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Scott Walkers lack of College Degree.

Is Scott Walkers lack of a degree an issue

  • Yes, I dont take orders from some quitter

    Votes: 13 21.0%
  • No, he has enough real world experience to do the job

    Votes: 43 69.4%
  • Somewhat, I would like to see him finish.

    Votes: 6 9.7%

  • Total voters
    62
  • Poll closed .
Is it an issue for you. I like him, but that is a sticking point.

First of all, he's not getting the nomination. However now that I'm thinking about it, it might be an advantage for the GOP to improve its image of being the party of the elite to the party of regular folks.

To answer the question, it wouldn't matter to me either way.
 
As for me, I've never made the assertion that Bush the Elder paid to have his son accepted at either school. If Bush was accepted as a legacy there would have been no need for him to have had his daddy pay to have him accepted. It's fairly obvious he was accepted as a legacy.

At Harvard, once again Bush's grades and test scores were not at all outstanding, however Bush was accepted. I don't know that his father paid anything for Bush to be accepted into Harvard Business School. It was more likely that the Bush family name and power were more than enough to secure Bush's admission. We can safely assume the Bush was not accepted to Harvard on his own merits.

But then there is a big difference between the family name getting your foot in the door and daddy buying you a diploma. Once Bush was accepted he was on his own. Al Gore did not have terrific grades either. And I don't think anyone would dispute that Gore had his senator daddy's help getting admitted to Harvard.
 
Funny you would mention Howard Dean because it was he that said Walker is not qualified for the Presidency because he didn't get his degree.

Well Howard is entitled to his opinion and I don't agree with him on that.

I am entitled to mine as well and I believe college is not strictly nessecary. I don't hate college nor am I against education, but I have no problem supporting someone who is.a proven success without it.
 
The skill of taking and passing tests doesn't not translate to real life.

A college degree does not in any way mean somebody is smart or capable, if it did, a recent graduate from law school would walk right in to an established firm and get a high paying job.

Does that ever happen or does that person need experience to prove themselves first?

Nope, and the truth is no one cares where your degree came from. Most of the time anyway. If you stand accused of a crime you're going to look for a lawyer with a record of winning cases. If you are looking at two defense attorneys, and one has a degree from Harvard but never one a single jury trial, and the other is a county seat (that means he passed the bar but never graduated law school) lawyer with an 80% win rate who are you going to choose?
 
Nobody will know until after the election but I'll predict that Scott Walker won't be the next president of the USA.

He won't be 2016, but 2020, 2024, 2028 I wouldn't be surprised if he is elected sometime
 
I would never ever ever ever vote for Scott Walker. But, frankly, I could give two hoots about what kind of degrees he does or doesn't have. Not even a factor for me. Politicians can ramble on about their graduation from Harvard and their PhD in underwater basket weaving, but I could care less. You can come out of college dumb as a damn rock. Conversely, you can never step foot on a college campus and still be a well-rounded, well-educated human being.

I agree with you TK. I personally think that perceptions about higher education is allegorical in some respects. I say this because I didn't go to college until my 30s so I had experienced a fair amount of life prior to getting a degree. And prior to attending college I certainly viewed educated people, degreed people with a totally different perspective as to what their being college educated and/or being degreed even meant.

College is an institution which has a primary mission. That mission is to teach a person how to engage in the process of "self-teaching and learning" utilizing appropriate methodologies of acquiring the right information in order to achieve their respective objectives. In other words, colleges are facilitators.

What makes self-teaching/learning process so important is that no matter what course of study one pursued in college, the classes and instructions to any respective discipline of study is simply the foundation of a body of a specific academic information to be used to build on...or use that experience to expand to other disciplines.

The self-teaching/learning process will be repeatedly used through a person's life - not inside the controlled learning environment of an educational institution - but in everyday life.

A lot of people don't actually pursue a career within the academic category in which they get their degrees. Therein lies the importance of the one's ability to engage in the same personal discipline of learning and self-teaching that they had previously exerted in college in order to take on learning a new path or professional endeavor.

