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The Brainy Bunch (Thomas Sowell)
Townhall.com ^ | September 29, 2009 | Thomas Sowell

Posted on 09/28/2009 9:05:34 PM PDT by jazusamo

Many people, including some conservatives, have been very impressed with how brainy the president and his advisers are. But that is not quite as reassuring as it might seem.

It was, after all, Franklin D. Roosevelt's brilliant "brains trust" advisers whose policies are now increasingly recognized as having prolonged the Great Depression of the 1930s, while claiming credit for ending it. The Great Depression ended only when the Second World War put an end to many New Deal policies.

FDR himself said that "Dr. New Deal" had been replaced by "Dr. Win-the-War." But those today who are for big spending like to credit wartime big spending for bringing the Great Depression to an end. They never ask the question as to why previous depressions had always ended on their own, much faster than the one under FDR, and without government intervention or massive government spending.

Brainy folks were also present in Lyndon Johnson's administration, especially in the Pentagon, where Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's brilliant "whiz kids" tried to micro-manage the Vietnam war, with disastrous results.

There is usually only a limited amount of damage that can be done by dull or stupid people. For creating a truly monumental disaster, you need people with high IQs.

Such people have been told all their lives how brilliant they are, until finally they feel forced to admit it, with all due modesty. But they not only tend to over-estimate their own brilliance, more fundamentally they tend to over-estimate how important brilliance itself is when dealing with real world problems.

Many crucial things in life are learned from experience, rather than from clever thoughts or clever words. Indeed, a gift for the clever phrasing so much admired by the media can be a fatal talent, especially for someone chosen to lead a government.

Make no mistake about it, Adolf Hitler was brilliant. His underlying beliefs may have been half-baked and his hatreds overwhelming, but he was a genius when it came to carrying out his plans politically, based on those beliefs and hatreds.

Starting from a position of Germany's military weakness in the early 1930s, Hitler not only built up Germany's war-making potential, he did so in ways that minimized the danger that his potential victims would match his military build-up with their own. He said whatever soothing words they wanted to hear that would spare them the cost of military deterrence and the pain of contemplating another war.

He played some of the most highly educated people of his time for fools-- not only foreign political leaders but also members of the intelligentsia. The editor of The Times of London filtered out reports that his own foreign correspondents in Germany sent him about the evils and dangers of the Nazis. In the United States, W.E.B. Du Bois-- with a Ph.D. from Harvard-- said that dictatorship in Germany was "absolutely necessary to get the state in order."

In an age when facts seem to carry less weight than the visions of brilliant and charismatic leaders, it is more important than ever to look at the actual track records of those brilliant and charismatic leaders. After all, Hitler led Germany into military catastrophe and left much of the country in ruins.

Even in a country which suffered none of the wartime destruction that others suffered in the 20th century, Argentina began that century as one of the 10 richest nations in the world-- ahead of France and Germany-- and ended it as such an economic disaster that no one would even compare it to France or Germany.

Politically brilliant and charismatic leaders, promoting reckless government spending-- of whom Juan Peron was the most prominent, but by no means alone-- managed to create an economic disaster in a country with an abundance of natural resources and a country that was spared the stresses that wars inflicted on other nations in the 20th century.

Someone recently pointed out how much Barack Obama's style and strategies resemble those of Latin American charismatic despots-- the takeover of industries by demagogues who never ran a business, the rousing rhetoric of resentment addressed to the masses and the personal cult of the leader promoted by the media. But do we want to become the world's largest banana republic?


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Editorial; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: bho44; braintrust; educatedidiot; obama; sowell; thomassowell; tsbo
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To: savagesusie

I agree on all your points, especially him being a fraud, he misrepresents most everything.


21 posted on 09/28/2009 9:48:03 PM PDT by jazusamo (But there really is no free lunch, except in the world of political rhetoric,.: Thomas Sowell)
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To: T Lady

minor correction. Barack went to Columbia/Harvard; Michelle went to Princeton/Harvard.


22 posted on 09/28/2009 9:55:03 PM PDT by EDINVA (A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul -- G. B. Shaw)
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To: T Lady
"W.E.B. Du Bois-- with a Ph.D. from Harvard-- said that dictatorship in Germany was "absolutely necessary to get the state in order."

Du Bois was also an ardent admirer of Josef Stalin. He passed away the very day that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous "I Have A Dream" speech on the National Mall. Du Bois may have been one of the earliest leaders of the civil rights movement, but he had a definite blind spot for dictatorship.

23 posted on 09/28/2009 10:05:51 PM PDT by Vigilanteman (Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)
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To: HiTech RedNeck

He was sharp enough during the debates. Was there a teleprompter I didn’t see? Or did he get questions in advance?


24 posted on 09/28/2009 10:10:35 PM PDT by ROTB ("By any means necessary"=EvilExcusd "The urge 2 save humanity is [often a ruse] for the urge 2 rule")
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To: jazusamo

I think it was Dr. Laura who said we don’t need more smart people, we need more good people. I never forgot that. Sowell makes the case. Gotta love this guy.


25 posted on 09/28/2009 10:10:54 PM PDT by trubolotta
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To: jazusamo
thanks jaz,

There is usually only a limited amount of damage that can be done by dull or stupid people. For creating a truly monumental disaster, you need people with high IQs.

guess that means we really are safe, cause for all the 'pedigree', bambam is dumb as owl sh!t...

