And who is the puppet master, pulling the strings/buttons on this robot?
Posted on 06/11/2011 4:54:29 AM PDT by Louis Foxwell
Our expensive educational system does not teach intelligence. Most publicly educated people in the US do not know what intelligence is. A majority believe it is innate, something people are born with. In fact, intelligence is a product of classical education.
One must be taught to think. Logical or critical thinking may be learned easily or with difficulty but it is a learned skill. Mathematics and classical philosophy teach thinking skills. Thinking is the antithesis of indoctrination. Teaching people how to think is categorically the opposite of teaching them what to think.
Obama has not learned how to think, only what to think. This is what makes him doctrinaire and ideological, he has mastered a limited set of ideas and principles that he applies universally in all circumstances. He has the same set of responses to every condition. He is unable to differentiate between a variety of situations and evaluate them individually. His is a one size fits all mind.
Obama's dogged insistence on applying one set of principles to every situation is viewed by a preponderance of people as intellectual rigor. For those who do not have a clue about the true nature of intelligence this makes perfect sense. It is not about thinking. It is about learning the correct response and applying it with all diligence and discipline. That is the fundamental discipline of socialism.
At its core socialism is a one size fits all political discipline. The answers have all been worked out. Learning them and applying them rigidly is the work of the true believer. Obama is, by any measure, a true believer, not an intellectual.
And who is the puppet master, pulling the strings/buttons on this robot?
Speaking about Obama's tendency to use ignorant metaphors;
“It’s true we’re all born with the same brain volume and mechanical abilities”
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I disagree, we are NOT all born with the same brain volume, of course brain volume does not measure intelligence anyway. As far as mechanical abilities we are CERTAINLY not all born with the same. Some children are able to do very good drawings at an early age. I had a classmate who was able to sketch cars with a pencil when we were in first grade. I can’t begin to do as good a job now as he did at the age of six. I had a cousin, now deceased, who repaired his father’s lawn mower when he was eight, his father couldn’t get it to crank. As a small child he seemed to have the fantastic ability with machinery that his grandfather had. The grandfather was still living by the way so I am not promoting reincarnation theory here. I could go on and on but we most certainly are not all born with the same mechanical abilities.
If talent and ability (intelligence) was all learned, then we would all be Gold medal athletes, Major League record holders, mental geniuses and musical Mozart's. Unless of course we chose not to.
I have seen ridiculous vanities before, but this one is down right comical.
All Leftist believe this. This is why they are so strident in opposition to others and forgiving of the sins of their own.
That explains 99% of the liberal mindset. What else can one expect from a person whose only job ever was a community organizer (whatever the hell that is)?
They are hoping that “Hope and Change” will bring better welfare benefits.
I agree, if large brain volume or IQ were a great indicator then I would certainly be the leader of the free world. I am a big, tall man with a head to match, I can hardly find a straw hat big enough to fit on my head when I want to go outside in the Carolina sun and when I joined the Navy straight out of high school my IQ was somewhere inside the top one percent. I am not rich or famous, I am not a great musician or anything of the sort. I have made my living as a technician and salesman and I do telephone sales now. If I had one ten thousandth of the ability of Mozart I would be a great musician because I certainly have spent more time trying to learn the piano than he ever did but was never able to do anything spontaneous. I could only learn through a laborious process to reproduce a string of notes in a beginner sort of style. I have, on the other hand, been blessed with a natural ability to spot con artists such as Obama and recognize them almost instantly as what they really are.
This is a WebMemo On Entitlements, Welfare and Welfare Spending
Expanding the Failed War on Poverty: Obama’s 2011 Budget Increases Welfare Spending to Historic Levels
Published on March 21, 2010 by Kiki Bradley
http://www.jbs.org/jbs-community/groups/viewbulletin/406-Welfare+and+Obama?groupid=225
I remember a very good baseball pitching instructor telling me that he (with proper training and hard work) could get any kid to throw a ball 80 miles per hour by the time he was a senior in high school, after that it’s all genetics and no amount of training will significantly increase velocity.
And so very realistic and true. Like my old Grandma used to say, “You can't make a Diamond out of a lump of coal!”
