Experts and Simpletons
“C'mon over here Swift,” the trucker said over the CB radio today. He was in the middle lane, holding back the traffic behind him so that another 18 wheeler (a Swift Company truck) in the right lane could move over to the middle lane and allow vehicles to his right in the on-ramp to merge onto the highway. It was rush hour in Nashville, on I-40 west-bound from Knoxville. I was trying to find my delivery point downtown, and had the CB on to stay on top of traffic developments. One driver was trying to find a truck stop downtown. “Exit 48, driver,” answered a local trucker, adding, “watch yourself over there.” As I found my exit toward Fairfield Avenue, I heard a standard complaint: “What's with all this traffic?” “Well,” came the standard answer, “it's rush hour and there's just too many cars and not enough asphalt.”
The warehouse was a small place with no parking lot, which meant that a couple of the employees had to stop traffic on the street so that I could set up and back my rig across the street and into the customer's shipping dock. Even with the trailer backed against the dock, the nose of my rig stuck out into traffic, so I had to disconnect from the trailer and take the tractor across the street and wait while the trailer was unloaded. Turning the radio back on, I heard the tail end of an argument. “I've been out here 25 years, and no one talks to me like that!” said one fellow who was clearly worked up and sounded a lot like Walter Brennan. “Uh, hand, I believe someone just did talk to you like that,” came the reply. The term “hand,” as in field hand, or working hand, is a common term amongst truckers. “Well, I tell ya,” drawled a deep baritone, “I been at it for pert near 40 years now. I started out with nuthin', and after all this time I still got plenty of it.” “I hear ya, hand,” answered another driver. “But I tell ya,” continued the baritone, “what I got, I paid for, and I don't owe nobody a [expletive] thing. Now do you think the politicians can say that?”
You might say that the man had a point. But really, what does he know? After all, he's just a guy trying to make the plans of his company, dispatcher, broker, shipper, and receiver become a reality while earning a living for him and his family and not running over anyone. He probably doesn't even understand the years of selfless dedication, solemn study, intellectual rigor, and the boat load of credentials it takes to so thoroughly screw up a country. Why, he's probably just a simple minded amateur who would no more saddle his grandchildren with his debt than fly to the moon on a hobby horse. He probably even believes that his government should abide by the same principles, the rube. And though some may howl with laughter, he very likely has a low opinion of those politicians who believe they can transcend mere logic, and who even now are driving the country to the brink of insolvency while demanding still more spending, more power, more debt, and more taxes. What would you call a man of such questionable scruples?
He probably took a dim view of police officers in Georgia who shut down a child's lemonade stand because the girls didn't have the proper permits and licenses. Such an unenlightened rogue probably wouldn't take too kindly to being man-handled by the TSA, and likely suffers from the antiquated notion that in America, it's the people who issue the orders to the government, not the other way around.
Now that I think on it, he might even be a member of that Tea Party group. You know, the un-credentialed citizens who spoke loudly and clearly last November after being told to sit down and be quiet. They fired Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House, installed a solid Republican majority, and were then promptly told by both Democrats and Republicans to check their principles at the door and start compromising. Unsophisticated and untutored in the mysterious ways of the Beltway, they honestly expected their votes to be honored. How naive can you get? Besides, Harry Reid says they smell bad, Tom Harkin calls them a “cult fringe,” and Janeane Garofalo says they're racists.
But they do come in handy. When relieving soldiers of their nail clippers, patting down toddlers, and classifying returning war vets as potential terrorists fails to keep the bad guys off of airplanes, it's the regular citizen who subdues the maniac who is trying to ignite a shoe bomb, underwear bomb, or who charges the cockpit yelling “Allahu Akbar.” It's the regular citizens who make up a sizable portion of the Armed Forces, and could win these wars if the enlightened class ever turned them loose. Other than that, I suppose they're suitable only for viewing behind a glass case, on the outside of which there should be an ax and a sign reading, “Break Only In Case of Emergency.” In the meantime, there's no need to panic. After all, the professionals, politicians and tacticians have it all in hand, right? Just hide your bank cards and daughters and all will be fine.