And higher intelligence (genius level) isn't the most common attribute one is born with. Some have it, most don't. In so many professions - those who possess higher intelligence and are able to incorporate that with common sense - is indeed a winning combination. Despite thinking to the contrary, the vast majority of people just don't understand intellect...and I'm talking more specifically higher intellect. Not only can they not understand it - they don't usually recognize it for what it is.

Of course the world is full of wanna be intellects and pseudo-intellects pretending to be intellectuals.

Now comes the "Naturals"...

But then there are those who might not have to gotten beyond the 8th grade, but possess a truly genius intellect along with oodles of common sense, creative, etc. They have the natural ability to be self-teach and learning. These are rare people.

And there are a hell of a lot of damn smart people who don't pursue higher formal education. Some get damn well off because they become the plumbers, electricians, mechanics that we pay 75.00 to 125.00 and hour to use to install or fix what the ordinary person can't.

But does all of this genius, higher intellect, common sense abilities make for good leaders?

Even those attributes don't mean that the most intellectual/commonsense/creative persons have the ability to be LEADERS.

The reality is...

Good leaders - very difficult to analyze the combinations of their intellectual abilities, their levels of common sense, even their simultaneously having extraordinary creative skills will ulitmately make for magical concoction that produces some profound excellence in inspiring others to follow and trust their ability to take them where they need to go to achieve their tasks and goals.
 
The USA is the richest, most powerful, nation on this planet.

Who made that happen? :roll:

Business people and the American military. Not lawyer with the Juris Doc degrees as you apparently claim.

Are you REALLY claiming that our politics now overwhelmingly by "educated" lawyers is what made the USA great?
 
I do? Hmmm, odd. I have never shown contempt for biz here before.

It also is reasonable to conclude your opinion is that no one with less than a 4 year college diploma should be allowed to be police, who make life and death decisions, because they aren't educated enough.
 
I agree with you TK. I personally think that perceptions about higher education is allegorical in some respects. I say this because I didn't go to college until my 30s so I had experienced a fair amount of life prior to getting a degree. And prior to attending college I certainly viewed educated people, degreed people with a totally different perspective as to what their being college educated and/or being degreed even meant.

College is an institution which has a primary mission. That mission is to teach a person how to engage in the process of "self-teaching and learning" utilizing appropriate methodologies of acquiring the right information in order to achieve their respective objectives. In other words, colleges are facilitators.

What makes self-teaching/learning process so important is that no matter what course of study one pursued in college, the classes and instructions to any respective discipline of study is simply the foundation of a body of a specific academic information to be used to build on...or use that experience to expand to other disciplines.

The self-teaching/learning process will be repeatedly used through a person's life - not inside the controlled learning environment of an educational institution - but in everyday life.

A lot of people don't actually pursue a career within the academic category in which they get their degrees. Therein lies the importance of the one's ability to engage in the same personal discipline of learning and self-teaching that they had previously exerted in college in order to take on learning a new path or professional endeavor.

And higher intelligence (genius level) isn't the most common attribute one is born with. Some have it, most don't. In so many professions - those who possess higher intelligence and are able to incorporate that with common sense - is indeed a winning combination. Despite thinking to the contrary, the vast majority of people just don't understand intellect...and I'm talking more specifically higher intellect. Not only can they not understand it - they don't usually recognize it for what it is.

Of course the world is full of wanna be intellects and pseudo-intellects pretending to be intellectuals.

Now comes the "Naturals"...

But then there are those who might not have to gotten beyond the 8th grade, but possess a truly genius intellect along with oodles of common sense, creative, etc. They have the natural ability to be self-teach and learning. These are rare people.

And there are a hell of a lot of damn smart people who don't pursue higher formal education. Some get damn well off because they become the plumbers, electricians, mechanics that we pay 75.00 to 125.00 and hour to use to install or fix what the ordinary person can't.

But does all of this genius, higher intellect, common sense abilities make for good leaders?

Even those attributes don't mean that the most intellectual/commonsense/creative persons have the ability to be LEADERS.

The reality is...

Good leaders - very difficult to analyze the combinations of their intellectual abilities, their levels of common sense, even their simultaneously having extraordinary creative skills will ulitmately make for magical concoction that produces some profound excellence in inspiring others to follow and trust their ability to take them where they need to go to achieve their tasks and goals.

