Why Are Conservatives Dumb?
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Ian “The Racist” Schwartz, in an otherwise asinine post claiming some sort of nutty connection between the insane Fred Phelps and Vice President Al Gore (Phelps, among his more odious activities, picketed the funeral of Al Gore Sr.) makes this comment about Wikipedia:
I found this on Wikipedia which we all know has a liberal bias to it
Mark Koldys, who has decided its his mission in life to defend the indefensible Fox News, also rails against Wikipedia.
We were recently introduced to the wonders of Wikipedia, the self-styled internet encyclopedia. The promoters of this site claim that it strives to present a neutral point of view (NPoV). That’s an easy premise to test: just head straight to their pages on Fox News.
I am going to say this, and say this once: YOU CAN EDIT WIKIPEDIA. ANYONE CAN EDIT WIKIPEDIA. EVEN AN IDIOT RIGHT-WINGER CAN EDIT WIKIPEDIA. YOU CAN EVEN EDIT THE WIKIPEDIA PAGE ABOUT “WIKIPEDIA”.
Oh my God. If you think it’s “liberally biased”, FIX IT.
51 Responses to “Why Are Conservatives Dumb?”
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Oooh.. two comments in a row.
I’d like to say that Wikipedia is probably the best thing to happen. Yep.. you heard me.. happen.
Except… when it comes to politics.. then it’s awful.
The World Book Encyclopedia of the InternetWikiPedia is the Internet’s biggest “team blog”. It is to Reference, what MySpace is to socializing.
Who is gonna spend the next few weks going over every offending article, editing it, only to have some clown from the other side of the world come back and change it an hour later?
Here’s the average IQ by state according to the Ravens APM:
AVG IQ AVG Income ’00 Electoral
(1) Connecticut………………113 $26,979 Gore
(2) Massachusetts…………….111 $24,059 Gore
(3) New Jersey……………….111 $26,457 Gore
(4) New York…………………109 $23,534 Gore
(5) Rhode Island……………..107 $20,299 Gore
(6) Hawaii…………………..106 $21,218 Gore
(7) Maryland…………………105 $22,974 Gore
(8) New Hampshire…………….105 $22,934 Bush
(9) Illinois…………………104 $21,608 Gore
(10) Delaware………………..103 $21,451 Gore
[...]
(40) Texas……………………92 $17,892 Bush
(41) Alabama………………….90 $16,220 Bush
(42) Louisiana………………..90 $15,712 Bush
(43) Montana………………….90 $16,062 Bush
(44) Oklahoma…………………90 $16,198 Bush
(45) South Dakota……………..90 $16,558 Bush
(46) South Carolina……………89 $15,989 Bush
(47) Wyoming………………….89 $17,423 Bush
(48) Idaho……………………87 $16,067 Bush
(49) Utah…………………….87 $15,325 Bush
(50) Mississippi………………85 $14,088 Bush
average IQ by state
Not sure why they are so dumb, but every research I’ve seen confirms that trend.
I wouldn’t pay too much attention to what “the Political Queen” posts over there on his site. His site basically consists of FOX NEWS clips and “I Heart Tom Delay” emails.
Wm F. Buckley,Jr made what I considered to be an astute observation many years ago, when he wrote that he would rather be represeted by the first 100 names in the Boston phone book, than by 100 members of the Harvard faculty
mikmik: The fact that you think your übermensch scale is important indicates — to me. anyway — that Stanford – Binet would not have treated you kindly.
It’s funny how mikmik is calling out Bush voters for being dumb when he falls for what is a widely known hoax.
There is a certain segment of the con population that believes that everything that questions the con movement is a “liberal media” conspiracy. Hence the attacks on the “Mainstream Media”, including such politically neutral media outposts as “Access Hollywood”, google.com, and wikipedia, that may have content that contradicts conservative orthodoxy.
Increasingly, content that fails to endorse con concepts or condemn liberal concepts are attacked for not clapping loudly enough for Our Leader. Witness the attacks on FIFA recently.
