Victor Davis Hanson takes on higher education in a devastating critique. His observation about tenure grabbed me because the evils of tenure has been a favorite theme of mine over the years:
Everything that is wrong with higher education is wrong because of the XVI Amendment. Nothing is more wrong than tenure. The very fact that teachers demand lifetime tenure at the public trough speaks volumes in favor of Socialism. It is one thing for teachers to organize unions in a private sector, private school, environment, but it is quite another matter for teachers to promote liberalism or any other political philosophy with tax dollars.
Parenthetically, for all practical purposes making it impossible to fire government employees is tenure. The public is seeing the physical damage, including death, done to individuals by the Veterans Administration because of tenure in bureaucracies. The insidious damage professors do over a longer time period is a million times worse for society as a whole.
On top of tenure in colleges and universities professors return to the academy after a stint in government doing their bit to tear the country down. Many come and go like the four seasons.
When did teachers get the idea they were best qualified to govern? Answer: Im pretty sure it was after Woodrow Wilson that college professors decided to govern because each one truly believes I am smarter than you individually; so I govern you collectively.
The fact is: Everybody who feeds at the public trough thinks they are smarter than everybody else; yet teachers alone managed to convince taxpayers that teachers should govern. The truth is that teachers cannot govern anything except by force; so they teach those who are elected to govern how to tell everybody else how to live.
NOTE: Telling people how to die is probably more accurate. Governments slaughtering their own people, euthanasia, eugenics, infanticide, unbelievable cruelty, and all of the evils the world is now accustomed to marched arm in arm with teachers organizations from the 19th century to today. If you doubt my connection ask yourself why the most bloodthirsty members of the ruling class rely on teachers in every way possible?
Also notice that money is the only difference between the mindset of the very wealthy and the mindset of the very poor. Politically and morally they hold the same views. Each hates the other, and both hate the middle.
The goal of higher education
Teaching students how to think for themselves is not the job of a Socialist education. The goal of contemporary education is to break children to the will of the collective. More precisely, break young minds to the will of the people who control societys institutions; most importantly the institution of government. The goal of higher education is to finish the job started by teachers at the primary level.
An important reason for opposing homeschooling is that public school teachers do not give a rats ass about inner-city kids who fail to do well in school. Part of that failure comes from a natural resistance to being institutionalized. The Department of Education wrote off such kids a long time ago while concentrating on those children who thrive in institutions.
There is an element of spite in the way so many children are abandoned by public education brain-washers. Communist teachers resent giving losers a solid foundation in the three Rs. A firm grasp on the three Rs without absorbing the collective ideology is the most important tool an individual can have throughout life. That tool is also a weapon that can be used against Socialism/Communism; so its only natural for teachers to resent arming their enemies. You might say that public school educators oppose a basic education when it poses a threat to Socialism.
The Great Depression
Those men and woman who fought in WW I are remembered as The Lost Generation. The kids that came along after WW II are The Baby Boom Generation. The creative crowd who created the drug culture called themselves the Beat Generation. There is also something called Generation X, and lets not overlook the yuppies.
My generation, born in FDRs first term, is The Generation That Never Was. We were the first generation of native-born Americans who never inhaled one breath of the freedoms that this countrys Founding Fathers bequeathed to Americans.
During hard times, and with the very best of intentions, our parents and grandparents handed their young over to Communist teachers for indoctrination; still others were sent to the church of Socialism for salvation, and for good measure we were all given to the government for taxation. Indoctrination, salvation, and taxation is what the Great Depression was all about for Americas children. Those three things and nothing more still write the rules for elementary education.
There were fewer Americans born in the nineteen-thirties than at any other time; so that generation never had the numbers necessary to influence domestic policy. New Deal social engineers knew that they had to buy time so they could implement their programs without debate or opposition. At least one generation had to be silenced in order to break the chain of political continuity that protected the Rights of individuals. Those Rights were always strengthened by each succeeding generation whenever it corrected, adjusted, or eliminated any mistakes the preceding generations had made. Social engineers understood that reality and decided to mute my generation at the ballot box.
