The people have written!

After sorting through scores of nominations from readers, I am dyspeptic to present another recipient of the “Educated Idiots Award” (EIA), which is given to the arrogant intellectuals unacquainted with real life who foist their insane ideas upon the “unenlightened” rest of us.

Nominated by former State Department Official, John Tkacik, this week’s EIA goes to the Obama Administration’s “smart power” savants. (Okay, that’s not quite what John called them, but the sentiment is simpatico.)

To witless:

Per a March 5th Washington Post article, the Obama Administration’s “smart power” savants want the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to get a sweetheart sanctions deal: If the Beijing regime relents and supports tightened UN sanctions against Iran, the PRC will be exempted from tightened US sanctions against Iran.

This dysfunctional case of “the enemy of my enemy is my enemy” bemuses our allies who have steadfastly supported sanctioning Iran due to its nuclear program; and have already been divesting from the mullah’s murderous regime.

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My late father had a phrase to describe the arrogant intellectuals unacquainted with real life who foist their insane ideas on the “unenlightened” rest of us: The phrase was “educated idiots.”

Sadly, today his words ring ever truer. To witless:

(In what is rarely a good sign) a New York Times blog reports the Harvard-based Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs has determined fuel prices must rise significantly to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.  Thus, in the name of discredited Leftist psuedo-science, your gas prices could reach $7 a gallon.

In this tepid spat of Think Tanks vs. Gas Tanks, we glean two things: these researchers have recession-proof jobs; and they are unconcerned you don’t.

How else to explain these researchers’ cavalier demand that your shrinking family budget must get smaller and your job must become more tenuous all so Goddess Gaia can keep her cool?

In our real world, the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2009 annual summary reports that unemployment rates rose last year in all regions, divisions, and states.  And nowhere is the pain of this recessed economy deeper than in my Michigan, which had the largest increase in unemployment percentage from last year (5.3%); and has held the nation’s highest unemployment rate since this recession began (at times exceeding 15%).

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Uncommon Knowledge host, Peter Robinson, sat down recently with Dr. Thomas Sowell to discuss the impact of intellectuals on society.

As an ongoing feature at Big Government, the Hoover Institution’s Uncommon Knowlege, with Peter Robinson, will continue posting clips from its current interviews, as well as from many of it’s greatest shows from the past:

While the Left continues to push the meme that the Right is “anti-intellectual,” it is worth examining what really troubles so many Americans about the desire of self-styled “experts” to run the world we all live in.  Hint: it ain’t about intelligence.  There is a species of person in America, in the West, which believes it knows better than the rest of us, and would like us to simply get out of the way so it can take the collective wisdom of its many post-graduate degrees and get on with the business of re-making the world as it sees fit.  In these clips from a longer and wonderful piece (available at the Hoover Institution), Peter Robinson interviews one of America’s greatest actual intellects, Dr. Thomas Sowell, who makes some strong criticisms about the vanity and danger of the intellectual class: they do not know everything, but in fact lack at least 99% of the “consequential knowledge” needed to function in the world; they manufacture the need for themselves, with one dubious crisis after another; and they have an often terrible track record when given the reigns of society, as with McNamara’s Whiz Kids, FDR’s Brain Trust, and the disarmament movement following WWI.  The “Stimulus” and health care “reform” come to mind as well…

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