Why liberals are condescending
February 9, 2010 at 2:53 pm
In my latest for the Guardian, I find myself agreeing with Gerard Alexander’s essay in the Washington Post that liberals are condescending. But it’s hard not to be when many on the other side reject evolution, think global warming is a hoax and believe President Obama was not born in the United States.
Tags: Barack Obama, birthers, evolution, Gerard Alexander, global warming, Guardian, Washington Post
79 Responses to “Why liberals are condescending”
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No, Dan, what you’re supposed to reflect upon is your arrogant intellectual certainty.
I can understand why you are avoiding answering this like the plague.
It’s the voice of experience and age telling you that you might want to stop for a moment and reconsider your arrogant certainty.
You are an incredibly stupid young man. You refuse to even consider the effects of your global reorganization plan. Your arrogance and stupidity is preposterous. Let it be noted that the Great Potentate, Dan Kennedy, knows how to restructure the global economy and doesn’t even need to consider what might happen if he’s dead wrong.
I’ll quote may favorite author, Henry Miller, although I’m too lazy to look up the quote and give it to you verbatim. I promise you, I’m mighty close.
“We watch the young making the same damned mistakes we made, and we are stricken with the desire to do something about it.
But it is hopeless. Against stupidity we are helpless.”
You have a great way with words, and a talent for constructing argument, Dan, but you are hopelessly stupid and proud of it.
Per Stephen Thomas’ logic, one could make the case that any regulation would be a potential disaster. Then he so eloquently calls those who disagree “stupid”; maybe that’s his idea of supporting documentation?
I’m embarrassed that we apparently went to the same university. Of course, I graduated, so …
Walter Russell Mead makes a good point in this article “Global Warming Movement Wasn’t Ready For Prime Time”:
In an apparent bid to sew up the Most Ironic Comment Of The Year competition, Stephen Thomas says:
“what you’re supposed to reflect upon is your arrogant intellectual certainty.”
Hilarious!
@Steve: Hey, I’ve got my orders. I’ve reflected. And I’ve concluded that I know nothing about how to install a municipal sewerage system.
Well then, for heaven’s sake, Dan, don’t try it! In Acton, we might know how to install a municipal sewage system (the jury is still out), but we have no idea how to pay for it.
Sewage issues are best dealt with in church and through mediation with God.
Dan,
How do you hold on to a job?
So, you have no answer to a micro example of just how things can do wrong, but you know how to reorganize the global economy. That’s reassuring.
You continue to refuse the answer my question. An admission of defeat.
So, I’m arrogant… but, Dan, I’m not advocating taxing every human on earth and reorganization the world economy.
I have nothing to prove because I’m for leaving people alone to do business as they please.
As I said at the top, global warming isn’t just a hoax, it appears to be a criminal conspiracy.
Dan,BP, Steve, you are terminally stupid. But, of course, you do know how to reorganize the world economy.
Do you have any idea how ridiculously stupid this is?
Debating with such utter morons is obviously a waste of time, but I’ll try to summarize the problem here for sentient readers.
These boys are theoretical geniuses. They’ve got a plan for global reorganization of the economy and regulation of every business on earth.
They can’t answer for the failure of a single small scale example of how their great theories might fail, nor do they care to explain what they would do should their great theories fail.
What utter, abjectly pathetic fool these are!
And yet, these fools tells us that they are “scientific” realists.
Mind numbing, isn’t it?
Dear readers, would any of you turn over the keys to the global economy to these fools?
So, dear reader, since Dan refuses to even consider my questions about his potential fallibility, given that he is a theoretical genius capable of restructuring the global economy, let me summarize his answers to my actual questions, as opposed to the questions he pretends that I asked, so that he can avoid answering them:
Q: What if you are wrong?
Dan: No way. I’m a genius.
Q: What if your great theory destroys the lives of individual people?
Dan: I don’t have to answer for that. I’m a global theoretician.
Q: Here’s an example of a grand environmental project that went desperately wrong. Could this possibly be the outcome of your great global reorganization?
