[Rhodes22-list] Ron Lipton's Political Glee

[Tootle]

Ron’s glee about the winning candidate suggests that having a Ph.D. makes a
person more qualified to lead that someone who is a high school dropout.  

I take exception to that elitist concept.  Many Mennonites only have a grade
school level of academic achievement.  Yet I trust those guys who make up
their convoys of church members going  to devastated areas and go about
cleaning up and rebuilding without Federal Government assistance.

I rather look to Bill Buckley’s comment, “I'd rather entrust the government
of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone
directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.”

Good judgment in things subjects outside of ones area of expertise is not a
given, nor an absolute.  It does not follow that because one has attained a
high level of achievement in science that person will exercise commiserate
quality of decision making in things political.

In some scientific endeavors today, things have become very bureaucratic in
substance.  Ph.D.’s very jobs and dreams are based on political decisions. 
In plain English, often their perspective of what is right or best is vested
in their jobs, or their views of world from their educated perspective.  In
truth, sometimes that perspective is self serving to a particularly narrow
constituency.

I rather also consider that if they were truly above average ability, that
they could go out and create.  You know, take a dream of a small sailboat,
make it and sell it.  Create where nothing or lesser things were before. 
Take the whole world up a notch. 
 
The above is done without government direction, but in an environment
maintained by a government.  Yes we need a sheriff to keep evil from killing
good people.  But, no, government is not the answer to nor the most
efficient and effective way to a higher level of civilization.

"It is not our affluence, or our plumbing, or our clogged freeways that grip
the imagination of others.  Rather, it is the values upon which our system
is built."  J. William Fulbright

Ed K
Greenville, SC, USA


Tootle wrote:
> 
> Ron:
> 
> I will reply to your glee.  Understanding your educational level, and your
> friends, I would suggest that academic achievement may or may not be
> relevant.
> 
> Too me, the most important criterion is an effort to be honest.   For some
> even with religious background, simple honesty does not matter.
>   
> You said, “It is nice to know that people of real quality can go into
> politics
> and succeed.”  
> 
> That is a defining statement.  Does quality mean integrity?  Recently, a
> friend of mine lost his wife.  I have known him and her since the early
> 1970’s.  He is a man of integrity, notwithstanding he is very liberal in
> some areas.  I worked for several of his campaigns.  During his time in
> Washington as Secretary of Education a U. S. Senate seat came open.  I was
> deeply afraid that he might actually run for it.  Because at that point I
> doubted I could be a foot soldier in that campaign.  But alas, he chose
> not too, but rather returned to South Carolina to write and teach.
> 
> I suspect, but never asked him if part of his reasoning for easing out of
> politics was the moral quality of those he associated with.  So then, do
> you consider Bill Clinton a man of real quality?
> 
> I have posted this standard that we should expect from elected officials
> as a subscript several times:
> “ The people have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible,
> divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge - I mean of
> the character and conduct of their rulers”   John Adams  
> 
> I hope your friend is a man of integrity first.  What say yea?
> 
> Ed K
> Greenville, SC, USA
> 
> 

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