What I find interesting is that people who are involved in a technical area, and who surely realize that the opinion of the man on the street is pretty worthless in making decisions about things the techies spend years studying, will ignore that insight when spouting off on issues like foreign policy or geo-political strategy.

In a sports fan it is a pretty harmless affectation. For the price of a ticket ( or time-spent viewing a Budweiser commercial ) you are entitled to espouse your wisdom on sport-talk radio about how Bill Belichick is an idiot and you know so much more about football than he does ( there were a lot of experts here in Cleveland <s> )

But people who get their news from Dan Rather and their "inside scoop" from Michael Moore and who never heard of Islam, sarin, Halabja, Al-Queda, the Taliban or for that matter Afghanistan before 9-11 are suddenly qualified to know the 'facts' about a very very complex national security issue. ( I'm even a little bothered they get to vote <g>)



>>>> don't know what I was thinking today!
>>>
>>>You're welcome. After spending so much time banging your head against the wall with Charles, I'd imagine coding gets difficult.
>>>
>>>I'm writing-in Charles Hankey for President!
>>
>>Hey, she's on our team - no head banging necessary. She'd definitely be on my NSC.
>
>Didn't mean to imply otherwise. You both have been making reasoned arguments actually backed-up with facts -- which is refreshing from either side. I was only referring to the frustration of debating against slogans and ignorance.
>
>Maybe because it's became a career rather than a hobby, but I have little patience for political discussions with the ill-informed. Most people know a lot about at least some topic and understand that the general public's knowledge and perception of that topic is usually shallow and off-base -- the perception purposely and carefully shaped by those with an agenda. A little humility should lead anyone to conclude that their understanding of other issues is very likely to be as shallow and mis-directed. Maybe because I'm one of the ones with an agenda trying to manipulate ... uh, I mean, shape public opinion, I'm more aware of this than most.