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Holy Crap - The Revolution is about to start

pood said:
I do not think Nixon was stupid at all. Stupid people don’t get offered full scholarships to Harvard, as NIxon did but had to turn down because of family obligations. Stupid people don’t receive, as Nixon did, a full scholarship to Duke University Law School.

Nixon’s problem was not lack of intelligence, but lack of character.
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Pretty much this.
Nixon was no moron. He was a politician who used to prevailing bigotry to acquire power.
Skillfully.

Guts and smarts. Then he helped the US to get over our dumbassery concerning China. Made things better for everyone.

Still, his beliefs in the power of the POTUS and misuse of it caused his downfall.
It took another fifty years for an ex-President to break through that glass ceiling and confidently run on a platform of "the law doesn't apply to people like me".
But here we are. Trump has successfully found a way to convince a bunch of Americans that laws don't apply to people like him. Enough to make his presidential campaign viable.

We patriots think he should have been executed in 2022. Unfortunately, the Biden- Harris team dropped the ball and Trump is not swinging from a noose or in a sub-basement of Gitmo.

He's still trying to lie to enough Americans to stay out of jail.
Tom
 
Ha! Believe me, Harvard has produced some colossal fools over the years. Even one of the other foolish presidents mentioned above, Mr George Walker Bush, Jr.
 
Dumbya went to Harvard Business School. He got his first degree from Yale, where no doubt he was a legacy admission. Nixon would certainly not have been a legacy admission to Harvard.
 
Politesse said:
Ha! Believe me, America has produced some colossal fools over the years. Even one of the other foolish presidents mentioned above, Mr George Walker Bush, Jr.
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FTFY.

Which doesn't make us any different from any other people or culture. We're just richer and more powerful. Our mistakes are huge.
Tom
 
IMO, wisdom involves experience, while intelligence is the ability to approach a new situation with little or no prior experience, using existing knowledge and applying it effectively.

Edit: Nixon was knowledgeable but not necessarily intelligent.
 
TomC said:
Politesse said:
Ha! Believe me, America has produced some colossal fools over the years. Even one of the other foolish presidents mentioned above, Mr George Walker Bush, Jr.
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FTFY.

Which doesn't make us any different from any other people or culture. We're just richer and more powerful. Our mistakes are huge.
Tom
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Indeed. I would not choose many places in the world over the United States. But we are not immune to the inherent weaknesses (and corresponding strengths) of democratic governance. Politics is struggle, and it never ends.
 
If Nixon ordering the Watergate break-in, recording incriminating conversations in the Oval Office, attempting to cover it all up, and then firing key officials in the ‘Saturday Night Massacre’ isn’t having or showing a great lack of intelligence or common sense, we might need to redefine stupid. :whistle:
 
southernhybrid said:
Nixon wasn't stupid. He was just a crook, despite him saying, "I am not a crook". At least he helped start the EPA, which Trump wants to end. Nixon was known as tricky dick, not stupid dick.
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There are smart crooks. But do smart crooks keep assiduous records of their crimes, and let everyone know those records exist?
 
I think in the case of Watergate, Nixon’s screwups were not those of a stupid or unintelligent man, but rather of a man intoxicated with hubris and the arrogance of power, alloyed with deep insecurity, paranoia, and hatred for those he felt had looked down on him. Lyndon Johnson, also an intelligent man, had many of the same traits, which led to the Vietnam debacle.
 
pood said:
I think in the case of Watergate, Nixon’s screwups were not those of a stupid or unintelligent man, but rather of a man intoxicated with hubris and the arrogance of power, alloyed with deep insecurity, paranoia, and hatred for those he felt had looked down on him. Lyndon Johnson, also an intelligent man, had many of the same traits, which led to the Vietnam debacle.
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I agree and despite Johnson accomplishing some excellent things, I tend to think he decided not to run for another term due to the mess in Viet Nam. Perhaps we can say that Nixon and Johnson were smart, but they weren't very wise. There is certainly a difference and it takes a lot of life experience in most cases to wise up.

Some older people like my brother in law never acquire any wisdom. Despite having a doctoral degree he is an idiot who just voted for Trump. Based on some things he told Mr. Sohy today, I think he's getting his disinformation from Faux news or Newsmax.

Are we going to keep arguing about whether or not Nixon was smart or stupid? :stupid:
 
pood said:
I think in the case of Watergate, Nixon’s screwups were not those of a stupid or unintelligent man, but rather of a man intoxicated with hubris and the arrogance of power, alloyed with deep insecurity, paranoia, and hatred for those he felt had looked down on him. Lyndon Johnson, also an intelligent man, had many of the same traits, which led to the Vietnam debacle.
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Ah, so we’re saying Nixon’s intelligence was so high that it spiraled right around to classic dumb fuckery? It’s like claiming he was operating on a whole different level of ‘genius,’ where intense self-doubt, paranoia, and a dash of unchecked power created a perfect recipe for strategic blunders.
 
I think it is that intelligence is no guarantee against doing stupid stuff and committing awful blunders, because innate character and personality often and perhaps usually trump careful considered thinking, and if character and personality are flawed an intelligent person might do very stupid things.
 
I see now. So, Trump inciting a revolution could be seen as an intelligent person letting emotions, biases, and distractions drive him to act in stupid ways.
 
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