Ignorant by Design

George Korda has an article where he discusses the basic historical knowledge of American students, offering some data on middle school students to college seniors.  The results are terrible.  Here is an excerpt:

In 2000, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni found that seniors from America’s colleges and universities were graduating with, "alarming ignorance of their heritage and a profound historical illiteracy…four out of five—81%—of seniors recently surveyed from the top 55 colleges and universities in the United States received a grade of D or F on history questions drawn from a basic high school curriculum…Seniors could not identify Valley Forge, words from the Gettysburg Address, or even the basic principles of the U.S. Constitution.

Korda goes on to say that people ignorant of the Constitution, Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence, and such are much less likely to squawk if the principals therein are not observed.

This ignorance is no mistake.  It is intentional.  Most schools are run by governments.  Governments prefer docile and obedient peasants.  It makes exercising power so much easier when the people nod numbly rather than fighting a tyrannical government.  Governments are making moves against homeschoolers because it both threatens a state client - teachers unions - and a state interest - students inculcated with state-supported ideology.  Look at how many young people are in favor of Bernie Sanders, an avowed socialist.  A government-funded school is unlikely to teach students about the immense distrust that the Founders felt toward government.

 

Is this a conspiracy?  No.  This is the invisible hand of the market, much like Adam Smith explained.  Politicians, bureaucrats, and government employees who run and populate the school systems innately know that they should not produce citizens who are inclined to oppose those very politicians, bureaucrats, and government employees.  Instead we have seen a gradual embrace of more and more government control.

 

1913 Income Tax

1935 Social Security

1935 Welfare

1938 Minimum Wage

1946 School Lunch Program

1964 Food Stamp Act

1965 Medicare

1967 State-run Media (Corporation for Public Broadcasting)

2003 Medicare Drug Benefit

2010 National Healthcare (Affordable Care Act)

 

These are only some highlights.  It would require a very long list to mention all the ways government has taken over aspects of life that were once the responsibility of the individual or the family.  The process will not end until the government controls everything.  The uninformed graduates of government schools are all in favor of this, unaware that it contradicts the founding principles of the nation.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

The story opens in 2006 at a party in Kabul with all the Western journalists when an explosion rocks the building and sees them all getting into action to cover the story.  Kim Baker (Tina Fey) is soon in the streets of Kabul and finds herself groped by a passing Afghan.  She rebukes him with a stream of clumsy profanity in Pashto.  And then the movie backs up to 2003 where we find Kim in an office in New York, writing an article about corn starch or something like that.  During a meeting, the news agency is seeking people to cover Afghanistan now that the veteran foreign correspondents have been moved to the Iraqi theater.  Feeling her life is dreary and empty, Kim volunteers.

Though the movie takes place in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2006, little is learned of the war.  This is a movie about Kim.  She likes the risks and is often more concerned with getting a scoop than staying safe.  This gung-ho attitude wins her admirers.  Most scenes are played for comedy but there are stretches of drama and violence.  Several times through the movie, it is intimated that war correspondents are adrenalin junkies who put themselves at risk to get high.  Kim certainly takes some risks.  Is this a movie about an addict who recovers?  Maybe.  It isn't a movie of the Afghan War, the Taliban, or Osama bin Laden.  Beyond learning a smattering of military jargon and a flavor of Afghan culture through the eyes of a Westerner, there isn't anything educational here.

 

Among the supporting cast, only two really merit attention.  Billy Bob Thornton is excellent as the cucumber-cool general.  His best moment was probably when one of his marines blew up a Toyota with an $80,000 rocket.  Martin Freeman plays a Scottish photojournalist and love interest for Kim.  He was the most important character besides Kim.  Like her, he was eager to put his life in danger for the sake of a good story but, unlike her, he accepts that as a normal part of life.

 

Entertaining movie.

