Politicians are not citizens’ neighbors
Jason Locke - March 6th, 2008It’s something to watch TV lately and hear how people want someone who can “be their neighbor” to be president. Something pretty asinine, in fact.
For instance, the neighbors to the left of my very thinned-walled dorm are alcoholics. The ones to the right are alcoholics who stay up and chit-chat very loudly in their bedrooms till the sun is peaking over the horizon.
I wouldn’t be too stoked if any of the six of them ran for president.
Why is it such an obsession for that “everyman” in this country? We have to ask ourselves if we want some plebian moron to run for president — a lá George W. Bush — instead of someone who is an intellectual.
Really ask yourself, do you want the same guy who can’t even return your lawnmower to run for president? Would you actually want him to win?
It’s one thing to pick a president who’s likeable and even charming, but to have news organizations and voter opinions favor someone who is anti-intellectual is getting very, very old. Intelligence is one of the key ingredients to successful leadership, and anyone who doubts that needs to read a book or 10.
When it comes down to it, I’d rather have a total and complete social pariah with no interpersonal skills, but is brilliant and intelligent versus someone who may be on par with the country’s average IQ (which seems to be plummeting by the minute), but enough of that middle class, suburbanite charm that he or she may combust at any moment.
We are selecting leaders of the country, not the town sheriff. We are picking someone with an unimaginable responsibility to those he or she leads and the world onto which they must be civil with.
Cable news channels are the main culprits in this (as they are the antagonists in most things) and it needs to stop. I know their ratings depend mostly on the proles who can’t or refuse to read, but this cycle of stupidity needs to end.
Whether or not any of the remaining candidates are at a level of intellect beyond my neighbors is a matter of debate. Obama is a lawyer. Clinton is a lawyer. McCain is a career politician and Vietnam veteran.
None of their professions are an adequate assessment of their intelligence. I don’t have an IQ test from each of them in front of me to say, sadly.
March 9th, 2008 at 12:38 am
This is one of the worst articles I’ve read in a long time. Half of the points made here read like the usual comments made by leftist cynics with little knowledge of the real world. Lots of ranting, very little substance.
Notice that you make no attempt to define what you’re definition of intelligent is. And its pretty clear why that is. Its because anyone who doesn’t follow your political beliefs must be a fool. You refer to Obama’s career as not that impressive. If you don’t think that graduating from Harvard law school and being elected President of the Harvard Law Review is impressive and representative of an intelligent person, then thats just a little bit sad.
And if you truly believe that an IQ test is representative of someones ability to succeed in life and their ability to be an “intellectual” then you are most definitely lost.
Such a shame we can’t all be as great of an intellectual as you :/