By the time we were old enough to vote it was too late. Those of my generation who did go into government never spoke out for the rest of us. They went along to get along. Fate, if not the majority of the American people, played into the hands of American Socialists. First and foremost was the Cold War. Socialists made the most of the external threat of nuclear war coming from the Soviet Union to play upon the realistic fears of the American people.
Then there was a massive brainwashing campaign carried out by the most efficient, government-funded and controlled, instruments of propaganda that technology had ever developed; i.e., talking pictures, radio, and TV. That campaign is still in progress.
My generation was simply overwhelmed at the ballot box. Nowadays, a substantial number of Americans in every generational grouping dont bother to vote because they know they cannot stop Socialism from spreading by voting against one liar or the other.
The generations born before us were already believers. In addition, the Great Society was chugging along at an alarming pace by the time the Vietnam War ended; so elderly Americans were assisted by an unlimited number of immigrants and the Baby Boomers voting with them. Both of those groups swallowed the propaganda hook, line, and sinker. The three groups combined swallowed The Generation That Never Was, and down the hatch with us went individual liberties.
Sadly, those who came after WW II never understood what was stolen from them before they were born in return for what the government gave them. The education system took care of that little detail; however, the education system failed with my generation from a collectivist point of view because the propaganda never really succeeded in indoctrinating the majority of The Generation That Never Was. We understood better than anyone else what was being taken from us without our consent precisely because of when we were born. The brainwashing attempts that were first tried on us did not, could not, erase a sense of what this country was before incremental, New Deal, Socialism began succeeding in its long march. I, and millions more, witnessed and understood the transition from then until now without any help from the public education system.
The one thing that my generation knew for sure as we grew older and looked back was that Socialism had been failing until WW II came along and gave social engineers a breathing spell. 1938 was the worst year of the Great Depression and that was after FDR had been in office six years. Were it not for the war that was already being fought in Europe and China, I doubt if FDR would have been elected to a third term in 1940.
American industry began to seriously gear up for war in 1939. That helped FDR and American Socialists look better than they actually were. Communists teaches do not teach children about our Founding Fathers. There is not a chance a Communist teacher will teach students the truth about the Great Depression, nor will any public trough professor admit that FDR Socialists per se never solved any of the problems that led to the Great Depression. Contrary to what they want everyone to believe, putting two chickens in every pot cannot be credited to Socialisms account.
Todays leading Democrats are the legitimate heirs of those New Deal social engineers who had entrenched themselves in government under FDR. Democrats in Congress silenced The Generation That Never Was after WW II had ended and before we came of voting age in order for Socialist programs to take root. By the time The Generation That Never Was came of age the courts were well on their way to joining with legislators in controlling anyone who opposed Socialism/Communism. That control was effectively applied by denying individuals their Right to abstain. (See the quote following my signature.)
Stooges working in the government-controlled media were rewarded handsomely with tax deductible advertising dollars for cooperating with the social engineers; giving the engineers time to beautify Socialisms failure before WW II. They needed time and they bought it at our expense. Had there been more of us Socialism would have failed again.
Now that Beltway elitists are determined to engage in social engineering on a global scale, through the UN, I fear that Armageddon is closer than it was in 1932. Nuclear war notwithstanding, it will be the international Religious Right and the international Religious Left that will insist on fighting the final battle between good and evil as they see it.
Before anyone charges me with crying wolf once too often please consider this: The followers of those religions being practiced outside of the Socialist/Christian sphere of influence will not take kindly to social engineering being imposed upon them by alien religions, i.e. Socialism or Christianity. The international Religious Right is not populated entirely by Christians as is the domestic Religious Right. Those poor misguided souls living abroad will certainly upset our homegrown religious fanatics if they insist on defining economic good and evil according to their own religious and political convictions.
Or, heaven forbid, foreigners may just understand that Socialism is a greater religious evil than is voluntary membership in a Christian church because Islam and Socialism can only thrive in the halls of government; whereas, organized religions based on a Supreme Deity do exceedingly well when they stay out of government. In short: Muslims will not share power with Socialists and vice versa.
