[Rhodes22-list] Ron Lipton's Political Glee

[Tootle]

Ron said, "His opponent was a right wing conservative who has made a habit of
losing elections (6 so far)."

I am sure glad Orville and Wilbur did not share your limits on trying.  I am
sure glad T. Edison did not follow your six tries an quit in developing the
light bulb.  

What weight can be given to the words of someone who has not tried for
public office disparaging some guy trying to be heard?

" If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try ...”  
Franklin D. Roosevelt 
 
Ed K
Greenville, SC, USA




Tootle wrote:
> 
> 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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