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May '10
Re: Experts and Simpletons
I wish that I could assuage your well-worded cynicism, but I spent my 20 minute walk home from the office debating whether or not I could begin receiving my paycheck in precious metals. Normally I am quite optimistic, but I do not see the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. The economy is awful, we have a POTUS that might as well be Clement Atlee, and the country appears to be approaching that Toquevillian tipping point of no return. A chilling Thomas Jefferson quote is becoming more and more top-of-mind.
Re: Experts and Simpletons
We are speeding down the highway to destruction. There are only a limited number of exit ramps left and we keep passing them up. "We'll catch the next one," we are told, but we pass that one up too. We're running out of ramps.
May '10
Re: Experts and Simpletons
No kidding. I just want us to start coasting -- blinker or not -- toward that exit ramp with Race Trac, QT, Pilot, WaWa, Starbucks, etc. Continuously passing THAT exit is becoming increasingly painful.
May '10
Re: Experts and Simpletons
Ramps? Heck, let's just drive off a cliff like in that chick film.
Walter Russell Mead will talk your ear off about how America has lost faith in its elites. Which is defintely healthy. I got a masters degree, so I know elites ain't all that, nor or they a bag of chips, and I would sooner be ruled by Buckley's phone directory.
Nashville? Knoxville? No Chattanooga? Come on, we can go to the Waffle House. Honest, I love Waffle House. Especially sitting at the bar & watching em cook.
Re: Experts and Simpletons
Kennedy Smith: Ramps? Heck, let's just drive off a cliff like in that chick film.
Walter Russell Mead will talk your ear off about how America has lost faith in its elites. Which is defintely healthy. I got a masters degree, so I know elites ain't all that, nor or they a bag of chips, and I would sooner be ruled by Buckley's phone directory.
Nashville? Knoxville? No Chattanooga? Come on, we can go to the Waffle House. Honest, I love Waffle House. Especially sitting at the bar & watching em cook. · Jul 20 at 10:27pm
I looked at the map. Even tried drawing a new I-24 further north on the map so I could get close to Chattanooga, but it didn't work. Next time, we meet at Waffle House and pick candidates from Buckley's phone book, okay?
Jan '11
Re: Experts and Simpletons
Politicians are trying to make a difference.
One way to interpret "making a difference" is meddling. Or interfering. Or distorting. Making a difference merely means that you're mucking around in some way.
A politician "making a difference" is like a farmer who thinks that adding water is helping the plant grow ... so he waters it all the time. And, to get elected, he promises that he intends to water it more than his opponent. And, to prepare to run for higher office, he wants to raise the water to historic levels.
The result is just mud.
Oct '10
Re: Experts and Simpletons
Now, now Dave. Keep this up and you'll soon get a stern lecture on how we flyover types are little more than rhetorical Visigoths, despoiling the political landscape with our outdated, backward principles and adhering to a document that is over 100 years old!
Jul '10
Re: Experts and Simpletons
I think you have struck upon the theme for the next Washington, DC, soirée. I just need to figure out what Visigoths wore.
Jun '10
Re: Experts and Simpletons
Someone help me out here. According to Rasmussen the president's approval rating has been stuck at 45% for those who at least "somewhat approve" of his performance in office. That number remains essentially unchanged over the past 18 months. How is this possible? Have we become a nation of somnabulists walking toward a precipice? Someone please tell me it ain't so.
Jun '11
Re: Experts and Simpletons
Couldn't find a "Like" button so I'll just say "Amen, Brother Dave."
Feb '11
Re: Experts and Simpletons
Many of the problems of our era are due to false or exaggerated claims of expertise.
Circa the late 1950s, scientists and engineers were held in very high regard in American as a result of breakthroughs such as nuclear energy, jet aircraft, radar, computers, etc....noticing this, academics in the social sciences claimed that they, too, possessed magical levels of expertise, and just as the physical scientists had unleashed new sources of energy, they (the social scientists) would point the way toward the rational mangement of society. Similar claims were made in other fields, by B-school professors and consultants, for example.
These may have initially been honest errors; they are honest errors no more
Jan '11
Re: Experts and Simpletons
I love Tennessee and I am a ignorant, un-credentialed, amateur citizen. (I guess not so ignorant in that I know enough to love Tennessee.)
A 'professional' politician or consultant would scoff at my naivete but I choose this hill. We "Shall Not Pass!" the debt ceiling. Cut spending now. No tax increase (unless a byproduct of simplification or the Ryan Budget).
