What the hell is a "liberal elite"?

MSNBC commercial for Scarborough's latest Jerry-Springeresque crapfest about Why Are So Many "Liberal Elites" Against Religion?

So WTF is a "liberal elite"?

...or intellectuals

upheaval. See Khmer Rouge et al.

someone who has gotten an education and is proud of it, advocates a similar course for others, regularly uses words that exceed two syllables, and disagrees with Republicans and **.

and therefore good sheeple. "Look at those nasty smarty liberals telling you what to do." Just like all the smarter people that run their lives everyday. "Be a good Prole and listen to the Talibush, we won't talk down to you. We keep it simple. War is Peace, Ignorance is Strength..."

and recognizes that most questions about life are too complex to define in simple, Me Tarzan You Jane format.

Who, when asked, think, before shooting a sound bite reply. Someone who celebrates the wisdom of people who can think for themselves instead of parroting what their preacher said in church, mumbling that they love Jesus as a reply to every complex, or even simple question.

Kerry and Gore are an example of who being a "liberal elite" can be used by the simpletons.

The Clintons are a good example of being a "liberal elite" and winning.

"not the dumbest motherfucker in the room"

From Websters: Elite- a group of persons who by virtue of position or education exercise much power or influence <members of the ruling elite>

There's no true liberal anywhere who has "power and influence" these days.

A liberal elite is a person with facts who asks questions. Usually literate.

It's actually no one else so tell Scarborough, "Bring it on Sucka!"

the cure for Conservatism = college

"Elite" (seriously) is just the Right-Wing's way of saying "Somebody who thinks they're smarter than we are"

Ahhh..Sorry, Pal but most Liberals ARE smarter than the average person. (That's why they're Liberals)

maybe i was/am wrong.

for all the Right-Wingers who came after them.

But that's OK. The Busheviks just went back to the codeword that Hitler used earlier on in his careers to describe Jews, Homsexuals, and Intellectual Enemies of the State.

Which is "Liberals".

People don't change, only the language they use to describe their hatreds does.

in our area work together to protest the death penalty and the war.

This title implicitly suggests that liberals are not religous and that Republicans are and that all people who are religous are Republican or not liberal.

How the media masters putting so much into so few words. A true art of deception.

body piercing, Hollywood-loving left-wing freak shows.

:shrug:

tax hiking.

When I heard that spiel, I thought to myself "Hey! I strongly resemble that remark!"

-and I grew up with neighbors who lost arms and hands and feet and legs in Homestead Works and Hazelwood Works and had an uncle who died in the mill.

That's why we're liberals.

:pals:

Someone who dones't agree with the Neocon Agenda.

In reference - They're too good for our war, they're too good to want out tax cuts while people starve and they're too good of people to buy into our lies.

using their own definitions. Used to discredit, manipulate, distract or complicate real issues. It happens on a daily basis, ignore it.

It's all our fault.

We are the liberal elite.

We are both fairly liberal in both our social and economic views. We both hold Masters Degrees. We think the cultural arts enhance peoples lives. That everybody has talent in some area (science, art, medicine, etc.) and should be encouraged to explore that talent for both their own good and the good of the community/culture they live in. And if the talented person in question needs finanical or social support, they should get it.

We are non-(insert organized religion of choice here) who are, nevertheless, spiritually oriented. We believe in tolerance to other races, creeds, cultures. We feel that as long as you are not actively harming another person with your behaviour, you should be allowed to do pretty much whatever you want. So you can marry someone of the same sex, you can have your spouse dress you in a Bo Peep costume and spank you with a hairbrush, if that makes you happy. We don't care, it's your life.

We think critical thinking and critical questioning are two of the most important skills you can teach a young person. That way they can develop a set of life skills based on both intellect and emotion, rather than existing in a superstitious haze for most of their lives.

And as you might guess, we understand we are not the center of the Universe and that there are quite possibly other more valid ways to live your life.

You can spit on me now....I am proud to be a member the liberal elite.

this coming from some pretty rich people. Not exactly common folk. I guess they are conservative elite.

overeducated liberal elite are trying to impose their views on society, disdainfully impinging on the rights of hard-working Americans who know they don't need no book-larnin'.