Which translates into; “You are what you were born to be.” Trying to force yourself into something you are not well designed for is a complete waste of time.
I have an above average IQ but have pursued a practical and somewhat mechanical career. I am a Directional Drilling Consultant and Engineer. My ulterior intellect has nothing to do with what my job or career has dictated over the years. My IQ or intellect is what sets me apart from being just average and it was something I was born with.
Repetitive Learning does not come easy for me, but being analytical, which absolutely cannot be learned, is as natural for me as breathing for some reason. And that is my strongest asset that has helped keep me moving up over the years.
I firmly believe that we all have some talent or strength that we were born with, those who find that talent in themselves and are able to use it to the greatest extent, are the ones who excel most in this life.
What sets those with a natural born talent apart from the rest, is the ability to throw the ball 90 miles per hour and hit an imaginary target 60 feet, 6 inches away. And also make the ball change course while it is en route.
With reference to your observation, the following quotations are excerpted from a series entitled, "Lessons on Liberty," by La Vaughn G. Lewis, Co-Editor, "Our Ageless Constitution" & "Rediscovering the Ideas of Liberty." The "Lesson" contrasts the Founders' Ideas of Liberty" which they intended would be taught to rising generations, with the Counterfeit Ideas being promoted in the so-called "public schools" of America for decades.
“The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.” (Jefferson - 1774)
“Statesmen may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone which can establish the principles upon which Freedom can securely stand.” (John Adams - 1775)
“The Sacred Rights of Mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the Hand of the Divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.” (Alexander Hamilton)
“Without God, there could be no American form of government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first and the most basic expression of Americanism. Thus the founding fathers saw it, and thus, with God’s help, it will continue to be.” (Dwight Eisenhower)
“The same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe, the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.” (John F. Kennedy - 1961 Inaugural)
“…it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly implore His protection and favor….”(George Washington)
“Now the virtue which had been infused into the Constitution…and was to give it…the stability and duration to which it was destined, was no other than…those abstract principles…proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence—namely, the self-evident truths of the…unalienable rights of man…the…sovereignty of the people, always subordinate to a rule of right and wrong, and always responsible to the Supreme Ruler of the universe for the rightful exercise of that sovereign…power.” (John Quincy Adams, on the occasion of The Jubilee of the Constitution - 1839)
"Today, across our nation, we see consequences of decades of gross neglect and outright censorship of the Founders’ ideas from textbooks and from our public discourse. We have allowed counterfeit ideas to dominate the public square, and the Founders’ principles have been crowded out. Unwittingly, many teachers and other unknowing officials have participated in the agenda of an unelected mind-controlling elite whose tyrannical actions have robbed generations of Americans from reading or studying the ideas that made America free. Like termites, they have eroded our foundations as effectively as if they had burned the books. Yet, not once have they been willing to call it by its rightful name—censorship. Once, in America, stifling ideas about the Creator and Creator-endowed liberty was considered unthinkable. . . .
"The ideas of liberty must be passed on from generation to generation if liberty is to survive. These ideas, when they are allowed to be examined freely, will prevail, because their appeal is to reason and to the love for liberty that is deep in the human heart. John Adams warned: 'The people of America now have the best opportunity and the greatest trust in their hands, that Providence ever committed to so small a number…if they betray their trust, their guilt will merit even greater punishment than other nations have suffered, and the indignation of Heaven.'”