The Madness of King Barack

In the wake of the attack in Brussels and despite the repeated claims by ISIS that it is infiltrating Syrian refugees with Jihadist, President Obama has again stated his intent to bring 100,000 refugees to the United States.  He assures us that the refugees will be vetted.  How do you vet these refugees?  Call up the police station in Aleppo and ask if this or that Syrian refugee has a criminal record?  Ask the Assad Regime - which current US Policy demands be overthrown - if we can trust this refugee not to go on a killing spree?  Look how successful all the refugee resettlement has been in Europe.  Why does President Obama want to replicate that here?  Exactly who was he elected to represent: Americans or Syrian Refugees?  Or maybe illegal immigrants?  He's always taking the side of the foreigner and telling us how our 'values' demanded it.  Really?

 

This is yet another reason why Trump is doing so well.  Trump on Muslim refugees: No.  Trump on illegal immigrants: Get out.  Trump on trade deals that benefit foreigners more than they benefit American workers: No.  Does Trump sound Nativist?  Certainly.  It is a reaction to what has been implemented for several years and not to the benefit of the American people.  This government was established by We The People and yet the government seems more concerned with helping They The Foreigners.

 

When the government is indifferent to the people, you have the rise of Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Bernie Sanders.  Each of them has denounced government in one way or another.  Each of them is distrusted or disliked by the establishment politicians in his party.  There is a rebellion brewing and it isn't going to end with this election.

Bernie Revived?

Bernie has managed to win the last 5 contests but still trails by a wide margin in delegates.  He has 1004 while Hillary is well in advance with 1712.  Hillary still needs to win only 33% of the remaining delegates while Bernie needs 67%.  In his recent 5 states sweep, he has secured 76% of the delegates available.  Wow!  If he can keep that up, he could turn the corner.  Factoring out the super delegates, Bernie has 975 to Hillary's 1243.  That is inside the margin where a switch of the super delegates could swing the election to Bernie.  That is highly unlikely but possible.

In a winner-take-all scenario, Hillary is crushing Bernie.  She has won 19 states that represent 1911 delegates while Bernie has won 14 with 752 delegates.  In popular vote, Hillary has 8.9 million to Bernie's 6.4 million.  That's 58% to 42%.  That has narrowed a bit thanks to Bernie's recent surge but can he overcome that by the convention?  To really justify a switch among the super delegates, Bernie needs to cover that gap.  Again, highly unlikely.

 

Hillary is still on a glide path to win the nomination handily but Bernie's strength does make it a more entertaining campaign.  If only he hadn't taken character issues off the table, he might have been more competitive.

The Pansy Generation

It worries me that anyone could react this way to something like this.  If you can't feel safe because someone scribbled Vote Trump in chalk, you are doomed to a life of fear.  With all the Safe Spaces and Political Correctness, too many youths have been coddled to the point of having no ability to deal with even the mildest adversity.

What tone might this story have taken if a number of students had had this same reaction to a chalk sign saying Vote Bernie or Vote Hillary?  There would be much laughing and ridiculing of these students, which is the appropriate response.  They have been 'protected' for so long that they haven't developed the callouses that adulthood requires.  We all want to protect our kids but we also need to remember that they will eventually grow up  and it would be nice if they had some maturity by then.  Otherwise, they might cry at the sight of an innocuous chalk drawing.

Islam cannot be Reformed

This article offers a view that is too often overlooked.  Much as there are people who are culturally Jewish though religiously secular, the same is true of many Muslims.  Those Muslims who take the religion seriously, who follow the actual preaching and teaching of Muhammad, are the ones who kill the infidel and blow themselves to bits.  When a non-Muslim makes that point, it is dismissed as the ravings of a bigot.  It becomes more difficult to dismiss when Ayann Hirsi Ali or Nabeel Qureshi offer the same points.