Dan: I won’t even consider that. I only theorize on a global level. And I can’t possible be wrong.
Q: But, I’ve experienced an actual real world event in which people who share your world view, and who were just as certain that they were absolutely right, failed completely.
Dan: That was just a local sewer project. I’m talking about reorganizing the entire global economy. That’s much easier to do. I can’t possibly fail.
Q: The Woodstock environmentalists who foisted this project upon the town were equally convinced that they couldn’t fail, and that opponents were unscientific, old fashioned, backward Republicans. Yet, their project bankrupted businesses and individuals, placed long-term financial burdens on the town and disrupted business in the town for years. Could the same thing result in the global economy if you just happen to be wrong?
Dan: I don’t know anything about sewer projects.
Q: I’m not asking you about your expertise on sewer projects. I’m asking you whether you have a plan for dealing with the potential for catastrophic failure of your global economic reorganization project.
Dan: I don’t know anything about sewer projects. Small scale things don’t interest me. Since I am a universal, global theorist, the things that happen on a small scale can’t possible happen if my theories are implemented.
I could go on an on all day with this. As you can see, Dan’s “scientific” method is simple avoidance of any issue that I actually raise. His real, and only argument for reorganizing the global economy to abate a purported environmental hazard is that he is a theoretical genius on a global scale.
Here in the U.S., we sort of expect low intelligence in journalists. That’s part of the reason that the web is killing the old media. We also know that journalists received little training in actual journalism in college, and that instead they were indoctrinated in leftist activism. Obviously, the situation is no different in the U.K.
I’ll leave this debate now, since Dan is obvious incapable of any substantive response other than that we must trust his genius in global economic theory.
Finally Mr. Thomas has found a suitable debating partner – the voices in his head. As my father used to say, “Sometimes I just talk to myself – I meet a better class of people that way!”
@Stephen Thomas: Mind numbing, isn’t it?
Yes, you are mind-numbing. Fortunately, the rest of us have reality to revive us.
Good column Dan. What is it about the Alaska Independence Party that makes it a “hate group”? Your link only mentions its advocacy for voting on Alaska independence. Crazy as that is, I don’t think it qualifies them as a hate group.
@Ben: Here you go. Note that Tapper had to retract his claim that Sarah Palin had been a member. But Todd Palin was, and Sarah was closely associated with the group for a long time.
Thanks, I thought you were talking about racism when you said “hate group”. I notice that you equate the hateful comments made by an Alaska Independence Party leader with those made by Reverend Wright. Do you consider Wright’s congregation to be a “hate group”?
@Ben: I consider what Wright said that day to be hateful. I also can’t imagine that was the only time he indulged that rhetoric. And I think President Obama was disingenuous when he claimed he didn’t know anything about it. But I have never read or heard anything to suggest that Wright’s was anything other than a mainstream Congregational church devoted to religion, good works and (yes) occasional forays into Afrocentric anger.
The Alaska Independence Party, by contrast, was founded on the principles of anti-Americanism. Its founder and leader, Joe Vogler, hated America. It looks like its Web site has been cleaned up a bit. But these words from Vogler were emblazoned on it right through the 2008 election: “I’m an Alaskan, not an American. I’ve got no use for America or her damned institutions.”
“I consider what Wright said that day to be hateful.”
Sometimes folks take liberty with rhetorical flourishes to make their point. And sometimes the truth itself “sounds” hateful.
I listened to the “worst” of Wright’s sermons in their entirety (those most sound-bited) and found myself nodding my head in agreement.
That being said, Obama needed to jettison Wright when he just couldn’t take himself off the stage. But I admired his attempt to stick with him for as long as he did.
And wish he showed the same courage and backbone now.
The greatest eco-hysteria of my life was, of course, the publication of Paul Ehrlich’s “Population Bomb,” which promised that basic commodities would become so scarce that we would see food riots.
I know I’m oversimplifying, perhaps drastically, but I wouldn’t dismiss Ehrlich so cavalierly.
