[extropy-chat] Enlightenment and the election

[Emlyn]

btw

 Voter turnout in Tuesday's election unlikely to have been higher than in 2000 
Andrea Lynn, Humanities Editor
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 

11/3/04 

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Despite the widespread assumption that voter turnout
was substantially higher in the 2004 presidential election than it was
in the 2000 election, "the numbers suggest a different story," says
Scott Althaus, a professor of speech communication and political
science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who conducts
research on the effects of presidential campaigns.

etc

http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=04/11/04/3548414


On Tue, 9 Nov 2004 17:41:56 -0800, J. Andrew Rogers
<andrew at ceruleansystems.com> wrote:
> Brent Neal wrote:
> > You know, if the smart folks tend to preferentially vote for someone,
> > I'd consider that carefully.  Even though our status as educated seems
> > to attract disdain from you, my experience is that we tend to think
> > more about our own choices, and not what our preacher tells us to do.
> 
> 
> There is no evidence in this particular election that the smart folks
> preferentially voted any one way.  Most self-described big city liberals
> are as provincial and poorly educated as your average flyover country
> resident, they just choose to let their ignorance shine in different
> areas, and tend to believe in the myth of their intellectual skills a
> little more.  Just because you like a different flavor of Kool-Aid does
> not change the fact that you are still drinking Kool-Aid.  There is no
> shortage of tools and frauds on both sides, and being trendy or
> fashionable is not an indication of credibility.
> 
> In practice, blue state folks are just as ignorant of science,
> mathematics, and culture as red state folks.  They just specialize in
> different sub-areas when it comes to ignorance.  If you do not recognize
> this (no matter which side you claim to be on), then you are precisely
> the type of person I am talking about.
> 
> I do find that some stereotypes tend to be true.  Red-Staters tend to be
> historians and tend to view things in a historical context, whereas I
> find that most Blue-Staters have an appalling lack of knowledge of
> history.  Blue-Staters tend to be more ethnically worldly than
> Red-Staters, though not to the extent that many Blue-Staters appear to
> believe.  Red-Staters are more religious on average, but not that much
> and not in any way that makes a difference, since Blue-Staters have
> their own quasi-religious belief systems that Red-Staters generally do
> not share.
> 
> I tend to find the religious right-wing more tolerable than the
> "intellectual" left-wing in that the religious right does not try to
> make any claim as to the superiority of their own brain power as
> individuals (that is reserved for god), whereas I've found that the
> intellectual left tends to take the superiority of their thinking skills
> and knowledge to be axiomatic (and hence whatever garbage may result
> from it).  Appeals to god are so much cleaner and pleasant in comparison.
> 
> I don't really fall under either side, and have lived in both "parts" of
> the country most of my life.  Claiming clear intellectual superiority
> for team you voted for is hubris born of ignorance.
> 
> 
> j. andrew rogers
> 
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
Emlyn

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