I'm still waiting for the public to wake up and realize who's actually in charge now, who's actually screwing over Americans, and who has, in fact, been on their side the whole time.

It doesn't look like rocket science, but apparently it is. :shrug:

part of the radical right's successful (so far) campaign to undo the New Deal coalition between the working class and lefty intellectuals. If you're a liberal elite, you don't work in a factory, you don't like country music or NASCAR, you don't drive an SUV and you ain't one of "us." Never mind that the liberal elite believe in social justice and a fair deal for working people (things like getting paid actual money for overtime, and universal health insurance for your kids), while the radical right corporatocracy see the working class as the enemy.

liberal elite = conservatives celebrating ignorance and stupidity.

Latte drinkers and Folgers drinkers
Sushi eaters and Cajun broiled tuna eaters
PhDs and Blue collar workers
People who shower before work - and people who shower after work
Volvo drivers - and Ford F-150 drivers
New York Times readers and USA Today readers
Unitarians and Evangelicals

In short -- anybody who works for a living instead of living on inherited wealth and daddy's connections is part of the liberal elite.

and chose not to work, does that mean I'm not a "liberal," or that I'm just not a part of the "elite."

Please let me know. I'm anxious to find out whether I've been accepted or not...

or part of the "Republican Elite" like George W. and Jeb and Neil and Marvin.

But - the real question - did you get into Andover/Exeter/Choate as a Legacy, and then into Yale or Princeton as a Legacy, and land a fancy job as a Legacy.

(Actually, H. John Heinz was a man of great inherited wealth -- but he was a Liberal and a college Professor. Now, I guess he was part of the Liberal Elite -- even though he was a Republican -- see Pennsylvania Politics is funny).

By keeping their terms fuzzy, Scarborough and his dishonest cohorts can say anything they want, but they know that their audience receives the intended message without saying anything actionable about anyone specific.

Especially freedom-oriented types like me, who believe that people should mind their own business and that the government shouldn't pry into the lives of consenting adults.

Liberal elite are those of us who haven't necessarily endured difficult circumstances in life, but still have the sense of perspective to realize that people who work hard, especially in challenging and vital occupations, should be justly compensated; who believe that hundreds of thousands of Americans should not be suddenly driven into bankruptcy due to hopeless medical debts and gouged drug prices.

People who only vote on social morality issues because they're rich enough that they don't have to think about needing a union or going without health insurance. University intellectuals who use $10 words to communicate a 50 cent idea.
Those people sometimes hurt the party as much as they help. You know who you are.

I just stated where the stereotype comes from. It helps to understand and deal with it in an honest way. I've met enough liberals who do look down their noses at blue-collar workers and southerners and they need a serious attitude adjustment.

I grew up in a gritty blue collar industrial town where Appalachia meets the Rust Belt - was a union member (United Steel Workers, Oil Chemical and Atomic Workers), have an industrial toxicology chronic disease from working in "The Mill" and took public transit past the steel mills and the immigrant stores to a commuter college.

Get Your War On had a cartoon that said something like that once, and I laughed and laughed!

NT!

The right wants to define Reagan as the Center. Its obvious. Move the center and you change politics for a very long time.

:hi:

Repukes are trying to turn the public against smart people in order to hide the real elitists: the right-wing pirates of industry.

Though probably that includes those who talk about how religion is for the intellectually feeble.

who have a completely privatized social security system called the "Optional Retirement Program" where they can invest their entire 12.8 % that most of us put into social security into a myriad of mutual funds of their own choosing while they will forcefully argue that the world would collapse if the rest of us did 1/3 of what they've been doing for years.

I wouldn't agree to anything more than a token 1 % experiment in privatization, but I work with these guys everyday, and a more condescending and difficult group I have never had to work with.

For years I went over to a professor's house who was a self professed communist, and a hard-drinking one at that. I had to listen to him complaining that his $ 700,000 account only grew $ 60,000 last year when he wanted $ 100,000 growth, and no, he was not interested in the irony of a communist taking advantage of a program available to only 1 % of the population and complaining it wasn't making him rich enough.