In terms of commodities being so scarce that there’s food riots, I think if you crunched the numbers, you will indeed find conditions not dissimilar to what Ehrlich described exist for the majority of human beings on this planet…probably by a wide margin.
And also, don’t give up so easily? The Great Depression Two-Point-Oh has barely gotten started! :-/
“I think if you crunched the numbers, you will indeed find conditions not dissimilar to what Ehrlich described exist for the majority of human beings on this planet…probably by a wide margin.”
You forget, Aaron, that if it hasn’t happened in Woodstock, NY, then it hasn’t really happened. So your point is moot.
(But I was thinking the exact same thing and wish Dan hadn’t granted the point so easily.)
You forget, Aaron, that if it hasn’t happened in Woodstock, NY, then it hasn’t really happened. So your point is moot.
The catastrophic stupidity of this site is an embarrassment.
BP, I’d try to explain to you again what I said, but apparently reading comprehension is not one of your strong points.
What’s the average IQ on this sight… above 50?
How many of you guys are on SSI?
“BP, I’d try to explain to you again what I said, but apparently reading comprehension is not one of your strong points.”
But I’m an excellent driver.
Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1250872/Climategate-U-turn-Astonishment-scientist-centre-global-warming-email-row-admits-data-organised.html
Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.
So, boys, I know that you are geniuses, but…
I can’t help but rub it in.
Sarah Palin is stupid, and Dan is a theoretical genius capable of reordering the global economy.
And yet, Palin is right. The Great Global Warming hysteria is a fraud. Phil Jones, the “scientist” at the center of the fraud, has caved in and admitted that the dog ate his homework. Jones admits that global warming might not be attributable to human activity. Jones admits the the Medieval Warming Period is a fact. Jones concedes that there has been no global warming for the past 15 years. In short, Jones admits that he’s a fraud.
For the great geniuses of the world like Dan, this is unlikely to produce a change of heart or a change in behavior.
Here’s my prediction. Now that the Great Global Warming hysteria has collapsed and stands exposed as a fraud, Dan will discover another End of the World threat to human existence that will require global taxation and regulation.
Stay tuned as Dan adjusts his piercing intellect. I can barely wait, Dan, to discover the next End of the World crisis that you will be saving us from.
And, I’ll bet that Dan’s next End of the World crisis is so overwhelming that he simply can’t stop to consider the consequences should he turn out to be wrong. After all, he will only propose taxing every individual and regulating every business on earth.
What could possibly go wrong?
Dan, I’m glad you spare Reverend Wright’s congregation the designation of “hate group” – you’re previous post suggested a moral equivalency, so I had to ask. But I still think you’re using the term too broadly here. You make a valid distinction, but that doesn’t explain why each side is only offended by their opponent’s associations.
The Daily Mail is caught in another lie about ClimateGate. But the rubes like Reynolds and Malkin (plus some local rubes) still fall for it.
It’s official – Stephen declares discussion of global warming over.
And in a related story Dan changes title of post to “Why conservatives are condescending.”
And in a related story Dan changes title of post to “Why conservatives are condescending.”
Well, after all, Dan’s answer to why liberals are so condescending is: Conservatives are so stupid they deserve it.
Tit for tat, eh?
Did the SSI checks come in today, boys?
And, Dan, have you come up with your new End of the World scenario yet?
Here is another excellent article about the MSM’s treatment of ClimateGate. (Blake Hounshell criticizes Walter Russell Mead’s critique of the NYT’s lack of coverage.)
Also, since there seems to be a lack of primary sources in this discussion here is the transcript of the BBC’s interview with Phil Jones that has been horribly distorted by the Daily Mail.
This just in… Here is a thread on BlueMassGroup (a certified liberal Democratic website, not completely populated by certified liberals) about climate change.
As far as I’m concerned, I’m trained as an aeronautical engineer not a climate scientist, but as such I’ve had some peripheral training in atmospheric dynamics. I pretty much buy the consensus in favor of AGW, but I’d love to be wrong. (I bought into the Meadows’s “Limits To Growth” and I’m a sucker for simulation and modeling, so I’m prepared to be wrong.)