Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

August 24, 2017

Comments

“I am not overawed, and I am not at all disturbed by the proclamation of college professors who never earned a dollar by the sweat of their brow by honest labor.”–Senator Samuel Shortridge (R-CA) in response to “1,028 economists [who] sent a letter of protest, arguing that protectionism would harm the economy and cause a trade war.” This was in the context of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff that helped usher in the Great Depression.

Seriously: what do a bunch of pointy-headed intellectuals who have devoted their lives to studying a topic know about that topic? And the absolutely worst kind of college professors are the ones with dry brows.

(From today’s edition of Marketplace).

6 responses to “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”

DrDaveT

August 24, 2017 at 10:16 pm

It’s all about validation of prejudice. If experts can be dismissed as unrealistic, and the media can be dismissed as biased, and you shop around for a religion that agrees with you, then there is no remaining authority who can contradict your petty, ignorant, vicious biases.

FWIW, I have earned a dollar by the sweat of my brow by honest labor, and I have earned my living as a college professor, and I have earned my living by convincing other people to give me money to think deeply and solve their problems for them. The manual labor is easily the least wearing and least stressful of the three.
M. Bouffant

August 24, 2017 at 10:50 pm

There is no hope whatsoever for this species of proudly & profoundly ignorant idiots.
Just ‘nutha ig’nint cracker

August 25, 2017 at 8:44 am

@DrDaveT:

The manual labor is easily the least wearing and least stressful of the three.

Well that’s been my experience, too. I only wish we lived in a society where we believed that people who do manual labor are entitled to have decent lives. It would make me feel better about the future.
Franklin

August 25, 2017 at 9:42 am

@Just ‘nutha ig’nint cracker: Hear hear!
gVOR08

August 25, 2017 at 2:34 pm

I dither between thinking Republicans are now worse than ever and thinking no, they’ve always been like this. Useful data point.
al-Ameda

August 30, 2017 at 6:33 pm

“I am not overawed, and I am not at all disturbed by the proclamation of college professors who never earned a dollar by the sweat of their brow by honest labor.”–Senator Samuel Shortridge (R-CA)

And where is Shortridge now?
Legally dead, contrasted to the brain-dead state he was in back then.