I disagree. Not that it really matters, but I think idealists are constantly trying to affect some type of perfection. Whether it serves their best interests or not is irrelevant. I don't think ideals are necessarily good, or necessarily bad..or intellectually founded or just plain dumb. Ideals are ideals...they are YOUR idea of perfection..period. Hitler had his, and I have mine, etc. Fanatical is just a way to describe the intensity if with which to try to achieve that perfection (ideal). Pabsts ideals are strange, but not atypical. Believe me their are people in our country who take the opposite side, who openly advocate communism and the destruction of capitalism. I'm not sure which is scarier, their ideals or pabst's. But idealists they are and hopefully they cancel each other out.
The difference is in that true idealists don't resort to violence to force their ideal on others. Hitler, Mao, the early Popes, the Islamic extremists and of course Pabst if he could would force his beliefs and ideals on others implementing violence as the method of compliance. Idealism stays in the mind only...the non idealists use the political process generally coupled with violent methods to force their "ideals" onto others. The true ideal is "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." That has only been seen in a few, like Christ, Buddha, Gandhi, King, etc. They were truly idealists, the rest are not driven by principle but by darker forces that are not about ideals they would like to be exposed to themselves... Thieves don't want to be robbed, murders don't want to be killed, liars don't want to be lied to, despots don't want to be ruled by others...it is a universal principle.
I challenge the whole premise of Republicans driving away intellectuals. What a bunch of bullshit. Professors have been liberals and socialists since 60s. Most professors are liberal or socialist because they are pissed they do not want to work hard enough to make money in the private sector. So why should their peers make the big bucks. Almost every other, non gay, non jewish, tax paying intellectual is a Republican. Unless they are a politician.
This is why kool aid talk radio is such a failure. You people are so angry all the time, you can't even laugh at a joke I poked at your worst enemies, the country club republicans.
It was not a joke, why can't you just be honest about it? At least when I hear Michael Savage screaming like a banshee I know he is at least putting on a good show for the audience... Actually the country club republicans are not nearly as dangerous as the dumbshit sheeple voters who thought Bush was going to look after their interests while the country club republicans made out like bandits... You can figure the dishonesty and corruption of the right wing country clubbers, it is the dumbass stupid people that are the most dangerous, you never know what they will do. They might even vote in Obama...
first while many litigators are well rounded - I am not sure too many attorneys are intellectuals. But, as a lawyer - licensed in two states - I can tell you this, there are a lot of lawyers who are gays, jews or politicians. I have always thought the profession seemed to be split around 50 - 50 based on their clients - plaintiffs and criminals vs prosecutors and defendants. Doctors- do they even have the time or desire to claim they are intellectuals. I dispute the tech execs numbers - no way that is a good number. They despised the plaintiff's lawyers and all the shareholder suits just a few years back. They could not have converted that quickly. If you told me they gave more to dems perhaps they were trying to influence immigration policy. Are these numbers being derived by counting donations - that would not be an accurate representation. It might show dems are more easily purchased. Like Dodd and Frank.
Attorneys are creatures of opportunity, they will be whatever they need to be. High income people continue to favor republicans but in smaller numbers. I think that is more significant than what some poly sci professor thinks. Income is a truer measure of useful intelligence in an information based economy, the market is never wrong. The poly sci jagoffs engage in mental masterbation and resent the hell out of pragmatic conservatives who don't want to pay them to be communists. Conservatism use to be defined as economic mostly, and that had huge appeal. Now the Repubs have some idealogical strains and that has hurt them. Religion is mostly to blame, but so are some issues like immigration. It's too late to secure our border, too many have already crossed, so naturally libs will court them. The good news is that liberals are idealogical, so when they fuck up the economy, there should be one more swing back. After that though demographics and immigration will take over and we will head down the tubes. Banana republic here we come.