More and more, the idiocy of what comprises conservative “thought” is contradicted in neutral sources such as these. Instead of examining their misconceptions and the lies of their standard bearers, however, they simply attack the messenger with the “liberal media” tag.
This book speaks about this phenomena. He was on Franken talking about how he simply blamed everything on the “liberal media”, and only watched Fox and listened to RW hosts for his news.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0975251783/sr=8-1/qid=1145636815/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-2213480-2043860?%5Fencoding=UTF8
Can I take the Dugger/Pedro approach to this? It doesn’t matter what the facts say, my gut tells me the chart is true.
Thanks for the link FC: The problem is how the author condescends to readers; it’s like a recent born-again preaching to the congregation during his first trip to church.
And that’s from Publisher’s Weekly, the mildest, most dedicated to impartiality reviewers you’ll ever find. This guy’s obviously a real gem.
And, if you check the thread, I, for one, didn’t think that the role of the media was germane to this issue, so I didn’t even mention it.
That’s not even a “straw man”, that’s non – existent!
If I go to the entry for “Up” and edit the definition to read simply “Down,” will that help balance the liberal bias of Wikipedia?
Here’s one…college graduates by state. U.S. Census.
I dunno…those Bush states are looking awfully light..
http://www.epodunk.com/top10/collegeDiploma/index.html
My two cents..
JK
This should cheer up the cons on this blog. (Don’t say I never did anything for you.) A friend of mine recently graded a high school sophomore’s social studies test and found a gem of young conservative thought waiting in the weeds.
From the Comprehensive Reading section of the test, students were asked to respond to an essay. The essay’s subject matter: Europeans work less then Americans–EVERYONE works less then Americans–and it’s leading to an unhealthy American lifestyle.
Kid: No. He’s wrong. You’re either with us or against us. Your job isn’t to attack America in your essay. Your job is, when you compare us to other countries, make us look better and them look bad. You’re a traitor.
“Can I take the Dugger/Pedro approach to this? It doesn t matter what the facts say, my gut tells me the chart is true.”
Ah Pauly, Pauly, Pauly…….
This is just confirmation that your “PhD” is in basket weaving or something. Anyone who knows anything knows that IQ score is a standard distribution around 100. The standard deviation is 15 points. When you have whole lists of populations that are one standard deviation off the mean,…..well…anyone who knows statistic can see the data is crap…or there is something else going on. simple logic, and as usual lost on liberals.
JK’s data is interesting though….it seems to prove that the leftist indoctrination by colleges is working….that needs to change doesn’t it….
Also, Ollie. Why are you so obsessed with Ian? I thought y ou banned him from this site.
Kind of a low blow to ban a guy and then spend all sorts of time posting stuff he can’t respond to. Very, “soviet” of you….
I take it you didn’t graduate from college, Frank?
JK
This, of course, presupposes that a person with four years of education is somehow “smarter” than a person with 1, 2, or 3 years of college; when, in fact, there are dozens, if not hundreds of reasons why a person might not finish college, e.g., illness of the student, or a loved one that needs help, finances (of course), personal issues (marrying and supporting children)
It also presupposes that people who graduate from college are each exactly as smart as each other, and, as a group, smarter than all non – graduates — which would present the absurdity that a 35 – or 40 – year old telephone lineman, for example, is “not as smart” as a 20 year old communications major, who graduates this June.
At least, try and find stats for years of education, with an allowance for age and occupation.
You might then be on the right track. You’ll probably find that there’s no difference, when you look at it that way.
And btw, saying Wikipedia has a liberal bias is like saying the phone book has a liberal bias. Hell, why is the DNC listed before the RNC? Liberal bias, I say!
BD
I weep for the future….
And how about those “blue” pages, duros? Blue=government, it’s a conspiracy, I tell ‘ya.
Yellow pages for business? Are the leftists saying that businesses are chicken? What commie bastard came up with this?
But we’re aren’t talking about accuracy, Frank. We’re talking about bias.
