I do not say that these people are stupid as an assumption. I've grown up amongst them, I've heard their rationales, and for a time of my life even thought like them. I thought that Ronald Reagan, for instance, was spot on when he said that the best way to encourage the economy was to give tax cuts to those who were already the most successful. I listened to "trickle down" economics and believed it. I believed that buying American made products was the only thing that made sense.
What has changed is my perspective, perhaps, but it's an important change. My perspective now is, "What makes rational sense?" No one, and I mean NO ONE, has ever presented me with a rational explanation for why gay marriage is supposedly wrong or what harm it will cause this country. I have heard some flimsy rhetoric about protecting the institution as it exists (then outlaw divorce), that marriage is about stability of families (then make gay families more stable by letting them legally marry) or about how marriage is supposed to be about encouraging procreation (then let gay parents marry, share the rights and responsibilities, and adopt if they don't have surrogates or sperm donors available). This is the main point behind labeling something or someone stupid: they are not just ignorant, they are intentionally anti-reason. Rational, reasonable discourse and disagreement, I can accept. Blind obedience or a political position based on nothing more than some article of faith taken without evidence? No.
Regarding Ann Coulter and Michael Moore, the answer on that? Don't believe either of them. They're both fearmongerers with their own agendas that have nothing to do with the good of the citizenry as a whole. They do what they do to be famous. Quiet debate doesn't get good ratings. As for a question of trust? Trust no pundit; each one is a marionette, and someone lurks in the shadows pulling the strings. Follow the money and you'll discern the agenda. Objective truth, if such a thing exists in any human endeavor, is out there to be seen.
I mentioned Rove and his type as supporting this position because it benefits them personally, and mentioned that they aren't stupid at all. They're outside of the subject set under evaluation. When you have a patient with a tapeworm in his gut, you don't concern yourself with the health or POV of the tapeworm.
The argument can be made that we only remember those intellectuals who were simply stubborn enough to not give up. I was thinking of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment as two periods where intelligence was socially "sexy," but it's arguable.
Re: they're not stupid.
What has changed is my perspective, perhaps, but it's an important change. My perspective now is, "What makes rational sense?" No one, and I mean NO ONE, has ever presented me with a rational explanation for why gay marriage is supposedly wrong or what harm it will cause this country. I have heard some flimsy rhetoric about protecting the institution as it exists (then outlaw divorce), that marriage is about stability of families (then make gay families more stable by letting them legally marry) or about how marriage is supposed to be about encouraging procreation (then let gay parents marry, share the rights and responsibilities, and adopt if they don't have surrogates or sperm donors available). This is the main point behind labeling something or someone stupid: they are not just ignorant, they are intentionally anti-reason. Rational, reasonable discourse and disagreement, I can accept. Blind obedience or a political position based on nothing more than some article of faith taken without evidence? No.
Regarding Ann Coulter and Michael Moore, the answer on that? Don't believe either of them. They're both fearmongerers with their own agendas that have nothing to do with the good of the citizenry as a whole. They do what they do to be famous. Quiet debate doesn't get good ratings. As for a question of trust? Trust no pundit; each one is a marionette, and someone lurks in the shadows pulling the strings. Follow the money and you'll discern the agenda. Objective truth, if such a thing exists in any human endeavor, is out there to be seen.
I mentioned Rove and his type as supporting this position because it benefits them personally, and mentioned that they aren't stupid at all. They're outside of the subject set under evaluation. When you have a patient with a tapeworm in his gut, you don't concern yourself with the health or POV of the tapeworm.
The argument can be made that we only remember those intellectuals who were simply stubborn enough to not give up. I was thinking of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment as two periods where intelligence was socially "sexy," but it's arguable.