'bocks orox' hussein aint fit to sharpen Dr Sowell's pencils...

26 posted on 09/28/2009 10:14:17 PM PDT by Gilbo_3 (Gov is not reason; not eloquent; its force... Like fire, a dangerous servant & master. GW)
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To: ROTB

What turned him so dull?

Was he on speed that night?


27 posted on 09/28/2009 10:14:27 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (The Democrat party is a criminal enterprise.)
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To: jazusamo
Such people have been told all their lives how brilliant they are, until finally they feel forced to admit it, with all due modesty.


28 posted on 09/28/2009 10:16:07 PM PDT by smoothsailing
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To: jazusamo

bump


29 posted on 09/28/2009 10:37:57 PM PDT by Christian4Bush ("A community organizer can't start bitching when communities organize." - Rush, 8/5/09)
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To: smoothsailing

Great graphic and true!


30 posted on 09/28/2009 10:39:04 PM PDT by jazusamo (But there really is no free lunch, except in the world of political rhetoric,.: Thomas Sowell)
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To: jazusamo; vaudine; smoothsailing

“Such people have been told all their lives how brilliant they are, until finally they feel forced to admit it, with all due modesty.”

Elitists who just “know” that they possess unique insight just can’t resist putting their abstract theories into practice, no matter what it takes. This is bound to end in disaster.

Successful leaders are those who base their decisions on empirical knowledge and practiced experience.

Abstract theories that seem to conflict with time honored experience occasionally succeed in the hard sciences, but almost always turn out to be wrong when applied to human affairs.


31 posted on 09/28/2009 10:47:15 PM PDT by haroldeveryman
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To: jazusamo

Thanks for the ping Jaz...Mr Sowell can really tell it like it is and if he keeps this up Newt may have to pass his Hammer to him...


32 posted on 09/28/2009 10:53:05 PM PDT by billmor (As another Freeper said- the lines are drawn, choose your side !)
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To: jazusamo
He’s definitely not the brilliant speaker so many were raving about in his campaign...

He never really was.

33 posted on 09/28/2009 10:54:03 PM PDT by blake6900 (YOUR AD HERE)
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To: jazusamo
But do we want to become the world's largest banana republic?

Fixed it.

34 posted on 09/28/2009 11:43:18 PM PDT by sionnsar (IranAzadi|5yst3m 0wn3d-it's N0t Y0ur5:SONY|Remember Neda Agha-Soltan|TV--it's NOT news you can trust)
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To: jazusamo
It is a great irony that the high IQ government and media elites profess shopworn, old, disproven, and ridiculously simplistic solutions.

The Ivy/Oxbridge catechism, so unimaginatively regurgitated by Obama and company, boils down to two dull suppositions that the average middle-schooler could rebut:

1: Spend our way to prosperity

2: Talk nice to our enemies

The self-styled intellectual elite is made up not of creative thinkers, but stodgy conformists. Unfortunately for them, kissing up for grades brings rewards in school, but not in the real world.

35 posted on 09/29/2009 1:28:32 AM PDT by SupplySider
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To: jazusamo
>"But do we want to become the world's largest banana republic?"

We have a choice!

This was an exercise of our 1st amendment rights.

They don't want to see the exercise that comes after the 1st.

36 posted on 09/29/2009 1:33:37 AM PDT by rawcatslyentist (Ifanationexpects tobe ignorantandfree,inastateofcivilization,itexpects whatneverwas andnever will be)
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To: HiTech RedNeck
I haven’t seen a single idea of his which says “wow, though this is evil, this is genius too.”

Agreed. Other than his being elected, I've seen no evidence of any special intelligence from Zero.

37 posted on 09/29/2009 2:59:45 AM PDT by Tax-chick (There is no "I" in "Tejano conjunto.")
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To: jazusamo

He’s not going anywhere for 8 years unless we take to the streets. Chatting away on FR will do little to nothing about the take over of America. Civil disorder on a daily basis is needed. Im afraid , like always , conservatives will sit and watch the ship sink.


38 posted on 09/29/2009 3:10:48 AM PDT by sonic109
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To: jazusamo

A good point well expounded, Tom. You get another A-plus.


39 posted on 09/29/2009 5:29:09 AM PDT by RoadTest ( Confounded be all they that serve graven images, that boast themselves of idols - Psalm 97:12a)
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To: jazusamo
There is usually only a limited amount of damage that can be done by dull or stupid people. For creating a truly monumental disaster, you need people with high IQs.

Such people have been told all their lives how brilliant they are, until finally they feel forced to admit it, with all due modesty. But they not only tend to over-estimate their own brilliance, more fundamentally they tend to over-estimate how important brilliance itself is when dealing with real world problems.

This link is to my article summarizing
Why Don't Students Like School:
A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works
and What It Means for the Classroom
by Daniel T. Willingham
The salient point is that
Intelligence can be changed through sustained hard work.
This means that "intelligence" is not an intrinsic characteristic of a given person, but rather is significantly affected by how much that person has thought - and about what. The conclusion to be drawn from this is crucial:
Always talk about successes and failures in terms of effort, not ability.
Talking in terms of success due to effort leads to morale. Talking in terms of success due to effort leads to arrogance, reduced motivation to work, and, over time, an actual reduction in "IQ."


40 posted on 09/29/2009 5:44:20 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (SPENDING without representation is tyranny. To represent us you have to READ THE BILLS.)
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