Carol Platt Liebau: Optimism is Good

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Optimism is Good

Noemie Emory offers six solid reasons that there's a silver lining tothe clouds of last Tuesday's electoral "thumping."

3 Comments:

Blogger Red Seven said...

The article you reference states, "This is still a center-right country." I'd argue that perhaps there's more diversity of thought in this great land of ours, but would agree that even most of those on the left are closer to the center than out on the fringes. My question to you, Carol, is this: do you believe that George W. Bush and the recently defeated Rick Santorum are "center-right" candidates?

It seems fairly clear to me that while conservatism is alive and well in the USA in 2006, this administration and many of its greatest supporters went way too far to the right for most Americans to comfortably handle.

9:21 AM  
Blogger Marshal Art said...

That flies in the face of every assesment, Red. Even Bubba was quoted as saying the GOP strayed from it's principles, which are conservative indeed. Had they remained there, the votes wouldn't have swung to the left. Had conservatism not been the preferred philosophy, there'd have been far fewer conservative Dems running, much less elected, and the true lefties wouldn't be trying to appear centrist.

I would also add, that diversity of thought sounds good on the surface, but with diversity, you get a lot of nonsense and outright crap. So I'd trade diversity of thought for intelligent thought any day.

12:16 AM  
Blogger Red Seven said...

Marshall Art says ... "So I'd trade diversity of thought for intelligent thought any day."

~~~~~

Sounds to me like you can't recognize any thought that is different from your own world view as "intelligent."

Many studies, most of them non-political and therefore not tied to left or right, confirm the notion that broad diversity of thought, if you can manage it, leads to better decisions than than those made by groups of men who all think (and usually look) alike.

Read The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki. It's a fascinating read.

9:59 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home

Google