At a Christmas gathering the other night, I was chatting with a friend who works in the corporate world and the conversation turned toward education. This man grew up on a farm and left the farm, went to college, got a degree and now has a successful corporate career. His dad is a successful retired farmer with no college education, so he has seen both sides.

He was lamenting the fact that it was going to be very difficult to finance his kid’s college education, but he was committed to doing it. I commented that maybe they should consider an alternative to college and he was somewhat incredulous at my suggestion. He is convinced that without that prized piece of parchment, their opportunities for employment would be seriously curtailed.

That is probably true if you are looking at a corporate job, since a BA is the new High School Diploma. Without it, you probably won’t even be considered in many companies. However, more and more people are questioning the value of a BA, and whether it is worth having a five or even six figure mortgage for the privilege of having that sheepskin to nail to the wall. Moreover, many other companies are beginning to understand that it is a person’s qualifications, measured by performance and results, that really matter.

Almost everyone I’m acquainted with believes that you must have a degree to be successful. That belief, like every other prevarication disseminated by the Hegelian Aristocracy, must be rejected.

The Education Establishment is pricing itself out of the market. (Even though those who don’t believe in the market are subject to its laws) The tipping point is already here. This Education Cabal consists of government, unions and those on the receiving end, namely teachers, professors and administrators. The latter are almost always given a pass and rarely held to account for the systemic disease that is rampant in education. But who is paying the union dues and accepting tenure? Taxpayers who vote to uphold and expand the status quo are also culpable since they control the purse strings.

The good news is it is likely we will see the demise of this system, hopefully soon. The bad news is the “publicans” and the democrats will both continue to prop up this moribund camarilla until even they realize it is unsustainable.

This is a great article by Gary North on the subject.

As expected, my last post generated a fair amount of feedback, most of it negative.

What was not expected, however, was the fact that those who took me to task missed my point entirely. The post was taken as an attack on the members of the military and it clearly was not. My main point was to question the obsequious admiration toward the members of the military that is seemingly typical of the Evangelical Right, who claim to follow the Prince of Peace. My goal was to determine the reason for it.

Not one person attempted to refute the points in the post. I believe that is because they cannot. What was called into question were my motives and my loyalty to the “team”, to use their analogy.  I was told I should support the troops because they are just following orders. I was called a complainer. I was told that I didn’t have the right to spout my political “theory” since I hadn’t “served”.

If “serving” in the military is a qualification to be involved in political discourse, then the other 99 percent of the citizenry should best keep their mouth shut then! Of course that is a ridiculous statement that was apparently the result of a knee-jerk reaction, and I’m fairly confident that person, upon further consideration, would retract that statement.

The reaction to the post really proved the point of it. Nationalistic jingoism trumps the truth. Evidently some people don’t want to know the truth. I was told point blank they “did not want to hear it”. Apparently it interferes with their sense of patriotism that was instilled in them. Believe me, I get it. I am still prone to it. We all want to be on the winning team!

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” ~ John Adams

But this isn’t about winners and losers. It’s about pointing out the motivations that drive the U.S. led military machine toward more and more war. Here’s your first clue. It has nothing to do with national defense. Natural resources (read oil), hegemony and profit are the pretexts that induce the powerful elite to engage in their bellicose pursuits.

There must come a time when those that are volunteering to fight the politician’s wars have some level of culpability. If conscription was in force, then of course it would be more difficult to hold them to account, but it is not. No one goes into the military without at least a cursory understanding of what they’re getting themselves into. And I reiterate, it is a voluntary arrangement. Mindless platitudes about “service” and sacrifice only accomplish to absolve the military members of any responsibility.

As I am not as articulate as some and don’t have the time or the energy to devote to fully fleshing this subject out, I will link to an article by Joachim Hagopian, who has. Very well I might add. Hagopian is a West Point graduate and former US Army officer. Having “served”, he, according to some at least, has a legitimate platform on which to expatiate on the subject of political “theory”.