Not Stupid

To my liberal friends:

I keep running into this "conservatives (by which they generally mean anyone the speaker thinks is not far left liberal/progressive) are stupid/uneducated" idea.  And, frankly, the constant refrain is making you look bad.

Look, you and I disagree on political philosophy. Fine. We have different priorities on what we consider important. But this "conservatives are stupid/ignorant/uneducated" meme is getting old.

My degree is in physics. I graduated Summa Cum Laude.  I work in "cutting edge" technology (Atomic Force Microscopy, one of the enabling technologies to nanotechnology). I am also a bona-fide "rocket scientist" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacecub) and have presented at space development conferences and seen concepts that I pioneered (commercial, manned, suborbital flight) go from paper to hardware reality.

I am not stupid, or ignorant, or uneducated. I just happen to think that "liberty" trumps "security." That the best social program for the poor is a job. That a strong, vibrant, growing economy benefits everyone, rich and poor alike, that "government stimulus" is only able to put money into the economy that it took out of it in the first place and therefore does not help on any except the shortest of terms and actively harms the economy in the long term, and that the government should actually follow the Constitution, that something that is important enough that it must be done even if the Constitution doesn't allow it, then amend. the. Constitution. to allow it.

And if the schools, that lead to "better educated" folk, have been telling people otherwise, well, so much the worse for the schools.