Once foreign resistance is clearly defined for whatever reasons, an omnipotent UN will call out the US military and order it to ram Socialism down the throats of recalcitrant strangers.
There was a time when I thought the oncoming train wreck could be postponed indefinitely, or at least delayed until those of us from my generation who are still alive got off the train. Looking at media choices in elections it does not look like The Generation That Never Was will catch a break in our final years.
Follow the money
Socialists do not create wealth; they take credit for it after the fact. The result of media and education industry brainwashing convinced too many Americans that welfare state programs are responsible for this countrys wealth. Parasites did not need much convincing, while productive Americans were convinced they cant have material wealth and individual liberty at the same time. Every Socialist encroachment on freedom of choice, on individual liberties, on property Rights, on all constitutional Rights, is rooted in the misconception that says material wealth and individual liberty are incompatible.
Tax dollar wealth does give financial liberty to the few. Teachers and administrative personnel in many cities and states have pension plans that would turn J.P. Morgan green with envy. Interested watchdog groups should go deeper than a teachers salary and look into pension plans and pension plan rules before concluding that teachers are underpaid which they are not.
Adding insult to financial injury, teachers, who are amongst the biggest beneficiaries of collectivist ideology, say that education is the only way out of poverty. Of course, they have a point since they did so much to destroy individualism and the early American spirit of freedom. Institutional-based knowledge used to be just one way out of poverty. Under Socialisms goal to institutionalize everyone, landing in a soft spot on a government payroll of one kind or another becomes the only way out.
After being educated with tax dollars in various ways government employment is the way the promise of well-paying jobs through education can be kept. Jobs in unnecessary bureaucracies, favorable legislation as with teachers and the medical industry, tax deductible advertising dollars for the media, subsidies and tax breaks for the entertainment industry, etc is the only way the promise can be honored.
Finally, two education industry creatures in today's America, lawyers and accountants, deserve special mention. Lawyers are permitted to complicate the law and accountants are encouraged to continue complicating an already horrendous tax code for the same two reasons:
1. To generate overabundant incomes for themselves which is then laughingly taxed.
2. Stiffen their loyalty to an institutional, collectivist, society.
Everything that is wrong with higher education is wrong because of the XVI Amendment. Nothing is more wrong than tenure. The very fact that teachers demand lifetime tenure at the public trough speaks volumes in favor of Socialism. It is one thing for teachers to organize unions in a private sector, private school, environment, but it is quite another matter for teachers to promote liberalism or any other political philosophy with tax dollars.
Parenthetically, for all practical purposes making it impossible to fire government employees is tenure. The public is seeing the physical damage, including death, done to individuals by the Veterans Administration because of tenure in bureaucracies. The insidious damage professors do over a longer time period is a million times worse for society as a whole.
On top of tenure in colleges and universities professors return to the academy after a stint in government doing their bit to tear the country down. Many come and go like the four seasons.
When did teachers get the idea they were best qualified to govern? Answer: Im pretty sure it was after Woodrow Wilson that college professors decided to govern because each one truly believes I am smarter than you individually; so I govern you collectively.
The fact is: Everybody who feeds at the public trough thinks they are smarter than everybody else; yet teachers alone managed to convince taxpayers that teachers should govern. The truth is that teachers cannot govern anything except by force; so they teach those who are elected to govern how to tell everybody else how to live.
NOTE: Telling people how to die is probably more accurate. Governments slaughtering their own people, euthanasia, eugenics, infanticide, unbelievable cruelty, and all of the evils the world is now accustomed to marched arm in arm with teachers organizations from the 19th century to today. If you doubt my connection ask yourself why the most bloodthirsty members of the ruling class rely on teachers in every way possible?
Also notice that money is the only difference between the mindset of the very wealthy and the mindset of the very poor. Politically and morally they hold the same views. Each hates the other, and both hate the middle.
The goal of higher education
Teaching students how to think for themselves is not the job of a Socialist education. The goal of contemporary education is to break children to the will of the collective. More precisely, break young minds to the will of the people who control societys institutions; most importantly the institution of government. The goal of higher education is to finish the job started by teachers at the primary level.