And, Duros, I seriously doubt that The World Book Encyclopedia of the Internet WikiPedia is as accurate as the phone book…
JK: You’re like a kid leaping from rock to rock in a steam of idiocy. You keep changing rocks, but you never get out of the stream.
While I have never made a direct statement to the effect that I graduated from college (which I did, at age 46, magna cum laude — how’d you do?), I have mentioned several times that I am in graduate school. I’m not sure, but I don’t think you can get into a Masters’ Program without a college degree — at least not in my school. I’m going for a Masters’ in the same school where I graduated 12 years ago.
BTW, BD and duros: One dumb kid does not a generation make
JK: Maybe you should ask yourself why that’s important…
And how often I go out is my concern…
I don’t feel like getting into details, but I don’t see why an encyclopedia that’s open to the public wouldn’t be biased. There’s certainly nothing to be gained by trying to maintain some integrity and discipline — who cares?
Are you going to sell less copies?
As to the nature of the bias…
Ask yourself, “Who would be more inclined to contribute?”
What would their motives be?
Now guess what my answers to those questions would be?
What were your answers?
Oh…calm down Frank. I was just trying to get a rise out of you.
OW is right. You need to get outside more.
JK
Thanks Frank -
I would hardly call STDEV and stats simple logic drpedro – I would imagine it is lost on a lot of americans given our education system.
You come off as a bit of the elitist at times…but you knew that…
This is WAY OT, but it is the coolest thing I have seen / heard in along, long time!
http://www.transbuddha.com/mediaHolder.php?id=576
“This is just confirmation that your PhD is in basket weaving or something.”
Damn pedro, you are one thick son of a bitch.
hey paul, leave my waistline out of this….
What IS your PhD in paul?
“What IS your PhD in paul?”
Take a wild guess. And where’s the citations to your peer reviewed articles?
Oh…Ha!
Pedro is a frigging Ph.D???
He told me he was a Dr?!!
Oh…man, this may be the funniest thing to ever happen on this blog.
A Ph.D.
LMAO.
JK
no, I don’t doctor philosphy….I doctor people….only an M.D. for me JK
My citations can be found in any medline search under my name….pretty straightforward really….should be around twenty, though not all are with me as first author….
nice dodge pedro.
I have access to Medline indexes. Give me a title.
Pedro…
I apologize.
BTW…I was kidding about Ph.D.’s. I have all the respect in the world for someone who goes to school for 4-6 years, and then has to stand up in front of other Ph.D.’s to defend themselves. Many go on to do great things in their fields. We’d be a hell of a lot worse off without them.
JK
Of course, I’m just guessing what your answers would be.
Are you going to sell less copies?
As to the nature of the bias&
Ask yourself, Who would be more inclined to contribute?
What would their motives be?
Now guess what my answers to those questions would be?
What were your answers?
Frank. FYI, it doesn’t cost anything.
Why is it that your answers are automatically “liberals who want ot push their liberally biased liberal agenda”?
As has been shown, anyone can contribute to Wikipedia. Cons and libs alike. Much of the time, bias is in the perception of the reader, don’t you agree? If someone told you that a certain magazine or paper or tv show or whatever had a liberal bias to it, you would be more inclined to look at it that way. Any semblence of impartiality or objectiveness would be lost to you, and nothing would change your perception.
We all use it, don’t pretend you don’t. it is a fast and efficient (though perhaps not completely accurate) reference for stuff.
But biased? Come on.
Paul I really wish I could publish my abstracts, by medical degree and discharge papers here. It would certainly decrease the silly bashing that I get whenever I comment and the lefties can’t come up with a better response than “you’re not a …….(fill in the blank).
But…I have seen how you radical leftists attempt to silence opposition by publishing names, work addresses, or just rounding up a 10 or 12 friends and harrassing people….I’m not really interested in going there…
Paul, what IS your PhD going to be in by the way?
duros: nothing escapes your notice, eh?
My point was that, because it is free, they don’t have to worry about integrity or discipline.