From what I've seen, just getting a generic college degree is a matter of 1.) paying tuition, 2.) reciting what profs say and 3.) at least a minimal amount of kiss-ass of the profs. Of itself, many college degrees do not indicate either intelligence or acquired knowledge.

Largely, it depends upon the university and the degree.

In addition, years and years of highly specialized education - is also years and years of learning nothing else. What does a lawyer know of war? Diplomacy? Foreign policy? Economics? Social policy?

The only thing it seems our president learned as a "constitutional specialist" is all the loopholes by which he can get around constitutional restraints. He certainly has not proven himself an expert in military or foreign policy questions.
 
Business people and the American military. Not lawyer with the Juris Doc degrees as you apparently claim.

Are you REALLY claiming that our politics now overwhelmingly by "educated" lawyers is what made the USA great?



I didn't claim any such thing. Reread my post.
 
Far too many people have allowed their education to surpass their intelligence.

Obama, if no one else, has clearly demonstrated this.
 
It also is reasonable to conclude your opinion is that no one with less than a 4 year college diploma should be allowed to be police, who make life and death decisions, because they aren't educated enough.

I would like to see more degreed police officers. Nothing wrong with that.
 
But then there is a big difference between the family name getting your foot in the door and daddy buying you a diploma. Once Bush was accepted he was on his own. Al Gore did not have terrific grades either. And I don't think anyone would dispute that Gore had his senator daddy's help getting admitted to Harvard.

I am not a partisan. Yes, indeed you can find fortunate sons of every stripe having it made easy for them because of their family's wealth and power. I find the practice deplorable and most definitely undemocratic. I won't excuse one because it happened to another. Wrong is wrong. I don't believe for the most part that America or the world is a better place because people didn't have to work as hard due to the fact that they were given favors, exemptions or the like because of their parents social, political and financial status.

In my opinion most elected officials are self serving chicken****s. Few served in the military and you know damned well their children will not. George W skated through life. His father either bailed him out or smoothed the way for damn near everything in W's life. We have no reason to believe that a fortunate son with an arrest record and low SAT scores didn't benefit from his father's wealth and position to enter Yale. Same again for Harvard. Everything else was given to W. including his military commission, his champaign assignment, his lost national guard years and his business "experiences".

Another fortunate son, Al Gore, grew up in a hotel in DC. Imagine having room service until you went away to college! At least Gore actually spent 6 months in-country during Vietnam. I will give him credit for that. He certainly had the power and ability available to him to avoid it.

Having said that I don't support the system that permits either or anyone privileges he or she didn't earn in America.
 
From what I've seen, just getting a generic college degree is a matter of 1.) paying tuition, 2.) reciting what profs say and 3.) at least a minimal amount of kiss-ass of the profs. Of itself, many college degrees do not indicate either intelligence or acquired knowledge.

Largely, it depends upon the university and the degree.

In addition, years and years of highly specialized education - is also years and years of learning nothing else. What does a lawyer know of war? Diplomacy? Foreign policy? Economics? Social policy?

The only thing it seems our president learned as a "constitutional specialist" is all the loopholes by which he can get around constitutional restraints. He certainly has not proven himself an expert in military or foreign policy questions.

I don't necessary disagree with your perspective about education. Some get it. Some don't. Not all who endure the process benefit. But if they miss the most important element, which is learning how to teach oneself...then all is for naught, no matter how smart a person is. Being smart isn't synonymous with success or leadership abilities.

As far as Obama and his academic experiences - both learning as a student, then later teacher - which has somehow manifest into his political behaviors as president. What president hasn't?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not an Obama fan. But I think it would be naive to see Obama engaging in something unique.

Here's the deal, Joko. The shortcomings of the Framers of the Constitution didn't include with the criteria of those who could run for office (with the exception in the judicial branch) - educational requirements and the necessity to have specific background experiences, which would make a person be able to make expert choices and decisions. Or even be capable of sorting out and making the most intelligible decisions based on information offered by experts as to the best course of action.

Our system of government and its election process isn't for ordinary people. People in high office don't get their by accident. There actions aren't for the benefit of the little people.
 
Attacking Scott Walker on the lack of a college degree would just be a dumb move for any political opponent (in my opinion). It comes off as elitist and superficial.
 
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