“All Republican women are as dumb as a box of rocks.”
In this Daily Beast article, Dana Goldstein asks: Is Arizona governor Jan Brewer "anti-immigrant because she didn't go to college?"
Of course, Goldstein answers this question with an unequivocal "yes," but first she fine tunes her point by quoting some Arizonans. According to a Northern Arizona University student, "Brewer may have nearly 30 years of political experience, but there’s one thing she doesn’t have—a college degree.” And in the comments section of an Arizona newspaper, Goldstein found this gem: “[Brewer is] an uneducated dolt. … One could say that all Republican women are as dumb as a box of rocks.”
This is the line that Goldstein takes in her article. To Goldstein, Gov. Brewer's community college degree does not equip her to answer such "philosophical" questions as immigration. Never mind Goldstein's own inability to think clearly when she blurs a key distinction in her own argument: that Gov. Brewer is anti-illegal immigration, which is different than being "anti-immigrant."
Nevertheless, Goldstein takes a whimsical tone as she describes why poor, unenlightened Jan Brewer is an object of "pity." You see, Brewer--surely like "all Republican women [who] are as dumb as a box of rocks"--is incapable of grasping the basic principles of liberal dogma:
It’s a cliché, but with great power comes great responsibility—responsibility for solving big policy problems like illegal immigration and astronomical health care costs. These problems deal with tough—and yes, philosophical—questions, like whether it is just to punish the child of illegal immigrants by denying that child citizenship rights, whether decent health care is a human right or a luxury good, and how the heck we’ll pay for it if we offer it to everybody.
Furthermore, putting these problems in context requires more than just a passing familiarity with American history: It requires an appreciation of how our Constitution has evolved as a living document, amended to reflect changing conceptions of fairness. It requires a sense of humility about our nation’s failures—slavery, Jim Crow, the genocide of Native Americans—alongside a sense of pride in our accomplishments, from walking on the moon to winning World War II.
Where did Goldstein get her education in "conceptions of fairness," "humility about our nation's failures," and tolerance toward illegal immigrants? None other than Brown University. I wonder how many illegal immigrants Goldstein met at Brown. According to her official bio, at Brown, Goldstein "studied European intellectual and cultural history with a focus on gender." (There's that word again Mollie!). Yes, maybe if Brewer had studied gender at a top-tier school and read the works of some French philosophers, then she would have come down in favor of illegal immigration too.
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Re: “All Republican women are as dumb as a box of rocks.”
Emily, education and intelligence are, alas, frequently confused. Remember WFB's famous line: "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."
Jul '10
Re: “All Republican women are as dumb as a box of rocks.”
As Orwell said: "some things so stupid that only an intellectual can believe them." These days, one may substitute "intellectual" for "college educated." The world is truly mad when college degree, devalued as it is these days, becomes the yardstick for intelligence or wisdom. But perhaps Ms Goldstein is just angry that someone without a degree can raise to the top purely on her own ability. There ought to be law against that, shouldn't there?
May '10
Re: “All Republican women are as dumb as a box of rocks.”
As one who is in his last year of financing 12 years of University for 3 daughters, I seriously question the assertion that a college degree means that someone is educated.
Gov. Brewer has the intelligence to understand the illegal issue(s) and the wisdom to craft an answer that gains huge popular support from the people she was elected to serve. Would that our Ivy League elites in Washington show something like this level of intelligence, wisdom and common sense.
I think that laughter is the best remedy for closed minded, arrogant, elitist idiots like Ms Goldstein. A true expression of contempt can taint your day and requires more effort than she is worth.
Jun '10
Re: “All Republican women are as dumb as a box of rocks.”
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -- William James
May '10
Re: “All Republican women are as dumb as a box of rocks.”
I think most people go to college apolitical. Very few teenagers put serious thought to politics and those that do rarely come out philosophically different.
The remainder, however, see their indoctrination as an "enlightenment" and if you don't share that view then you have to be some sort of dullard, or worse, you know the truth and work to subvert it for greedy and evil means.
A classical liberal education used to mean teaching young people how to think. Now it means teaching them what to think.
Re: “All Republican women are as dumb as a box of rocks.”