“The idea of God is the keystone of a perverted society. The true root of liberty, equality and culture is atheism.” (Karl Marx)
Our thinking is enlightened “in the degree in which we cease to depend upon belief in the supernatural.” (John Dewey, father of ‘progressive education’ and 1st President of American Humanist Society)
“…democracy is a human faith and movement, unencumbered by supernatural preconceptions.” (John Childs, a protégé of John Dewey at Columbia)
“…the majority of our youth still hold the values of their parents, and if we do not alter this pattern, if we do not resocialize ourselves to accept change, our society may decay.” (John Goodlad, 1971 Report to President, Schooling for the Future)
“As in 1933, humanists still believe that traditional theism, especially a faith in the prayer-hearing God, who is assumed to love and care for persons, to hear and understand their prayers, and be able to do something about them, is an unproved and outmoded faith.” (Humanist Manifesto II, 1973)
“…the most important factor moving us toward a secular society has been the educational factor. Our schools may not teach Johnny to read properly, but the fact that Johnny is in school until he is sixteen tends to lead toward elimination of religious superstition.” (Paul Blanshard, The Humanist, March-April, 1976)
“It [the Nat’l. Education Association’s publication list] includes the delegitimizing of all authority save that of the state, the degradation of traditional morality and the encouragement of citizens in general and children in particular to despise the rules and customs that make their society a functional democracy. The NEA is drifting into exceedingly dangerous waters, and probably carrying more than a few teachers and pupils with it.” (Chester E. Finn, Jr., Ass’t. Sec. Of Education & Prof. Of Education & Public Policy, Vanderbilt Univ., 1982)
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“Now, my countrymen, if you have been taught doctrines which conflict with the great landmarks of the Declaration of Independence…let me entreat you to come back. Return to the fountains whose waters spring close to the blood of the Revolution.” (Abraham Lincoln)
Obama is a sloppy, unoriginal thinker. He is undisciplined and lazy. But I do not think that he lacks intelligence, which is inborn, not learned.
What he is, though, like all liberals, is a FOOL.
He disregards the evidence of his own senses. He sees that his policies fail and trys more of the same.
This is not lack of intelligence. This is willful blindness. He is a fool
That's what you get when someone of limited intellect with even less experience, and who has gotten by through affirmative action is placed in a position way over his head.
“To become a fine thinker requires substantial schooling, typically home schooling.”
I think you are wrong about this. The classical education you so highly praise points to Socrates (Socratic dialogues) but Socrates never went to school. He, apparently, was a brick layer who was accepted by the Athenian aristocracy on his abilities to think. If anything he was self educated by his natural curiosity on subjects ranging from science (early Socrates) to virtue (later Socrates).
But, for the most part, Socrates is the exception and not the rule. The value of a classical education is to assess bias in an unbiased way and that, for me, is a far better way to go than viewing everything through the same Marxist lens of grievance and social justice.
You gloss over the fact that Mozart listened to music before he played or wrote it. He knew what music was. I do not intend to get into a nature/nurture discussion here. There is no question but that he was a musical genius. His ability to write music on a sheet of paper was learned. His knowledge of the mechanics of music was learned.
I am not talking about developing mechanical skills. I am talking about the development of critical thinking, so called intellectual activity. There is no particular reason to call Mozart an intellectual genius though he may have been. Mozart’s musical genius is not a function of intellect, at least not in the sense I am using the concept. Your argument unnecessarily muddies the water.
Disagreement on this topic can best be laid at the feet of socialist public education. the very notion that one can not learn to think critically is the product of unthinking and uncritical mass socialization.
The struggle to become more is the essence of an educated person.
I agree he can’t think, independent of the radical, hate filled teachings he’s been fed all of his life.
He can read (from a teleprompter), he can read radical anti American books. Post America.
He can recite. The Muslim call to prayer, still, in arabic.
He can remember. The hatred of whites, and anti American propaganda fed to him all of his life.
He’s like a tape recording of all the influences of his whole life and that of his wife’s influence. and it plays over and over and over.
But think. No. He would have an ego crisis. It would kill all he was ever taught.
Now he is owned by so many groups and Muslim countries, he has to perform, because it’s all about him and what he wants, he could care less about what is good for America or the citizenry, the black liberation theology of ‘tear down their God’, is ALL about tearig down America, and their theology is, you have to tear it all down, to rebuild it the way you want it..
If that means bullying, so be it, if that means being hateful, insulting the citizenry, then so be it. The ends justify the means...
Think? no. Not in a positive way, anyway.
Negative, mean spirited, yes. He’s spot on on that.
But what about the corrupt media? Why are they so supportive and protecting him so?
It’s bigger than the fake, hyped image they created of the Obama’s.
It’s the Muslim and radical idealogy of making America submit. To give up her Judeo Christian belief. Muddy the waters, confuse, lie...
The reason he and michelle go together, is not race.
They are both extremely mean spirited. Birds of a feather flock together.
Lipstick on a pig, is still a pig. The media provided the lipstick, which is wearing off now.
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