The “intellectual” class: Smarter than you and therefore entitled to lie to you
What a smackdown!
One of the most fascinating — indeed, illuminating — exchanges to come out of the House Oversight Committee hearing Tuesday. Here is Chairman Darrell Issa grilling Jonathan Gruber:
ISSA: When you made these repeated comments [We wrote ObamaCare in such a way as to hide its costs; we counted on the American voter being stupid enough to believe us; lying is a huge political advantage, etc.] in an intellectual community with lots of other like-minded people, did anyone ever come up to you and tell you that what you were saying was inappropriate?
GRUBER: Not that I recall.
ISSA: I guess what you said was popular in that community.
What a smackdown! But so true. The “intellectual” class believes they do no wrong when they lie to you, because they are obviously so much smarter than you.
In the Los Angeles Times, Jonah Goldburg described the real genius of the smarter-than-you “intellectual” class:
[Gruber] represents the arrogance of the expert class writ large. They create systems, terms and rules that no normal person on the outside can possibly penetrate. They make life and living more complicated and then get rich and powerful off of their ability to navigate that complexity. Time and again they sell simplicity and security and deliver more complications and insecurity, which in turn creates demand for more experts promising simplicity and security the Gruberians never deliver.
It’s not that Americans are stupid, it’s that the experts have been geniuses at creating a system that makes normal people feel stupid.
Tags: Darrell Issa, House Oversight Committee, Jonathan Gruber, ObamaCare
This entry was posted on Thursday, December 11th, 2014 at 10:03 am and is filed under National Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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December 11th, 2014 at 10:45 am
Today’s Democrats are not JFK Democrats, they are Alinsky Democrats. As such, they are an ends-justifies-the-means people. Nothing else matters but that they get what they want. Whether something is moral, ethical, legal or Constitutional is of no consequence. People’s lives and reputations are equally irrelevant. They follow Alinsky to the letter:
2. Of Means and Ends [Forget moral or ethical considerations]
“The end is what you want, the means is how you get it. Whenever we think about social change, the question of means and ends arises. The man of action views the issue of means and ends in pragmatic and strategic terms. He has no other problem; he thinks only of his actual resources and the possibilities of various choices of action. He asks of ends only whether they are achievable and worth the cost; of means, only whether they will work. … The real arena is corrupt and bloody.” p.24
“The means-and-ends moralists, constantly obsessed with the ethics of the means used by the Have-Nots against the Haves, should search themselves as to their real political position. In fact, they are passive — but real — allies of the Haves…. The most unethical of all means is the non-use of any means… The standards of judgment must be rooted in the whys and wherefores of life as it is lived, the world as it is, not our wished-for fantasy of the world as it should be….” pp.25-26
“The third rule of ethics of means and ends is that in war the end justifies almost any means….” p.29
“The seventh rule… is that generally success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics….” p.34