(Light Politics) Ah, Santorum ...

[ysengrin]

"We will never have the elite smart people on our side, because they believe they should have the power to tell you what to do." - Rick Santorum former Republican presidential candidate at the Values Voter Summit, 15 Sep 2012 (transcript here, the quote is on page 4)

First, I think Santorum himself strongly falls into the "they believe they should have the power to tell you what to do" camp.

Second, Santorum says "elite smart people" and wants you to think Communist liberal homosexual atheist ivory-tower progressive foreigner - in short, the Other. I don't read it that way. I read it as "expert." The master electrician telling me not to wire the hot side directly to ground. The master plumber telling me that sewage does not flow uphill. The master mechanic telling me that it's really a good idea to have oil in your automobile engine. The engineer designing wings that actually have lift. The author that gives their words life. The artist who can actually make passion manifest.

In short, people who know what the fuck they are doing, and who prove it by doing things that work.

Those are the people that Rick Santorum just said are not Republicans, not conservatives. His audience cheered at that, too.

Just to be clear, I think many Republicans (and conservatives) are smart people, experts. I feel the Republican party line has embraced ignorance-is-bliss as a core value in a misguided attempt to attract a particular demographic. You can't keep a tecnological society running with ignorance-is-bliss in charge.