Who needs education?

From Larry Doyle at Time Magazine, “The leaders of the GOP not only think we are stupid, they are doing everything possible to keep us that way.

“It’s no wonder President Obama wants every kid to go to college,” Rick Santorum carefully explained to some other Floridians last week. “The indoctrination that occurs in American universities is one of the keys to the left holding and maintaining power in America.” In addition to warning young Americans away from the evil secularism of biochem, Santorum also had a thought on charitable giving to alma maters: “Stop it.”

Anti-intellectualism has long been in the GOP arsenal, going back to the name-calling of the original egghead, Adlai Stevenson II, and continuing to Rick Perry’s spinning his inability to remember all the federal agencies he would eliminate (he did remember Education) by proudly declaring he was not a “debater-in-chief” like some people. But it is no longer enough not to be smart; an ideal voter must be ill-informed as well.”

Last December I wrote a column about the scientific study that claimed democracy requires ignorant people. Since then I found a video segment called Jaywalking from the Jay Leno show that provides the evidence for that claim. Before you read further keep in mind that Mr. Santorum sees a university education as a pernicious act of indoctrination to sustain the power-grabbing liberal left.

In his segment, Mr. Leno goes out on the sidewalk and asks people questions. The answers he gets are priceless. Here a few examples: Q:In what country is the Panama canal? A: I don’t know. Q: Think about it. In what country is the great wall of China. A: I don’t know. Q: If the great wall of China is in China, where is the Panama canal? A: Oh, I get it. It’s in China. Q: Do you belong to AAA. A: No I don’t drink. Q: Who is the current vice president? A: Clinton. Q: What’s his first name? A: Colon. Q: What moving company was named after the ship that brought the pilgrims? A: U Haul. Q: Who sewed the first flag? A: Betty Ford. Q: Who was our first president? A: Ben Franklin. Q:Name one of the ten commandments. A: the freedom of speech. Q:What the first sentence in the Bible. A: A  long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Q: Can you recite the Gettysburg address? A: Four score ago our forefathers who art in Heaven. Q: Who was the first man on the moon? A: Armstrong. Q: what was his first name. A: Louie. Q:What two countries border the United States. A: Australia and Hawaii. Q:Who wrote Handel’s Messiah? A: I don’t know. I don’t read books. Q:What do the initials D.C. after Washington stand for? A: Da Capital. Q: If someone tells you that you are inebriated, what does that mean? A: I’ve been promoted. And finally while pointing at an American flag he asks, how many stars on the flag. The answer: I can’t count them because its moving too much in the breeze.

I wish I could write comedy this funny. But alas, all I can do is mourn the anti-science, anti-intellectual bias being driven by the extreme political right of our national discourse. You don’t get much more extreme right than Mr. Santorum. So he and his compatriots shouldn’t worry too much. Leno’s routine is the proof of the pudding. If you don’t believe that, go back and read that section again.

What can easily get lost in our laughter is that with education, comes economic vitality. The poverty that plagues us begins with underfunded schools and absent parents and continues through generations that become dependent on the government forever. If we want to fix this problem, the answer is in promoting education, not politicizing it. Balancing our budget on the backs of our schools insures poverty forever.

Robert DeFilippis