Michael, that is beautifully expressed. Miles, grab a ticket for me, too. If not Toronto, Lake Como might work. If we're going to live under fascism, it might as well be gorgeous
It was the morning after the 2016 election -- with tRump annointed POTUS-to-be by an archaic electoral system that has no business existing in modern times -- that I realized "Idiocracy" was not a comedic-satire, but a documentary film.
Having grown up out in the sticks where milking our half dozen of goats was my nightly chore, then spending my annual one-week Easter break from school shoveling pig manure out of the barn, I had an early predilection for populism. Doing hard physical work amid a years accumulation of shit has a way of simplifying ones thought processes. This was reinforced in college while watching the films of Frank Capra, which portrayed the common people (as if Gary Cooper and Jimmy Stewart were "common") as possessing an innate salt-of-the-earth wisdom of the ages, while the "elites" were evil rich fascist bastards hell-bent on enslaving the rest of us. It was only later that I learned Frank Capra was actually something of hard core right winger himself -- and that the evil rich elites were the leaders of his Republican Party. At that point the scales began to fall from my eyes, a process that was completed when the idiot-savant Ronald Reagan ascended to the governor's office in my home state. With a few exceptions -- Kennedy, Carter, and Obama -- it's pretty much been downhill ever since, a slide that has turned precipitous in the last few years.
No, I don't want my president to be someone I'd like to have a beer with, and yes, I definitely want him/her to be much smarter than I am. Dumb and dumber only makes things worse and worse, so carry on, Bob. Fight the good fight tilting at the windmills of modern brain-dead populism with the spear of intellectual elitism. At the moment, it feels as if the rising tides of dumbassery will engulf and drown us all, so we need all the help we can get.
This essay came at the perfect time for me. I am reading "The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution" and I am teaching civics for the first time. Unit 1 is about foundational principles, and I keep harping on the balance between "an excess of democracy" and the desire for a little aristocracy where it counts. I might just take an excerpt for my class. Fair use!
Bob calls a moron a moron!
Michael, that is beautifully expressed. Miles, grab a ticket for me, too. If not Toronto, Lake Como might work. If we're going to live under fascism, it might as well be gorgeous
It was the morning after the 2016 election -- with tRump annointed POTUS-to-be by an archaic electoral system that has no business existing in modern times -- that I realized "Idiocracy" was not a comedic-satire, but a documentary film.
Having grown up out in the sticks where milking our half dozen of goats was my nightly chore, then spending my annual one-week Easter break from school shoveling pig manure out of the barn, I had an early predilection for populism. Doing hard physical work amid a years accumulation of shit has a way of simplifying ones thought processes. This was reinforced in college while watching the films of Frank Capra, which portrayed the common people (as if Gary Cooper and Jimmy Stewart were "common") as possessing an innate salt-of-the-earth wisdom of the ages, while the "elites" were evil rich fascist bastards hell-bent on enslaving the rest of us. It was only later that I learned Frank Capra was actually something of hard core right winger himself -- and that the evil rich elites were the leaders of his Republican Party. At that point the scales began to fall from my eyes, a process that was completed when the idiot-savant Ronald Reagan ascended to the governor's office in my home state. With a few exceptions -- Kennedy, Carter, and Obama -- it's pretty much been downhill ever since, a slide that has turned precipitous in the last few years.
No, I don't want my president to be someone I'd like to have a beer with, and yes, I definitely want him/her to be much smarter than I am. Dumb and dumber only makes things worse and worse, so carry on, Bob. Fight the good fight tilting at the windmills of modern brain-dead populism with the spear of intellectual elitism. At the moment, it feels as if the rising tides of dumbassery will engulf and drown us all, so we need all the help we can get.
Forget about moving to Canada in 2024 if Trump is re-elected. If Walker gets into the Senate, Toronto is going to look awfully good from that moment.
This essay came at the perfect time for me. I am reading "The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution" and I am teaching civics for the first time. Unit 1 is about foundational principles, and I keep harping on the balance between "an excess of democracy" and the desire for a little aristocracy where it counts. I might just take an excerpt for my class. Fair use!