New Iraq as Wingnut Dream Land
Day by day, Iraq grows closer and closer to becoming every wingnut’s fantasy country. There’s no gun control, there are no gay rights and there’s no separation of church and state. Heck, Iraq even had a flat tax for a little bit!
Well, hard-core right-wingers have yet another reason to drool over New Iraq- it seems that pointy-headed intellectuals are leaving the country in droves:
Iraq’s top professionals — doctors, lawyers, professors — and businessmen have been targeted by shadowy political groups for kidnapping and ransom, as well as murder, some of them say. So many have fled the country that Iraq is in danger of losing the core of skilled people it needs most just as it is trying to build a newly independent society.
“It’s creating a brain drain,” said Amer Hassan Fayed, assistant dean of political science at Baghdad University. “We could end up with a society without knowledge. How can such a society make progress?”
Ah c’mon. Those pansy intellectuals would’ve just made everyone get gay married anyway. You’re better off without ’em.
Awesome. How long before we can expect David Horowitz, Michael Ledeen and Jonah Goldberg to emigrate?
John Cole and I were chatting about something along those lines the other week. Basically, we send all the Kool Aid drinkers like Ledeen and Malkin and Fred Barnes over to Iraq. If they complain about how much it sucks, we get to accuse them of media bias. Sounds good to me.
This statement might come as a surprise, coming from a doctor and a professor (or university instructor to be more precise), but I don’t believe doctors, lawyers, professors and businessmen are necessarily among the most intelligent creatures society spawns. In fact, an Iraq bereft of many of those lawyers is probably a much better Iraq.
If you want to find the creme de la creme, you have to turn to the poets, artists, and songwriters of the world. As long as Iraq is populated with poets and the like, I wouldn’t panic too much about a “brain drain.”
As long as Iraq is populated with poets and the like, I wouldn’t panic too much about a “brain drain.”
Doc, I love poets and artists too, but they’re notoriously flaky. What’s more, they’re probably not very adept at doing things like removing shrapnel from your pancreas.
I do agree with you about lawyers, though…
I have to agree with you, Brad, although I’ve met alot of flaky attorneys, docs, professors and business professionals too. And the ability to remove shrapnel from a pancreas could certainly be considered an obligatory skill in Iraq.
There is another problem with the country being populated with doctors. With each of them claiming to be the one and only God, Iraq could turn into a polytheocracy, which, in turn, could lead to a very bloody civil war.
PS: I have to admit, Brad, the Power Line link made my smile a little bigger than it usually is at this time on a Monday morning.
There is another problem with the country being populated with doctors. With each of them claiming to be the one and only God, Iraq could turn into a polytheocracy, which, in turn, could lead to a very bloody civil war.
Most of the medical doctors I know are good people who genuinely want to help others. Some of them are a bit full of themselves, but after the hell they go through to get their title, I’d say they’re allowed a bit of pride. Even the assholes can still treat that life-threatening condition for you.
But you might be on to something. If someone who deems himself a “song blogger” can get a doctorate, maybe the intellectual elite are not quite as smart as I thought they were.
fiver, I’ll be the first to admit, I’m the dumbest doc on the block. Of course I’m the only doc on my block, so I guess that also makes me the smartest.
If you want to find the creme de la creme, you have to turn to the poets, artists, and songwriters of the world.
We don’t actually tend to do anything particularly helpful other than write an awful lot about penises, which I can’t imagine Iraqis being particularly appreciative of.
(Well. Some Iraqis would. But the polite young gentleman from the BBC probably wouldn’t like talking to them much.)
Rev Schmitt, you used the term “we”. Are you a fellow poet or songwriter? Or perhaps an artist of the visual variety? I would beg to differ with you Rev. Schmitt. Granted, there are a few artists of every variety that seem to be fixated on the genitals, but most seem to be much more varied in their offerings. A country without art is like a dry well. Music, and the arts make the world go round. A society without the arts is a society without meaning or purpose.
Brad’s right- us musician types are flaky as hell.
Still without lawyers, doctors and teachers, any country will be a hell hole.
Chuck B.’s In Love
It’s time to catch up with our favorite law-enforcement quitter and right-wing Baptist radio demagogue, Chuck Baldwin, and once again ask that musical question, what’s Upchuck? what’s up, Chuck? “It’s about values, guys. Traditional American values. Th…
I liked the one with the light going on and off. It won a prize, I believe. I think it was a metaphor for our collective wiring being a bit faulty. Any number of narratives concerning the role of the observer as poet may be discovered. But if postcapitalist deconstruction holds, we have to choose between cultural Marxism and predialectic cultural theory..
Oh, sorry. I slipped into postmodernist mode there. I have to lie down.
Ah, but ,i>here’s the thing that should worry the neocons: where, exactly, are all these pointy-headed intellectuals going?
Dum-dum-dun!
“Ah c’mon. Those pansy intellectuals would’ve just made everyone get gay married anyway. You’re better off without ’em.”
If these “pansy intellectuals” were really smart, they would populate the earth with folks of their ilk by engaging in behaviors that would ensure them more children. Rather, they opt to get “gay married,” opt to engage in sex strictly for the sake of pleasure, and opt for abortions, all behaviors that will only result in becoming vastly outnumbered by folks they regard as benighted troglodytes.
Having children specifically to engineer ideological footsoldiers is a really bad reason to have them in the first place.
Good, I’m glad you’ve resigned yourself to that idea, Marq. I wouldn’t want to change your mind. Go with that thought. Go with that feeling. I have big plans for the world and I’m going to get busy right now with my plan to populate the world with neocon troglodytes just like me.
Well, true, it is a shitty reason to have kids- though a valid point for those who complain that the conservatives our outbreeding us (and they exist- and that fact depresses me). Can’t have your cake and eat it too, you know…
every wingnut’s fantasy country
Considering how many torture-apologists there are in Wingnuttia, you can add another reason to that list. At this rate, the Iraqi govt’s torture chambers will be back up to pre-1990 standards by the end of this year.
I’m the only doc on my block, so I guess that also makes me the smartest.
No, you’re just the only one who announces your qualifications every time you post.
Sorry if I’ve left you with the wrong impression, elendil. I guess I don’t generally consider what I do for a living a qualification. Yes, I’ve told folks here that I’m a doc–a psychologist, to be specific, but not as a way of announcing anything or as a way of boasting about my accomplishments.
I thought of it as merely sharing a little bit about myself and what I do for a living—it’s merely my day job. And though I try to do my best at it, a day job is all it is—nothing less and nothing more.
My real passion is music. I guess that’s why my diplomas are somewhere in a dresser drawer or hiding in box in my garage instead of hanging on my wall at the office.