The Mission Has Failed. Bring Them Home.
I used to be in favor of education. It enabled individuals to do more and greater things and ennobled society by virtue of their contributions. But that was before Columbine’s Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, before Virginia Tech’s Cho Seung-hui, and before various similar incidents without body counts high enough to warrant national media attention. With all the school violence these days, the spread of education has simply become too costly a pursuit not just in terms of raw dollars but, more importantly, in terms of young American lives.
This is not the fault of the students, of course. Most of them are in school not by choice but because they don’t know what else to do with their lives, or because it’s expected of them, or simply because they aren’t intelligent or able enough to succeed in the real world. We cannot blame the students.
And the teachers are equally pitiable. They are, on the whole, a conglomerate of wholly unskilled people. If they possessed even a thimble’s full of ability in their chosen field they’d be out there making a prosperous living practicing their craft instead of merely preaching it. As the saying goes, “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.” But don’t misunderstand. I support the teachers, I just don’t support the spread of education.
Despite my opposition, however, I am a realist. We cannot simply declare an end to education and expect society to adjust in a day’s time. Children who were previously supervised by teachers seven hours a day would suddenly be alone. Parents would abandon their jobs to watch their children. Businesses would fail. The economy would suffer.
No, we cannot throw the switch without expecting disastrous results. That is why I recommend a phased withdrawal from schools and universities across the country. On a date to be set forth by Congress, we will begin with those students who are self sufficient, eventually working our way down to the pre-school level. In just a few short months we will have brought home all of the students and put an end to this dangerous and humiliating failure called “education” that has cost us so very dearly.
When To Shut Up
The truth about the truth.
I am beginning to tire of hearing reporters blame something as vile as treason on something as noble as truth. They insist on reporting sensitive information that invariably proves harmful to America’s fight against terrorism and then justify doing so on the basis of accuracy.
First of all, reporters should always tell us the truth. Doing so isn’t cutting edge; it’s not some commendable above-and-beyond style of reporting. In fact, it ought to be the status quo. But regardless, the issue at hand isn’t one of veracity anyway, it’s one of discretion.
While we’re all very impressed by the lengths to which reporters will go in order not to lie to us, simply reporting “truth” fails to take into account such factors as sensitivity and potential fallout. Wars are won or lost on such things as secrecy so, given the press’s ravenous appetite for publicizing U.S. wartime secrets, it will be very difficult to successfully prosecute this war. At best, the media are an albatross necklace; at worst, a coalition of treason.
The essence of the problem is a lack of discretion (intentional or otherwise). The major media outlets are making no distinction between truth and disclosure as they barter government secrets for higher ratings and increased circulation. Simply because something is true does not mean it should be public information.
Reporting without discretion used to be confined to the tabloids, but with the media’s growing antipathy for the President, that is no longer the case. It’s time reporters started acting like adults and quit risking American lives for the sake of their personal political agendas. Much of this sensitive information is benign in secrecy but dangerous when made public, yet the “reporting” continues. Make no mistake — their irresponsible words are fueling anti-Americanism both at home and abroad, though I strongly suspect this has been their intent from the beginning.
Excellence in Broadcasting
This is a clip from the Rush Limbaugh Show from November 7, 2005. I’m posting it here for two reasons:
- The caller makes an excellent point.
- I am the caller.
Please bear in mind that the terms “excellent question” and “excellent point” are both used by Rush to describe my call. I mention this because I would never toot my own horn. At least not when I can have the most popular talk radio host in the world toot it for me.
Now granted, I am picking on Chuck Schumer here–an activity not unlike shooting dead fish in an empty barrel–but it is my first call to Rush’s show so I thought I’d start out with something easy to calm my nerves. Chuck, for the two of you who don’t yet know, is not the brightest star in the DNC’s dimly lit sky, but the inexplicable desire to have his idiocy nationally broadcast consistently makes him a fun target if not an easy one.