An important reason for opposing homeschooling is that public school teachers do not give a rats ass about inner-city kids who fail to do well in school. Part of that failure comes from a natural resistance to being institutionalized. The Department of Education wrote off such kids a long time ago while concentrating on those children who thrive in institutions.
There is an element of spite in the way so many children are abandoned by public education brain-washers. Communist teachers resent giving losers a solid foundation in the three Rs. A firm grasp on the three Rs without absorbing the collective ideology is the most important tool an individual can have throughout life. That tool is also a weapon that can be used against Socialism/Communism; so its only natural for teachers to resent arming their enemies. You might say that public school educators oppose a basic education when it poses a threat to Socialism.
The Great Depression
Those men and woman who fought in WW I are remembered as The Lost Generation. The kids that came along after WW II are The Baby Boom Generation. The creative crowd who created the drug culture called themselves the Beat Generation. There is also something called Generation X, and lets not overlook the yuppies.
My generation, born in FDRs first term, is The Generation That Never Was. We were the first generation of native-born Americans who never inhaled one breath of the freedoms that this countrys Founding Fathers bequeathed to Americans.
During hard times, and with the very best of intentions, our parents and grandparents handed their young over to Communist teachers for indoctrination; still others were sent to the church of Socialism for salvation, and for good measure we were all given to the government for taxation. Indoctrination, salvation, and taxation is what the Great Depression was all about for Americas children. Those three things and nothing more still write the rules for elementary education.
There were fewer Americans born in the nineteen-thirties than at any other time; so that generation never had the numbers necessary to influence domestic policy. New Deal social engineers knew that they had to buy time so they could implement their programs without debate or opposition. At least one generation had to be silenced in order to break the chain of political continuity that protected the Rights of individuals. Those Rights were always strengthened by each succeeding generation whenever it corrected, adjusted, or eliminated any mistakes the preceding generations had made. Social engineers understood that reality and decided to mute my generation at the ballot box.
By the time we were old enough to vote it was too late. Those of my generation who did go into government never spoke out for the rest of us. They went along to get along. Fate, if not the majority of the American people, played into the hands of American Socialists. First and foremost was the Cold War. Socialists made the most of the external threat of nuclear war coming from the Soviet Union to play upon the realistic fears of the American people.
Then there was a massive brainwashing campaign carried out by the most efficient, government-funded and controlled, instruments of propaganda that technology had ever developed; i.e., talking pictures, radio, and TV. That campaign is still in progress.
My generation was simply overwhelmed at the ballot box. Nowadays, a substantial number of Americans in every generational grouping dont bother to vote because they know they cannot stop Socialism from spreading by voting against one liar or the other.
The generations born before us were already believers. In addition, the Great Society was chugging along at an alarming pace by the time the Vietnam War ended; so elderly Americans were assisted by an unlimited number of immigrants and the Baby Boomers voting with them. Both of those groups swallowed the propaganda hook, line, and sinker. The three groups combined swallowed The Generation That Never Was, and down the hatch with us went individual liberties.
Sadly, those who came after WW II never understood what was stolen from them before they were born in return for what the government gave them. The education system took care of that little detail; however, the education system failed with my generation from a collectivist point of view because the propaganda never really succeeded in indoctrinating the majority of The Generation That Never Was. We understood better than anyone else what was being taken from us without our consent precisely because of when we were born. The brainwashing attempts that were first tried on us did not, could not, erase a sense of what this country was before incremental, New Deal, Socialism began succeeding in its long march. I, and millions more, witnessed and understood the transition from then until now without any help from the public education system.
The one thing that my generation knew for sure as we grew older and looked back was that Socialism had been failing until WW II came along and gave social engineers a breathing spell. 1938 was the worst year of the Great Depression and that was after FDR had been in office six years. Were it not for the war that was already being fought in Europe and China, I doubt if FDR would have been elected to a third term in 1940.