How unfortunate that Goldstein managed to write a column driven by both elitism and sexism. Elitist because less than half of all Americans hold a bachelor's degree. And sexist because even fewer women attended college in the early sixties, when Brewer would have gone. This isn't to mention the fact that only 2% of the illegal immigrants Goldstein is so concerned about in this country attend college period--and they're certainly not rubbing elbows with people like Goldstein at schools like Brown.
I guess WFB wouldn't be any happier with Ivy League students governing than he would be with Ivy League professors!
Aug '10
Re: “All Republican women are as dumb as a box of rocks.”
This "I don't like you so your dumb" approach is so... adolescent. It reminds me of high school...
There were some guys on the science team in my high school who didn't like me (nothing to do with politics), so they called me dumb. Dumb?...
Now I don't know my IQ, just that on state "cognitive tests", I was somewhere above the 95th percentile (I think in the top 2%). I went to Ivy X (partial scholarship), majored in math, and didn't graduate with high honors, but honors nonetheless (much to my surprise, actually).
The stupid part is that even to this day, when I face a career setback, I wonder whether those jerks in high school were right...
Their taunting was wrong, but effective.
Really, it's a bullying tactic -- most effective on those who value intelligence, but who lack cast-iron self-assurance. (As anyone who's ever bombed a test out of pure nervousness can tell you, confidence can make or break even intellectual performance.)
Even more effective is to attract those who value intelligent discourse by promising reasoned debate between opposing views, and then apply this bullying technique. Sick but effective.
Re: “All Republican women are as dumb as a box of rocks.”
My first response? Since when is Brown a "top tier" school? Please.
My second response? Once again: Democrats are from Harvard, Republicans are from DeVry.
Jun '10
Re: “All Republican women are as dumb as a box of rocks.”
Rob Long: "My second response? Once again: Democrats are from Harvard, Republicans are from DeVry."
Apologies if this has already been suggested or done, but perhaps therein lies a seed for a new reality TV show. Or not (I suppose the fact this plays out so much everyday for so many would reduce the appeal of a redstate/bluestate, left/right, elite class/citizen class, political "Wife Swap.")
And I agree with Midget: No matter how highminded the language or prose, such attacks are but demagougery and bullying - the purpose of which is to obfuscate a weak position argument.
May '10
Re: “All Republican women are as dumb as a box of rocks.”
No, Elitists from BOTH parties are from Harvard and Yale (hence Big Government Republicans). The rest of us went to Big Ten, Big 12 or MAC schools.
Our Oxford is 67 miles northwest of Cincinnati.
Jun '10
Re: “All Republican women are as dumb as a box of rocks.”
And us real low-life unmentionables hail from the SEC. :-)
What can I say? The college football season is nigh.
Aug '10
Re: “All Republican women are as dumb as a box of rocks.”
Why are women in particular targets of this sort of bullying?
"Men tend to have unwarranted self-confidence, and women, unwarranted self-doubt." I heard this from an old Left-ish music director who after years of conducting separate men's and women's groups, came to the conclusion that, despite what he wanted to believe, women and men weren't the same in all respects, and that this was one of the essential differences.
Therefore it's wise strategy to direct these kinds of attacks towards women -- they're simply more likely to work on women than on men.
What must really infuriate a bully is when a woman comes along who also projects virile self-assurance. I think this explains a lot of the vitriol out there towards confident conservative women. It's the impotent fury of a failed bullying technique.
May '10
Re: “All Republican women are as dumb as a box of rocks.”
Politics skews everything. To liberals Hillary Clinton is strong even though she rode Bill's coat tales to power. Yet, they hate Margaret Thatcher. Go figure.
Re: “All Republican women are as dumb as a box of rocks.”
EJHill
No, Elitists from BOTH parties are from Harvard and Yale (hence Big Government Republicans). The rest of us went to Big Ten, Big 12 or MAC schools.
Our Oxford is 67 miles northwest of Cincinnati. · Aug 6 at 10:32am
Be careful, lest you fall into the trap of reverse elitism. Attendance of an Ivy League school does not an elitist make. I know plenty of really smart, yet down to earth, common-sense sorts that emerged from the Ivy League.
While I'm generally wary of the social engineering projects that emerge from the ivory tower, and of the elitist mentality that empowers intellectuals to impose their hairbrained schemes on the rest of us (especially after reading Thomas Sowell's Intellectuals and Society), I'm not a huge fan of holding a prejudice against someone simply because they attended a good school. That seems just as foolish as criticizing someone for their lack of a college degree.
