Slow on the Uptake
We’ve already covered Gohmert’s latest journey into the land of the stupid here. I did have some profound thoughts I could leave in the comments section, but I thought I would offer them here. With a wife that works at NASA, the questions hit a little closer to home than for most. As a teacher, I would have to say that Gohmert’s frequent stupidity do the same.
Anyone familiar with Gohmert’s work is not the least bit surprised by this. He already had the reputation as the dumbest member of Congress before all this happened. In his defense, he seems to have a lot of competition for that title these days. Maybe he felt he needed to up his game. The citizens of Longview must be proud.
When Gohmert bragged about his high SAT score I was reminded of the time I taught in a private school. One of my students proudly announced the reason why we had day and night. It was because the sun was half fire and half rock. When we were on the fire side of the sun it was day. When we were on the rock side it was night. This was an A student.
I immediately went home and asked my wife why we didn’t plan manned exploration of the sun. She said it would be too hot. I corrected her and told her we would simply go at night. Obviously, the second part was a joke at my wife’s expense, but the student was earnest when offering this and she was one of my better students. Thus, proving that academic performance and intelligence are not necessarily the same thing.
I’m obviously doubly sensitive to stupidity as it pertains to space (I didn’t even mention the solar flares). I’ve lived in the shadow of NASA virtually my whole life and it has been a huge part of my adult life for nearly 25 years now. I readily admit I don’t know as much as some people and there are areas of science where I’m a drooling idiot. Yet, I get the idea that admitting as much and allowing yourself to feel ashamed for that lack of knowledge is more than half the battle.
I don’t think it is any coincidence that the folks on the list that might battle Gohmert for his position are virtually all Republicans. Sure, that might just be my bias coming through. I readily admit that. I also can’t help but think this is a feature and not a bug. One of the common markers people look for when they vote is someone they feel comfortable with that they feel like they “could drink a beer with.”
When you follow that thought to its logical conclusion you reach two very disturbing realizations. First, if people elect leaders that reflect their values and intellectual curiosity then the Louie Gohmert’s and Marjorie Taylor Greene’s of the world reflect the majority of people in their home district. Secondly, as one comedian put it, go down to your local bar. Look to your left and to your right. See any leaders there?
I can’t help but think this is how we’ve gotten it wrong all this time. I don’t want someone like me in Washington that I could share a beer with. I want someone better than me. I want someone smarter than me. I want someone wiser than me. I want someone with more courage. I want someone with a stronger moral conviction. That’s what representative government is all about. After all, if people were just as good as me (or worse than me) than why wouldn’t I be there?
My thoughts exactly! I always felt reassured that the President, whether or not I agreed with him, was at least very intelligent and knowledgeable. That faith was shaken when George W was elected, especially since I was an adult by then and also pretty well informed about what was going on. With Obama, back to feeling reassured. And then….well, we all know what happened. I just kept thinking “we could have had Hillary”.
1Yes.
2Amen.
When a little boy inthe class I was teaching some itme ago gave an open comment similar tothe little girl you mentioned, I thanked him and told him he was so lucky God made him good looking. Hopefully he grew up to have some sort of brain activity.
3Oh my gosh! I’ve been railing about this for years! Glad to read that others agree we need something more than good ole whoever down at the icehouse.
4I don’t even want to have a beer with someone less intelligent than I am–not by choice, anyway. I want to talk to someone I can learn something from. My feelings about this carry over to government service. I want the people running the country to be smarter than I am, more knowledgeable in their fields than I am, and more dedicated to public service than I could ever be. Good ol’ boys and con men do not qualify, ever, no matter how attractive they might otherwise be.
5I’m not ashamed of not already knowing everything. When I find out I’m wrong abut something it’s not shameful it thrilling, I get to learn something new, how can learning be bad?
I think that is the difference between liberal and conservatives.
And I absolutely want someone smarter then me as my representative, besides, I don’t drink beer.
6The Gohmert voters and fans who post on the stormfront lite site i read inform me that Louie was being ironic with the Forest Service.
We just didn’t see the slight smile on his face as he was trolling her about the global warming hoax.
SMH
7I would love to have a copy of the President’s Daily Briefing emailed to my inbox every morning. Trump received one, but didn’t bother to read it. I trust President Biden studies his from cover to cover.
Louie? After yesterday’s comments about outer space orbits and such, one wonders what he might have perused recently.
8Gohmert maybe the dumbest dude in congress but if so think how utterly & mindlessly stOOpid his voters have to be!!!!
9“… someone… they feel like they “could drink a beer with.”