For a good dsicussion of WikiPedia, see here:
http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2006/04/wikipedia_biasis_there_a_neutr.html
I actually do not use WikiPedia, except on rare occasions to check the spelling of some political figure’s name or something.
For regular spelling, Mozilla has a feature where you type in dict , space and a word, and you are directed to the answers.com site
Since WikiPedia depends on websites, I find the website myself.
After the kerfluffle with that friend of RFK’s, I stopped using it.
Ger / Yiddish kinderspiel = child’s play
I’m sorry I spelled kinderspiel wrong — my keyboard is getting worn out — what a surprise!
BTW, I can say in all modesty that I’m as close to being a Google expert, as you’ll ever see on this blog…
I don’t need WikiPedia — I’ve eliminated the middleman
I get eMail newsletters from Tara Calishain’s ResearchBuzz.com, and Gary Price’s ResourceShelf.com, LII.org, Cool Site of the Day, LinkyDinky, and other things like that, regularly.
WikiPedia is kinerspiel by comparison.
That’s why i call WikiPedia the World Book Encyclopedia of the Internet.
I understand, Dr P, you’d have to be crazy to reveal personal information about yourself on a weblog
Its funny, but Paul (frameone) is rueing the day he did, let me tell you!
And Ollie, why IS it that you troll ians site so much, after banning him here?
Hardly. You know my name and where I write as a freelancer. Like I said, you can always read my latest review here:
http://www.laweekly.com/film+tv/video-store-burnout/the-complete-mr-arkadin-aka-confidential-report/13253/
I live in Los Angeles and I’m getting a Ph.D in film studies. I’ve been too busy to keep my own blog updated but rest assured I’ll be back online soon. You can read old posts here: http://daysofthelocust.blogspot.com/
I think that’s sufficient personal information to reveal. I show you where I publish my modest contribution to film culture. You show me your magnificent contribution to medical science. Of course you won’t and you’ve got a perfectly whiny excuse as to why.
You’re right, I have the perfect excuse…
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/172787.php
Film studies….gee, the rest of us just go to movies (apparently less and less too, you might consider a career change at this point…)
I guess what they say is true: Those who can’t make movies, just teach about them….God help the youth of this country…
Fred Phelps was a one-time supporter of Gore. And while the Left often uses the cult that is Westboro Baptist “Church” as an example of extremist fundamentalism running rampant throughout the US, it’s merely made up of Phelps and his extended family. They often portray Phelps as just a member of Bush’s base, but Phelps is a registered Democrat and ran for Democrat office in the 90s.
Oh, and he hosted a fundraiser for Algore. Just b/c it appears on Wikipedia doesn’t mean it’s not true, OW. Phelps was an Algore delegate in 1988… and attended the Clinton/Gore inaugural in ’92.
I won’t claim that he’s representative of the Democratic party (despite his past ties and his similar position on the War in Iraq) if you won’t claim that he’s representative of the GOP.
Regards,
St Wendeler
Another Rovian Conspiracy
Just b/c it appears on Wikipedia doesn t mean it s not true
What you find at WikiPedia, because it comes from other websites, is as true — or false — as any other website.
http://www.library.cornell.edu/olinuris/ref/research/webcrit.html
Which is why I don’t rely on it anymore…
Didn’t you mean to say “World Nut Daily” instead of wikipedia Wendy? Because it appears on WND, it has zero credibility.
What side of the aisle does Phelps radical agenda fall closer to? The right side or the left side? Be honest. Your side is where the bigots call home.
Stop it, factcheck…
You’re not really trying to say that there are no bigots who are Democrats or liberals?
Gimme a break…
Who threw Phelps out of the Party?
Who returned his donation checks?
Who invited him to the Inaugural?
You’re the guys who are always yelling, “Repudiate!”
Who has repudiated Phelps?
You know, if you must lie and say, “All Republicans are bigots”, that’s one thing.
But now you’re saying, “All bigots are Republicans,” and that’s just bullshit, and if you don’t know it, you should.