May '10
Re: “All Republican women are as dumb as a box of rocks.”
Diane - I'm just not sure that the Ivy League schools automatically qualify as "good" schools anymore. I think that they're cruising on reputation. What makes an Ivy League education any better than Ohio State, Michigan or Florida?
What proprietary information does Harvard give its graduates that is unavailable to anyone else? It's just the name and the reputation, the doors that will open for you with elites that went there.
But are they really smart, down-to-earth and full of common sense because they went to the Ivy League or were they that way before they got there. You don't turn conservative because you went to Harvard.
Re: “All Republican women are as dumb as a box of rocks.”
EJHill
Diane - I'm just not sure that the Ivy League schools automatically qualify as "good" schools anymore. I think that they're cruising on reputation. What makes an Ivy League education any better than Ohio State, Michigan or Florida?
Full disclosure: I attended an Ivy League institution. That said, I think that a good, serious student can get a fine education anywhere they go, whether it be an Ohio State or a Princeton.
As a senior in high school, I put a lot of thought into where I'd go to college. Despite the large amounts of debt I'd have to take on to attend a private school, I ultimately chose to do so because of a few things that really set the Ivy League apart. For one, the students were the best and the brightest in their high schools. Having them as my peers proved tremendously inspiring and challenging. The passion for intellectual inquiry and the competive spirit are unrivaled at state schools.
Secondly, these schools have the money and reputation to attract high caliber professors. I really got to know many of my professors because classes were small (not generally true at state schools). Thirdly, the Ivies have the financial resources to provide undergraduates with grants so that students can pursue their own independent research.
That's not to say that you don't encounter students and professors who are solely there because of affirmative action, or that you never experience a class in which no knowledge whatsoever is imparted (for me, that class was an anthropology class entitled "Mexico and its Borderlands). And I'll readily agree that most professors and students are close-mindedly partisan, and that these schools experience severe bureaucratic bloat, and that the administrations of these schools lack a mechanism of accountability.
Nevertheless, I reject the notion that attending such a school is something to be ashamed of, or that attacking these institutions is advantageous to the conservative cause.
Edited on Aug 6, 2010 at 3:26pmRe: “All Republican women are as dumb as a box of rocks.”
EJHill
But are they really smart, down-to-earth and full of common sense because they went to the Ivy League or were they that way before they got there. You don't turn conservative because you went to Harvard. · Aug 6 at 1:17pm
There are probably cases of both. Some people are raised conservative, and it sticks. Others are confronted with the lunacy of liberalism in college and are so repulsed by it that they become incontrovertibly conservative. And for others, it's somewhere in between the two scenarios. I was raised by two conservatives, but I became way more conservative after discovering what liberalism really was in college.
May '10
Re: “All Republican women are as dumb as a box of rocks.”
That's your own prejudice against state schools. Of the twelve men who walked on the moon only one got their undergraduate degree from an Ivy League institution and one Big Ten school put two of them there.
This "best and the brightest" line is elitist claptrap. Sometimes the "best and the brightest" go to state schools because they want to stick close to family. They are just as intellectually curious as anyone. I am not saying you should be ashamed of your education. You should just need to realize that it's not as special as you think it is.
Aug '10
Re: “All Republican women are as dumb as a box of rocks.”
Diane Ellis, Ed. For one, the students were the best and the brightest in their high schools. Having them as my peers proved tremendously inspiring and challenging. The passion for intellectual inquiry and the competive spirit are unrivaled at state schools.
Secondly, these schools have the money and reputation to attract high caliber professors..
Also, comparing my coursework at Ivy X (in math) with courses I took at other colleges (also in math), Ivy X worked me much, much harder. I hear that not every Ivy is known for its killer coursework, but mine was.
A heavy load of coursework isn't an unqualified good, though. In my case, I found that I don't have to be pushed so hard in order to learn. If I had gone to a less high-pressure school, I may have learned as much or more, since I would have had more free time to learn things on my own, which is probably what I'm best at anyhow. Then again, maybe not..
I can't bring myself to feel ashamed of my degree, though, since it took hard work just to graduate. I only wish that sometimes I had worked even harder.
May '10
Re: “All Republican women are as dumb as a box of rocks.”
There, there, little lady. Don't worry your pretty head.