the graduate level.
And while you may hand-wave away his public speaking as reliance on teleprompters, I am not persuaded that relying on hand-written notes bespeaks intellectual superiority — not when ‘hand-written’ means ‘written in ballpoint pen on one’s own hand.’
Palin, in other words, is equally free to use teleprompters to boost her apparent ability to speak off the cuff, but doesn’t.
And while I have no proof, I am absolutely convinced if an interviewer asked Obama to name a Supreme Court case he disagreed with, he would have no trouble responding.
Denying this claim is … well… silly. No offense intended, but c’mon. Obama is clearly more intellectual than Palin.
The question was, is Obama more intellectual than Palin? My response was, even if he is, so what? It isn’t hand-waving away his accomplishments to note how slight they are. Obama is intellectual in the way many people are religious; that is, he has learned how to make the right noises to gain acceptance and approval in the right circles. How much he believes or even understands of what he says is very much open to question. In any case, his intellectuality, whatever its quality, clearly has not served him well in the White House.
And all of you here are much too easily impressed with Ivy League degrees. Al Gore and Bush Jr. have Ivy League degrees, and they’re both dunces. Have none of you noticed that the Ivy League is basically where the elite grooms the next generation of the elite, that people send their kids there not so much to learn about the world as to learn the right attitudes and manners to fit in with the ruling class and plug into the old boy network? But I guess thinking for yourself and questioning authority doesn’t apply when we’re talking about the ruling class’s precious Ivy League.
Like Jimmy Carter and George Bush Jr., Obama is an empty suit. Pointing out that he is superficially more intellectual than Palin doesn’t change the painfully obvious fact that he doesn’t have a clue how to govern.
Well, you’re neglecting the whole teachy thing. Obama taught at the gradulate level. Not to mention that Gore and Bush were legacy brats. Yeah, the Ivy League schools produce (or did produce) a lot of mediocre legacy brats, but if you’re not a legacy brat, it’s pretty unlikely you’re going to be “mediocre” and still get in and through an Ivy League Law School.
Sarah Palin hasn’t shown any evidence whatsoever of being worthy of the title “intellectual”. A big part of being an intellectual is exhibiting intellectual curiosity. I see none of that in SP. I wouldn’t call her a “moron”, as many here would. I know a lot of college educated people like Palin. They got through, and they have some smarts, but there is no way I would call them “intellectual”.