And while I'm ranting, the other problem I've had with professors is the problem that a laser like knowledge of one subject does not assume a similar knowledge of other unrelated subjects, though there's such a level of condescention that I believe some of the people actually think it does.

If you're walking down the hall of the fine arts faculty and have a question about payroll taxes or health insurance, look for a janitor to ask. He probably has a part-time business on the side and has faced such issues. He is much more likely to have a clue than the composition professor who looks down at the custodian, and me in such disdain.

I taught college myself, but if you're asking about liberal elite, I could show you the textbook definition by introducing you to one certain professor of voice who doesn't know the difference between a municipal bond and a muddy bandaid, but with one condescending smile over her glasses would end the discussion in a second.

Sorry for the rant, but there's probably no one who's still reading by now anyway.

Therefore, the "Liberal Elite" are the most skillfull and generous members of society.

As Roger Bybee said in his article on DU Kansas Conviction and the Future of the Dems on March 11, 2005


(excerpt)

"Despite polling data showing majority support for progressive economic policies such as universal health care, American politics have been re-worked, in the conventional wisdom, into a split between an all-powerful, snobbish urban liberal elite and a humble, pious, and hard-working suburban and rural set of "producers," thereby shifting the public debate from the nation's economic and social polarization. Frank thoroughly and wittily demolishes the shoddy and superficial analysis of pundits like David Brooks, arguing: "The red-state/blue-state divide ... helped conservatives perform one of their dearest rhetorical maneuvers, which we will call the latte libel: the suggestion that liberals are identifiable by their tastes and consumer preferences, and that these tastes and preference reveal the essential arrogance and foreignness of liberalism."

freepers in order to hide their own elite backers. Slice & dice and keep your followers ignorant of the true facts and hateful of their neighbour.

I guess Liberals are an elite when it comes to information or something...

The fact is that tax laws and the bankruptcy of the government are all at the behest of the rich elites in the USA who want to destroy the nanny state and force that model of Corporations paying for not externalities and having a monopoly over the powers of the markets (no public goods like health care should be delivered using markets - all the important human information and laws have to be delivered by really slow things like religion). But if they don't talk about it at all - and if they start their TV shows with the 'assumption' that Liberals are the elite... well then we are supposed to reframe. Because we are supposed to be stupid.

Bush represent Oil Elites. Monied, military & corporate elites. They are the colonial elites who want to pick off the wealth and the might of the USA while giving nothing in return to the people. If freepers knew about that they might see how they were being tribalised (common method of control for colonial empires) and used.

Boogeyman! Liberal Elites!! George Bush is a real guy just like you.

The supposed jewish media owners, jewish hollywood heads, jewish bankers, communist proffessors, labor agitators, and wacky liberals who run the country and hold the right wing and christians down. It is the beast the republicans claim they are trying to slay.

Obviously its all in deeper propaganda speak now and they have expanded anti-communism and anti-semitism into anti-liberalism, anti-media, and anti-entertainment. This allows them to pretend to be conservative liberals in elections.

lowlife fascist!

The first is a compliment, the second an insult--so he just admitted we're the pinnacle of humanity!

(yeah, i know they've framed elite to be bad and dumb to be good.)

If it is no meaning is lost or gained in the compounding of the two words.

Typically these types of things are used so that the stupid people can easily dismiss the opinions of people who are smarter then themselves. It's a response to many at higher levels of learning being liberal.

Does that make me liberal elite?

You are a pinko enemy of freedom and wish to terrorize the nation with your communist brain poisen.

wouldn't you have thought that Cheney or someone would have taught him how to pronounce nuclear.

I keep expecting him to say it right, and he still doesn't.

Its part of the folksy act that turns Bush's disadvantages into advantages.

They love to dress up and play "regular guy". The fact of the matter is, most liberals ARE regular guys who are not ashamed of the fact that their lives are not 100% dominated by superstitious bullshit.

The true elite are in the Corporate branch of the American government, ie, the Republican Party.

...labels anyone on the left that's against the Iraq 'war' or the 'third way' in general.

Both Al From and Will Marshall have used this term...so don't believe for a second that it's just being used by the Right to smear liberals and progressives.

Now kindly bring us some tea in the drawing room.