The Shrine

When electing a President, it seems that one of the main focusses is that he has to be certain on everything, otherwise he is weak. So I have a small number of questions:

1) When electing a President, is it important that he is certain on everything?

2) What do you value more, beliefs or ideas? Beliefs being something that one is certain in, and ideas being just what they are, ideas, thery can evolve or change.

3) In your opinion, is someone who always claims to be certain a very wise man, a foolish man, or a liar?

For me...

1. No. I'd consider that a liability. What I prefer is someone who is not afraid to explain that he may not know the best solution at present, but will do what it takes to find out what that is if it becomes important.

2. Ideas. I am a very strong relativist (as opposed to an absolutist), philosophically. I believe most situations are different, and most require different responses.

After all, only the Sith deal in absolutes. (One of the better quotes from that movie, I thought.)

3. B and C, because of my responses above. I've never seen someone who didn't make mistakes.

As a brief aside, I'd hate to bring up our own past history on this topic, but the juxtaposition did strike me as a bit odd.

Pretty much agree with Mental.

Although I think that your question was pointed towards Bush voters, I'll answer anyway...

1) When electing a President, is it important that he is certain on everything?

Nobody is certain on everything, I mean, the guy shouldn't be "wishy-washy" but it's okay if he says that he's unsure every once in a while. People change their minds too, and this is a good thing if their original course of action was wrong.


2) What do you value more, beliefs or ideas? Beliefs being something that one is certain in, and ideas being just what they are, ideas, thery can evolve or change.

Ideas for me. People can *believe* in something all they want, that doesn't mean that their beliefs will translate into action. Of course, someone simply having "ideas" doesn't mean that they will act on them either, but at least it's one step closer. Bush can say that he has "Christian beliefs" but what the hell does that mean? Is he going to help the poor and practice non-violence like Jesus taught? That's obviously not the case. One of my biggest problems with Kerry was that he *didn't* come forward with many ideas, he basically just tried to keep quiet and hoped that he would win just because he wasn't Bush.

3) In your opinion, is someone who always claims to be certain a very wise man, a foolish man, or a liar?

A foolish man lying so that he seems like a wise man.