American industry began to seriously gear up for war in 1939. That helped FDR and American Socialists look better than they actually were. Communists teaches do not teach children about our Founding Fathers. There is not a chance a Communist teacher will teach students the truth about the Great Depression, nor will any public trough professor admit that FDR Socialists per se never solved any of the problems that led to the Great Depression. Contrary to what they want everyone to believe, putting two chickens in every pot cannot be credited to Socialisms account.
Todays leading Democrats are the legitimate heirs of those New Deal social engineers who had entrenched themselves in government under FDR. Democrats in Congress silenced The Generation That Never Was after WW II had ended and before we came of voting age in order for Socialist programs to take root. By the time The Generation That Never Was came of age the courts were well on their way to joining with legislators in controlling anyone who opposed Socialism/Communism. That control was effectively applied by denying individuals their Right to abstain. (See the quote following my signature.)
Stooges working in the government-controlled media were rewarded handsomely with tax deductible advertising dollars for cooperating with the social engineers; giving the engineers time to beautify Socialisms failure before WW II. They needed time and they bought it at our expense. Had there been more of us Socialism would have failed again.
Now that Beltway elitists are determined to engage in social engineering on a global scale, through the UN, I fear that Armageddon is closer than it was in 1932. Nuclear war notwithstanding, it will be the international Religious Right and the international Religious Left that will insist on fighting the final battle between good and evil as they see it.
Before anyone charges me with crying wolf once too often please consider this: The followers of those religions being practiced outside of the Socialist/Christian sphere of influence will not take kindly to social engineering being imposed upon them by alien religions, i.e. Socialism or Christianity. The international Religious Right is not populated entirely by Christians as is the domestic Religious Right. Those poor misguided souls living abroad will certainly upset our homegrown religious fanatics if they insist on defining economic good and evil according to their own religious and political convictions.
Or, heaven forbid, foreigners may just understand that Socialism is a greater religious evil than is voluntary membership in a Christian church because Islam and Socialism can only thrive in the halls of government; whereas, organized religions based on a Supreme Deity do exceedingly well when they stay out of government. In short: Muslims will not share power with Socialists and vice versa.
Once foreign resistance is clearly defined for whatever reasons, an omnipotent UN will call out the US military and order it to ram Socialism down the throats of recalcitrant strangers.
There was a time when I thought the oncoming train wreck could be postponed indefinitely, or at least delayed until those of us from my generation who are still alive got off the train. Looking at media choices in elections it does not look like The Generation That Never Was will catch a break in our final years.
Follow the money
Socialists do not create wealth; they take credit for it after the fact. The result of media and education industry brainwashing convinced too many Americans that welfare state programs are responsible for this countrys wealth. Parasites did not need much convincing, while productive Americans were convinced they cant have material wealth and individual liberty at the same time. Every Socialist encroachment on freedom of choice, on individual liberties, on property Rights, on all constitutional Rights, is rooted in the misconception that says material wealth and individual liberty are incompatible.
Tax dollar wealth does give financial liberty to the few. Teachers and administrative personnel in many cities and states have pension plans that would turn J.P. Morgan green with envy. Interested watchdog groups should go deeper than a teachers salary and look into pension plans and pension plan rules before concluding that teachers are underpaid which they are not.
Adding insult to financial injury, teachers, who are amongst the biggest beneficiaries of collectivist ideology, say that education is the only way out of poverty. Of course, they have a point since they did so much to destroy individualism and the early American spirit of freedom. Institutional-based knowledge used to be just one way out of poverty. Under Socialisms goal to institutionalize everyone, landing in a soft spot on a government payroll of one kind or another becomes the only way out.
After being educated with tax dollars in various ways government employment is the way the promise of well-paying jobs through education can be kept. Jobs in unnecessary bureaucracies, favorable legislation as with teachers and the medical industry, tax deductible advertising dollars for the media, subsidies and tax breaks for the entertainment industry, etc is the only way the promise can be honored.
Finally, two education industry creatures in today's America, lawyers and accountants, deserve special mention. Lawyers are permitted to complicate the law and accountants are encouraged to continue complicating an already horrendous tax code for the same two reasons:
1. To generate overabundant incomes for themselves which is then laughingly taxed.
2. Stiffen their loyalty to an institutional, collectivist, society.