…
“… utterly & mindlessly stOOpid his voters have to be!!!!“
The best case scenario intelligence-wise is if some of those Louie voters would only pull the lever for him if they thought he’s buying. But even then, I don’t think we’re cracking the mid point of the bell curve.
10It`s a shame that the Head Warden of the Hospital didn`t lock the front door when they finished their shift six years ago .
11Ah, Louie Gohmert. Most of us quickly realized, somewhere in the first semester of college, that bragging about SAT scores, however high, earned no cheers after high school. What mattered is what you did with the intelligence that your scores may have hinted at. And then, after college, even a Phi Beta Kappa key (which I don’t have) means little once you’re in grad school, or the military, or business…it’s what you do with the grades, with the scores, with the knowledge your degree(s) are supposed to imply, that matters. What you do after, and again, and again, all the way into retirement and beyond.
Louie Gohmert is, in a way, pitiful. He’s got nothing to boast about but SAT scores, and considering his high school, and the fact he doesn’t mention the scores, I suspect he got a score that was high for seniors in his school…and he’s tried to live off that for many, many years. Thin diet of honors, that, and soon exhausted.
A classmate of mine, suspected of great brilliance because he’d skipped two grades and made the Honor Roll…made the highest possible score on his SAT, 1600 points, 800 on both verbal and math. He had plans. They didn’t pan out. It’s not an insult that someone becomes a junior high math teacher in a Texas public school in a moderate sized city…but it’s not what was expected. Not MIT, not CalTech, not a prestigious grad school. Not a professorship at a major university. I don’t know what happened.
Some people consider that I didn’t meet my assigned level, either (in either direction; opinions varied when I was in HS.) I always thought my career-minded cousin should have applied for hte astronaut program instead of staying in the Air Force, but he didn’t. His father thought he should’ve done something else, but he didn’t. He achieved what he wanted, stars on his shoulders. So the problem with Louie isn’t that he railed to prove out his SAT scores, but that he simply stopped growing.
I think a college education (from some colleges and universities at least) is useful and can be used as a tool to hone anyone’s brain. But I also think we could do with a number of Congress members whose background provided practical, concrete knowledge of a less abstracted world. Plumbers who know for sure that water runs downhill along with whatever’s in it. Farmers (some of them) who understand soil and land (I offer as an example James Rebanks whose family has farmed in the Lake District for generations. OK, he’s an odd duck out because after he left school early, he later went back to night school and then Oxford, and has consulted around the world on farming practices…but it’s the dirt under his fingernails, the blisters, the bruises, that add to his book knowledge an understanding of farming–and those who do it, at all levels. One of the things I like about AOC is that she *did* work in a bar. We need more of that…waitresses, janitors, clerks in small-town grocery stores (and I have a story about that), farriers, meat processing plant workers, plumbers, carpenters, roofers, power company and “telecommunications” employees, the ones that keep the systems going in the field.
And now, because I’m a writer with a bad case of Hermione lecturing Harry Potter, I simply have to remind everyone to please, please, remember: PLURALS NEVER TAKE APOSTROPHES. The plural of Gohmert is Gohmerts. Two people named Greene are Greenes. Yes, this is petty, but dammit, using an apostrophe where it doesn’t belong adds to confusion; my point isn’t “gotcha” but clarity.
Getting back to what I want of the men and women at high levels of our government, I choose character over intelligence as long as the intelligence is “above average” and the person demonstrates continual willingness to learn. There is no SAT for character, but that needs to be WAY above average in the old cardinal virtues of classical politics and philosophy: Fortitude, Prudence, Temperance, and Justice. Life is tough: they need both physical and moral courage and strength. Life is tricky: they need to pick their way (and our way, ultimately) through the hazards and not charge off wildly like my red horse…to be thoughtful and careful about their choices. Life riles up the emotions: they need to be able to withstand the storms of emotion that swirl around in politics, not losing control of their behavior because of envy, fear, disgust, dislike, etc. Life poses questions of right & wrong, competing interests: they need to be able to recognize justice and injustice and uphold justice. These character traits do not rise or fall with intelligence. Some with very high intelligence are weak, unreliable, dishonest, easily swayed by threats, greedy. Some with less are solid as bedrock, trustworthy, faithful, etc.
12Good catch on the apostrophes. I’m a writer and English teacher. I’m thoroughly embarrassed but it does remind me of the three week grammar workshop I took. The instructor openly admitted we would only get a smattering of the rules. I’d blame this one on autocorrect but I should have known better.
13Agree 100%
We really don’t want Willy Lohman in a position of power. We want John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, etc.
That doesn’t mean the average American’s opinion doesn’t matter. It does matter. They just shouldn’t be our candidate.
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