Damn it Sam...(a defense of elitism)

...you stole my fire on a blog I was going to do on elitism....oh well...saved me an hour :)

But isn't this so true? His example of neurosurgery is brilliant, but could be applied to any one of hundreds of other instances of daily life where we not only tolerate elites--people who are "better" than us in certain respects--but we demand them. Who on earth would seek out a mecahnic, lawyer, preacher, accountant, doctor or pilot based on the same ridiculous "standards" some of us use to determine a president (an "average person who relates to me" or "someone I'd like to have a beer with"). I WANT something who thinks they are better than me when it comes to me deciding where to put trust in them to do a job I can't/won't do for myself.

I'm no Obama-worshipper. He's not nearly liberal/progressive/radical enough for me on most issues (I wish he WAS in fact the liberal bogeyman McPalin portrays him as...). But the guy was a constitutional law professor at one of the most prestigious colleges in the world for 12 years. Hmmmm...the Constitution....doesn't that factor into the presidency somewhere. Oh yeah I remember...you gotta SWEAR to uphold and defend it before taking office. So being one of the most knowledgeable people about the Constitution might, it would be seem, be relevant in a president right? Yet have we even heard this factor discussed? If at all, it is more evidence of his "elitism" and difficulty relating to the "average American." Well guess what folks, I don't want the "average American" with nuclear launch codes and trying to tackle complex problems from energy independence to market collapse to bioterrorism. I WANT someone who is a lot smarter than me rather than someone who graduated 4th from the bottom of his class (McCain) or took 4 different colleges to earn a fluff degree in communications/journalism (Palin) while instead focusing on winning "Ms. Congeniality" and who now is proud of the fact that her ignorance somehow represents a "fresh perspective" in politics. Since when did we decide that intelligence was somehow a liability in people we choose to run the country....? I thought "Idiocracy" the movie was fun fantasy....now I'm not quite so sure...