Anti-Intellectual or intellectual?

My youth was dominated by Mario and Horatius, Pac Man and Hamlet, with a monkey throwing explosive bananas and a cat who walked by himself.

TV always struck me as being too slow paced, so I took up reading - averaging about a book a day by the time I was twelve. Note that it was not, as some people claim, TV that shortened my attention span.

When I got bored in class I read the Bible. The Lord of the Rings was somewhat better, both morally and as a plot.

I have read Tolstoy, and I liked Baldur's Gate.

I feel that Dickens is about on a par with Steven King, which is to say he wrote terrible books that made good movies. Plus, both authors have a nasty habit of never using a word where a three page exposition would do.

And through all of this, it has always puzzled me when people have quoted philosophers at me. I have read what those philosophers had to say, when I am arguing with someone I want to know what the person I am arguing with has to say.

There is a kind of phony that seems to think that quoting other people's ideas is a substitute for them not having any of their own, and that kind of phony irritates me about on the same level as the caveman anti-intellectual who seems to think that an education is a personal flaw.

I am a firm believer in the idea that if a book is good, it is readable and vice versa. A bad book is one where you need to look for meaning in between the lines, because heck knows there isn't any in the actual lines themselves.

Does this all make me an anti-intellectualist, or an intellectual snob?

The trick to reading Beowulf and enjoying it, is read it aloud.

The book, is essentially slamming the latest new mediums of communication, in favour of the old.

As someone who enjoys both, it left me wondering where I would be placed on the intellectual argument.

Particularly given that I view all mediums of communication, provided they are clear and understandable are equally valid means of expression.

Further, I believe the chauvenism between mediums is meaningless. To say one medium is better than another when it comes to building up one's intellect, well what of the History Channel fan and the person who reads romance novels?

Further, that I read specifically because I do not have the patience for TV, well that kind of puts to bed the idea that reading builds one's attention span.

So much for the blowhard.

As to the troglodyte claim: that one kind of puzzles me. Please, explain.

even essential to thinking.

If you don't know anything it limits your ability to take any knowledge you acquire further.

Take the last hundred years.

In one hundred years we have: learned to fly, achieved space travel, achieved a worldwide communications network, figured out how to change the genetic structure of living organisms and our lifespans have doubled.

These achievements didn't happen earlier, not because our ancestors were any dumber than us, nor any less creative but because they didn't have as much information available to build on.

The thing is that one needs both: Knowledge and the creativity to build on that knowledge.

When it comes to Obama it is policy and style.

I oppose Hillary's stances on censorship and her style on foreign policy. I also prefered Obama's reasoned approach to if America gets attacked in the early debates (Basically, he would keep calm, investigate who did it, and then strike back. Hillary's approach was more hit back right away.)

Between the two on healthcare, well I don't think either plan will really work so I side with Obama, his costs less.

And then there is Iraq. Obama was right on the money with it, Hillary wasn't.

So you agree that there is no God.

After all, about the only thing which can never, ever be proven is a negative - and thus seen as we will never be able to disprove god, he doesn't exist.

Joking aside:

To say there is not god is to adopt a hypothesis which one then seeks to disprove. One does this via reading the various holy books, examining the testimony of witnesses, and seeking physical evidence.

To take the opposite hypothesis, would be intellectually inconsistent, as we cannot prove the non-existance of fire breathing dragons either. It is simply a less useful hypothesis.

Strange?

Or maybe the election results were flawed, in a fairly obvious manner.

Maybe the FL and MI vote issue was decided on and agreed upon before the race even started.

Now I know you Hillbots seem to think that rules are for other people, and that Hillary Clinton should get by because well, she is a Clinton and has functional tear ducts, but the rest of us kind of take the rules a bit more seriously than that.

Also known as rightwing claptrap and the last resort of scoundrels.

If Obama turned water into wine you Hillbots would be slamming him for promoting alchoholism.

The "plaguerism" was the use of a single uncredited quote. Meanwhile you Hillbots dismissed it when Hillary did exactly the same thing.

It could well spell the end of the Democratic party. While there is a massive resevoir of anger at the Republicans - this anger would be matched by indignation by the electorate.

The same is true if Obama wins on superdelegates, but he is winning the ordinary ones just fine so it is a less likely scenario as of right now.

It would be even worse if Hillary wooed the pledged delegates.

This specific election, where passions are running high, is not a time for Democratic dickery.