The professionals warn of many bad things should we not increase the debt ceiling. They're professionals so they must be right. But rubes like me and perhaps the hand that said "...I don't owe nobody a [expletive] thing" may not know what will happen if we don't raise the debt ceiling, but we do know it will be bad if we increase our debt.
If we cave, the Tea party might revolt. If we stand here on principle and lose the media battle and Obama uses whatever tricks he and senate can produce to get his way and increase the debt limit, then I predict the Tea party will become twice as strong and energized.
Aren't the self governed, by definition, run by armatures?
Mar '11
Re: Experts and Simpletons
I often consider returning to school to get a better education, so I can make more money. Then I observe the behavior of those with a better education ...
It isn't just politicians, either. The drones of Anonymous Corp., who turned their B.A.s into management gigs, are guilty of the same unthinking, cover-their-behinds, risk averse non-leadership as politicians are.
Edited on July 21, 2011 at 4:59pmAug '10
Re: Experts and Simpletons
In my little world of professional musicians, I've observed that the best musicians almost never finish school. Instead, they go to work making music. Musicians with PhDs, while nice folks, mostly know how to talk about music, but they rarely make music all that well.
I suspect a similar parallel holds true for other lines of work, as well.
Nothing wrong with an education. But all the college degrees in the world won't make a person wise or talented. Just means he is good at going to school.
Unfortunately, our country is currently being run by a college professor and his cronies.
May '10
Re: Experts and Simpletons
I'm disturbed by this anti-intellectualism, Dave. What you need is more schooling:
Claire Berlinski, Ed.: We need citizens who are capable of understanding the arguments--not the slogans, not the improved propaganda, but the difficult, complex arguments.
Ultimately, this is about education and the news media. The only way to win this in the long run--in which, I hope, some of us will still be alive--is to have citizens who are for the most part able, by the age of 18, to read and think about complex historical and economic arguments--as once they were, in America--and who provide the demand for serious news coverage in the mainstream media--as once they did.
Re: Experts and Simpletons
Cute, Aaron. But you give me an opportunity to make a further point: I'm not at all opposed to more schooling. I just don't accept that it necessarily equates to an education. Consider the fact that high school drop-outs and people with masters and doctorate degrees tend to vote for Democrats, while those with only a high school diploma or two to four year degrees tend to vote Republican. It is possible, apparently, to be so educated as to have the same level of political sophistication as a high school drop-out. No, what I object to are people who fashion themselves as educated beyond mere good sense, those who smugly reject the accumulated wisdom of human experience in favor of their "educated" audacity. They pursue counterintuition for its own sake, making a miserable wreck of things, and then condescend to those of us that dare to hold them accountable. That's not anti-intellectualism. It's anti-nonsense. Nice tweak, though. I liked it.
May '10
Re: Experts and Simpletons
Education is fine. I don't object to anyone pursuing knowledge with the admirable fervor of Claire or Victor. What I object to is the premise that knowledge is much more than a tool to be used in accord with each individual's free will. Generally, people can't be educated out of poor decision-making. There's no shortage of knowledgeable fools in this country.
The core values which make a society noble and fruitful are acquired outside of formal education and politics. That so many kids spend more time among teachers and professors than among their kindred speaks volumes about the influence of federal politicians over the goals and desires of modern citizens.
As Jonah said on this week's podcast, politics should not be a major focus of our lives... let alone federal politics. We need less institutional involvement, not more.
Dec '10
Re: Experts and Simpletons
Dave, my nephew is a newly-minted driver for Swift. He's also a liberal, so if you come across a newbie Swift driver with fuzzy Lefty ideas, please be gentle.
Re: Experts and Simpletons
Swift, eh? They have some very good drivers and, like any company, some that don't exactly improve the company name. I wish him well and hope he stays safe above all. As for his Leftward tilt,..if he decides to become an owner operator at some point, he will become a small business owner, subject to all the fees, licenses, and taxes that go with it. That should cure him pretty quickly.
Aug '10
Re: Experts and Simpletons
Dave Carter
As for his Leftward tilt,..if he decides to become an owner operator at some point, he will become a small business owner, subject to all the fees, licenses, and taxes that go with it. That should cure him pretty quickly. · Jul 21 at 6:25pm
Yep. Nothing like being responsible for all the bills to send a fellow rightward.