November 5, 2004

Intelligence

NOTE: This item was originally written and posted on October 17 of this year, but with the current theme of "the voters are dumb" that's babbling it's way about the blogsphere and throughout the MSM, I thought it would be interesting to bring it back. It seems like only yesterday that the Party Line was that the President was stupid and the people wise. Now it is instantly the reverse. As the old song goes, "What a difference a day makes..."

It was a smooth evening in Laguna Beach last Spring when I ran into her while going for some Indian take-out. She's a nice woman. Very intelligent. Very political. Very liberal. A good person. I like her.

"He's so stupid. So deeply stupid," she said while waiting for her to-go orders of chicken enchiladas prepared in the Mexican place down by the beach known for "authentic" Mexican food made fresh by "authentic" illegal aliens. "Don't you want a President who is smart? We have to have a President who is intelligent."

"Seems to me he was smart enough to get the job in the first place. You don't get the job if you're retarded. Besides, I don't remember a clause in the Constitution stating you've got to pass an IQ test to be President. And anyway, don't liberals always say there's no such thing as a valid IQ test?"

"Don't change the subject. Can't you see what's happening? Can't you see the censorship that's going on?"

"You got me there. What censorship?"

"This thing with Disney and Miramax. You don't really expect to see Moore's Fahrenheit 911 screened in this country, do you? We're going to have to have underground screenings in people's homes, you know."

People run all sorts of strange programs in their brains these days. Programs that defy the laws of programming. There are moments, brief moments, when, if you look closely you can see "intelligence's" otherwise smooth set of logic instructions come to a place where an entire set of GOTOs and IF/THEN's has been bulk erased by some sort of ideological magnet. We know the mind is not a mere computer at theses moments. The prover the case. For a program such as this, if the mind were a compuer, would come to a crashing halt and bring down the whole operating system to the level of a hard reboot.

But ideology isn't a program but a belief system. A belief system allows for stupendous leaps of pure faith without a core dump. There's just a small flicker in the monitor of the face, a faint screech from the hard drive as it searches frantically for the next illogical sector, finds it, and loops back on itself. Then the program simply starts over... and over.... and over. I noted to myself that I had just seen such a moment.

"Please," I said. " This is just an argument between two sets of corporate greed. Miramax is just maneuvering so it doesn't have to split the millions this film is going to rake in with Disney. It's classic Harvey."

"They're going to suppress it. You'll see."

"They? Who? Who is going to suppress the film?"

"The Ashcroft people."

"The Justice Department? Don't be silly."

"Not the official Ashcroft people. The other ones. The one's that know the film will cost them the election. People just won't be allowed to see it."

"It'll be showing everywhere. And you and all your friends are going to go see it. Lots will even see it twice and three times. Trust me on this."

She sighed with the indulgent look one gives to a child who just doesn't understand the obvious truths visible to a brilliant mind. She knew she had a brilliant mind. She was a professor. She was successful in politics. "We can't have four more years of this kind of stupidity in power. It will ruin the country."

I thought about John Adams who remarked, "There's a lot of ruin in a country," but I didn't say it. She put a lot of faith in intelligence. In fact, I think you could say that "Intelligence" was her religion, the thing she believed in most, the only church she attended unless her political career called on her to attend a less secular version of worship.

"I voted for a smart man twice in the 90s," I said. "He was so smart he could parse the word 'is' to the word 'I' in a nanosecond. I don't see that we were left in such a great position in the world. All I see is it got 3,000 of us dead in one morning."

She gave me the kind of smile that let me know I was off her "Greetings of the Season" list. At that point, a small Mexican gentleman came out of the shop with enough food to feed the other six people waiting with her. "Well, we've got to go eat. But don't worry. I've got the connections that will let me get a tape of Fahrenheit 911. I'll have some quiet showing at my house. I'll call you when it happens."

She tipped the Mexican gentleman a dollar and went off with her dinner party.

It's October now and I haven't yet gotten that call to see the secret screening of Fahrenheit 911. I guess it won't happen now. She's probably too busy getting ready to vote for "intelligence".

I wonder what she's going to be doing for the next four years.

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Posted by Vanderleun at November 5, 2004 10:18 AM | TrackBack
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"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.

"I wonder what she's going to be doing for the next four years."

Therapy.

Posted by: FH at October 17, 2004 12:03 PM

For some reason, I have this mental image of Bart Simpson at Kamp Krusty, sitting in his cabin, clutching his Krusty doll, rocking back & forth, and repeating "Krusty is coming... Krusty is coming" over and over.

Posted by: Harvey at October 17, 2004 8:56 PM

LOL

There are fools out there who think Kerry will win a landslide. What about the fools who have him millions. This election is much too fun to watch and participate in as fools will remain fools.

Posted by: op at October 17, 2004 11:14 PM

I think those teeth missing in the gears you mentioned have been missing for a long, long time.

Posted by: Eric Blair at October 18, 2004 5:20 AM

You're right; "intelligence" is their religion (as they would use "religion" - that which the lesser ones substitute for a lack of intelligence. As a "lapsed atheist", I think I know something about that worldview).

That's why they're sure what the "science" of climatology is telling us about global warming is true - it's scientific (or at least uses the vocabulary of science, computer models, charts/graphs - that's science, right?).

It reminds me of a blurb in the NYT book section for a Chompsky book ad - it threatened "... if you don't read this book, you seriously risk being ignorant".

Ignorance is normal - an otherwise intelligent person can be entirely ignorant about Chinese pottery glazing techniques in the 4th century, Turkish poetry from the 15th century, quantum physics ... perhaps when they say "ignorant" they mean "diverging from what they think".

They say "intelligence" - what they mean is chronically validated unctuous sanctimony.

Posted by: Keith Macdonald at October 18, 2004 12:44 PM

I had the misfortune to get stuck behind a woman at the grocery store describing to the clerk her hilariously brilliant feat of putting a STOP BUSH sticker on her back window over the third brake light.
"It flashes 'STOP BUSH' every time I step on the brake!" She cackled.
She started spouting off about the debates and then she got all wound up, screwing her face into a mask of rage saying "Nuc-u-lar! Nuc-U-LAR!!!" The anger and ugliness I saw in that face really scared me. I have seen that same expression in old documentaries on the faces of German's yelling to the "Juden" on Kristalnacht. I really think the Left is self-destructing.
If this makes me guilty of invoking "Godwin's Law", so be it.

Posted by: Mumblix Grumph at October 19, 2004 12:18 AM

You say that like it's a *bad thing*, Mumblix.

(note to humorless Liberal Lurkers: it's a joke.)

Posted by: Hitler at October 20, 2004 5:48 PM

It flashes 'STOP BUSH' every time I step on the brake!

There's a deep symbolic meaning lurking somewhere in there.

Posted by: jaed at October 20, 2004 11:08 PM

Well, I still hold to my prediction:

Therapy.

Posted by: FH at November 5, 2004 9:32 AM

Agreed.Hopefully it's also not covered under their insurance.

Posted by: Pappy at November 5, 2004 10:10 AM

Heh Heh

Posted by: Rob at November 6, 2004 12:40 PM
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