I don’t know about you, but I want the person making important decisions to be educated, educable, well rounded, experienced, honorable, and willing to put the common good above personal interest. By definition, that would rule out any politician. We’ll just have to take the best we can get.
But, standing alone, someone who was an editor of the Harvard Law Review has real evidence of intelligence. Among lawyers, that is pretty elite, and in the real world, real people, are willing to pay big dollars in a free market, to get that person’s advice. Doesn’t mean you have to share principles. Doesn’t make him an elitist.
I agree with Reindeer about defining Elite. On the other hand, false humility would only be an indication of either stupidity (some people are smarter and/or better educated than others), or insincerity. In an area where I am an expert, I admit that I can lose patience with people who, without knowledge, or experience think that their opinions mean something. The reverse is true in this forum, I don’t believe my opinion is worth as much as someone who has much more knowledge and experience. Even with the overly affected cuteness, I guarantee you that some candidates (notice I’m not saying SP) don’t believe themselves to be smart. In it’s own way, believing that if you use a few folksy words while evading real answers shows more contempt for “main street” than anyone who uses the same big words he’d use with people he considers his peers. Just who is the elitist, the person who talks to you in detail and complexity (may seem boring or out of touch), or the person who thinks that a sound byte is all you need, with your short attention span, to keep your support. I’ll take the Eastern Effete Impudent Snobs, thanks.
It doesn’t make you an elitist to say I don’t want a poorly educated, inexperienced person to run a company, or be in a position where they could run a country. Does this make me an elitist? Possibly? It isn’t personal, or even cultural but smart is smart, and educated is educated, and reasonable is reasonable.
I’ll skip my rants on short attention span, culture wars, a political system that doesn’t permit moving to a reasonable middle position, I just want to add that I started this thread to note the foolishness of the statement “He who dies with the most toys, wins”. Also, I want to say that citing the Huffington Post is unworthy of you Ranette. Why not cite Rush while you’re at it and we can really up the quality level of this discussion (not). What ever happened to “objectivity”?
.