 

Unlike Christianity or Judaism, Islam is not just a religion.  Judaism was a slave religion as far as the ancient Egyptians were concerned and most of Jewish history is one of being a subjugated, and usually hated, minority.  Christianity spent its founding centuries with a status similar to the Jews.  Each was a self-contained belief system that was separate from governing.  Jesus said "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's."  Here is a separation of church and state from the very beginning.  Islam arose under entirely different circumstances.  Muhammad rose to be the ruler of a burgeoning empire and the religion thus has governmental aspects to it.  Islam has an integrated legal system, Sharia.  Where the West has come to revere the separation of church and state, Islam holds that church and state are inseparable.

 

There is talk of an Islamic Reformation, echoing the tumultuous Christian Reformation.  The Christian Reformation was a rebellion against the massive superstructure that was the Catholic Church.  Jesus said nothing of Popes, Cardinals, Archbishops, and so forth who lived lives of luxury at the expense of believers.  The Fall of Rome had left a power vacuum in the West that, with both positive and negative consequences, the church filled.  Martin Luther attacked this religious construct that had little basis in the teachings of Christ.  There is much to be said on both sides of that argument.  However, the reformists believed they were establishing the religion based more on teachings of the founder, discarding much of the tacked on aspects that had evolved over the centuries.  With that in mind, how could Islam have a Reformation?  Protestants sought to return to the source material.  There are currently Muslims doing exactly that with the Koran and they are called ISIS and al Qaeda.  There can be no Islamic Reformation that both quells the Jihadi impulses and is true to Muhammad.  Like the church and state under Sharia, Jihad and Muhammad are inseparable.

New Delegate Math

I have seen varying counts depending on which site I check but they are all pretty close.  Just for sake of discussion, let's go with this one.

Starting with the Republicans, Trump's commanding lead has become virtually insurmountable.  Baring a miracle, I don't see that Cruz can catch Trump, let alone surpass him.  With 749 delegates, Trump needs 498 more to secure the nomination outright.  That means that he needs 59% of the remaining 848.  That's a tall order.  However, he is almost certainly going to take California and New York, which is half of what he needs.  If he can pull of 42% of the rest, he wins.  I give him excellent odds of doing that and cancelling the idea of a contested convention.  Cruz has 465 delegates and needs another 772.  That's 91% of the remaining, which isn't possible as there are proportional states still to go.  He cannot win the nomination except through a contested convention.  Lastly, there is Kasich with 143 delegates.  There are not enough delegates left for even a miracle.  If he wins another state, I will be surprised.  Kasich can only hope to deny enough delegates to Trump to force the contested convention.  Even if that happens, why would someone who proved so lackluster through the campaign be selected as the nominee?  Consider also, under a winner-take-all system, Trump would have 22 states worth 1012 delegates to Cruz's 10 states and 429 delegates.  Cruz would be viewed as desperate and Kasich (1 state, 66 delegates) as a crackpot.

 

On the Democrat side, Hillary has a lead even more commanding that Trump has among the Republicans.  With 1690 delegates, she needs only 692 (31%) of the remaining delegates to secure the nomination.  By contrast, Bernie needs 1436 (64%) to capture the nomination.  Yes, there is something funky about math.  Both can win.  Let me check the NY Times again.  Clinton has 1690: check.  Bernie has 946: check.  Democratic delegates remaining is 2245.  Add those three numbers together and we get 4881 delegates, 118 more than the 4763 available.  Well, that will teach me to trust the NY Times.  In any case, Hillary can be absolutely crushed by nearly a two to one margin for the rest of the primaries and still win.  At this point, even if she is indicted, she will win the nomination.

 

A Trump v. Clinton election is a virtual certainty.  Trump has a surprising amount of cross-over appeal but is anathema to much of the conservative base of the Republican Party.  Will he be able to attract enough Independents and disaffected Democrats to make up the gap?  Hillary owes her political career to her husband's charm and political skills.  Can that and the loyalty of the Democratic base push her to victory?  I cannot think of two more flawed candidates in my life time.  Would you like bad or bad?  Disaster or catastrophe?