I Wanna Stay Home and Drink Beer Like the Rest of ‘Em
…but I know I can’t. And that, as a nation, ‘We the People‘ CAN”T. How come these reseachers/poll takers never seem to talk to any of us?
“As the Iraq war has shaken the global outlook of American influentials, it has led to a revival of isolationist sentiment among the general public,” the report said.
This paragraph was a particular surprise…NOT.
Opinion leaders in science, engineering, foreign affairs, academia and the news media are particularly pessimistic that US efforts to establish a stable democracy in Iraq will succeed, with roughly two-thirds believing it will fail. Only military leaders remain strongly optimistic, while 56 per cent of Americans overall agree that success is still possible.
It seems there’s only one ray of sunshine in all those questions…
US faith in the United Nations has also fallen sharply, with only 48 per cent of Americans expressing positive views about the world body, down from 77 per cent four years ago.
People | Mr. Bingley | 
November 18, 2005 9:00 am
Subscribe
OK, WTF does an “opinion leader” in the sciences or engineering know about politics, nation building, or even running a business? And if “opinion leader” means Academic, as opposed to Industrial scientist, that goes triple.
The only group in that sample whose opinion I’d even halfway value is the foreign affairs group, but I’d have to say that if they are one of the 48% that still believe in the UN, their opinion is probably worth less than mine. I have a feeling an awful lot of that 48% is composed of academic “experts” on foreign affairs.
Exactly my thoughts, John. If we have to look to sheltered academia for real time ‘opinions’, we’re (insert FedEx ad) “doomed. Doomed.”
Like Buckley said: “I would rather be governed by the first 200 names in the Boston phone book, than by the Harvard faculty.”
That’s hilarious, but true sluggo!
“Opinion leaders in science, engineering, foreign affairs, academia and the news media are” vomitously liberal!
I saw somewhere (can’t remember where) that Pew admitted that a a majority of its “opinion leaders” were registered Democrats. The Council on Foreign Affairs was the group that provided their “opinion leaders” on international matters, for example.
I myself have been feeling isolationist recently. I don’t think we should pull out of Iraq right now because we have a moral obligation to try to prevent internecine bloodshed. But we can’t fix human nature, and in my curmudgeonly state of mind, I want to tell the rest of the world to go to hell. We can’t change the world if it doesn’t want to be changed; we can only protect ourselves as best we can from foreign atrocities and stupidities.