McNaughton responses to Criticisms of " The Forgotten Man"

Comment By,
   M. Richard Maxson

This is a painting by Jon McNaughton and below is his reasoning for the endeavor. It is a powerful piece so make of it what you will. His explanation is also listed along with his latest project and a short video.

             McNaughton responses to Criticisms of
                          The Forgotten Man

I would like to take a minute to explain some of the points of confusion for those who wish to interpret my picture.

1. Why did I paint this? Like many Americans I feel shock at the direction our country is heading. There is a great polarizing effect taking place in America today. There are many who swoon over Obama's policies of redistribution of wealth. What will the government give me? If you believe this is the proper role of government you will certainly see great CHANGE in your lifetime. I wanted to paint a picture that portrays the plight of the common man. Perhaps the FM is already experiencing this now or will in the future. My hope is that he will "wake up!" now before it is too late.
2. There is no racial meaning or undertone that the FM is not black. This is not a racial painting; it is about the vanishing of the American dream.
3. It is not a partisan painting. I take no favoritism of Republicans or Democrats. Both parties are guilty.
4. The only solution I offer is to take a 180 degree turn and return to the principles of the Constitution, which define a limited government, protect individual and states' rights and make no allowance for any of the baggage we have accumulated over the years in the form of entitlement programs. The only way to cure the cancer is to root it out and endure the painful healing. Perhaps, with God's help, we will survive.
5. Is it disrespectful to have in my painting the President of the United States standing on the Constitution? Is the President without reproach? I am simply one American speaking to another American. The painting symbolically suggests the actions of Barack Obama as well as other presidents. Yes, their actions speak louder than words—as do the brushstrokes in my painting.
6. I have endeavored to keep this information simple and to the point. The information is historical, if it is not familiar to you—Google it.
7. I picked the trashed papers based on the issues that I believe have been the most damaging to America. These issues have been trampled by politicians of both parties for over a century. When will the American people decide to defend the Forgotten Man? Let us raise our voices together and demand the kind of CHANGE that will truly save our way of life.
8. Why did I not mention critical information about some Presidents which defined their presidencies? My only purpose is to identify each President and with simplicity express what they have done to either help or hinder the Forgotten Man. I invite all to search deeper into the history of the painting's message and discover if what I paint is true. Can you truly say our house is in order when our debt is stealing away the future of every man woman and child in America?

www.mcnaughtonart.com

                                                                            

“’I pledge allegiance to the United States of America,
And not to an ideology, which can never stand,
One nation under socialism, divisive,
With no liberty or justice for anyone.’
This November, you will make a choice. Will you choose One Nation Under Socialism?”

 http://youtu.be/qtHQE2zNpwc

Are Most People to Dumb to Vote?

 by M. Richard Maxson

     Constitutionally speaking should everyone be allowed to vote? Is this what the founding fathers visualized? It wasn't like this at the beginning of our Republic. Only men who were supposedly intelligent had that privilege. Today the rules are different. The United States touts itself as a Democratic Republic where it's one person, one vote so we must ask ourselves  is democracy wasted on humanity?
      That’s the conclusion of a new study led by Cornell University psychologist David Dunning, which shows that the vast majority of voters are not only too stupid or ignorant to know that they are stupid or ignorant. They are also too stupid or ignorant to tell when the same is true of a candidate. People who aren't talented in a given area tend not to be able to recognize the talents or good ideas of others, from co-workers to politicians. Their political polarization blinds them to good ideas or candidates. As political analyst Thomas Sowell observed in his book,  Vision of the Anointed, "disagree with someone on the Right and he is likely to think you wrong, obtuse, foolish, a dope. Disagree with someone on the Left and he is likely to think you insensitive, selfish, a sell-out, possibly evil."
     This may impede the democratic process, because the assumption is that citizens (the majority of them, at least) can not recognize the best political candidate, or best policy idea, when they see it. A growing body of research has revealed an unfortunate aspect of the human psyche that would seem to prove this notion. Dunning believes people's inability to assess their own knowledge is the cause of many of society's ills.
      It’s almost inevitable whenever any political group loses an election that they blame the stupidity, gullibility and/or lack of moral character on the part of their opponents for the loss. When George W. Bush won reelection in 2004, liberals infamously tried to say that stupid people preferred Bush by a 4-to-1 margin over Kerry.
     He and colleague Justin Kruger, formerly of Cornell and now of New York University, have demonstrated again and again that people are self-delusional when it comes to their own intellectual skills. The research shows that incompetent people are inherently unable to judge the competence of other people, or the quality of those people's ideas. For example, if people lack expertise on tax reform, it is very difficult for them to identify the candidates who are actual experts. They simply lack the mental tools needed to make meaningful judgments. " In the concept of democracy; truly ignorant people may be the worst judges of candidates and ideas, Dunning said, but we all suffer from a degree of blindness stemming from our own personal lack of expertise."
     As a result, no amount of information or facts about political candidates can override the inherent inability of many voters to accurately evaluate them. On top of that, "very smart ideas are going to be hard for people to adopt, because most people don’t have the sophistication to recognize how good an idea or a candidate really is."