Stupid Americans: The New National Security Threat

Move over terrorism, recreational drugs, and sex outside of marriage; it appears that the latest mortal threat to the fundamental national security of the United States of America is our stupid kids, the byproducts of hopelessly incompetent government schools.

A new report sponsored by The Council on Foreign Relations finds that the United States' failing education system is putting the country's national security at risk. The statists are worried sick because K-12 school systems across the country are failing to adequately prepare kids to grow up and protect the U.S.

You see, the folks who oversee education in this country are not the least bit concerned about education as the means for individuals to secure their rights, to benefit their lives, and to make them individually free.

No; the purpose of Johnny’s education in their minds is for Johnny and all his classmates to grow up to be obedient servants of the government. Johnny is but a cog in the wheel, a pawn for the interests of the state, a defacto slave.

"For starters, we don't have nearly enough people who are capable in the STEM fields: science, technology, engineering and math," said former Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, a member of the council's task force that wrote the report, titled "U.S. Education Reform and National Security."

"When we think about the modern world of defense," Spellings explained, "the fact that we don't have people who are capable to do this work is scary."

I guess she means that Johnny and his mates today are almost too stupid to become cannon fodder like their elders who fought in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. They’re too stupid now to “defend” the U.S. in unnecessary wars.

In addition to skills needed to defend ourselves in war, the study found American schools fail to teach students skills needed to avoid conflicts. "We don't have people who know and understand foreign languages and other cultures," said Spelling, pointing out that U.S. children are ranked No. 17 in the world for language skills. "On any given day, there are hundreds of (job) vacancies for people who speak Pashtu and Arabic, and Mandarin and on and on."

Instead of teaching them Pashtu, Arabic, and Mandarin, maybe we should be teaching them how to say “No!” in English to federal, state, and local politicians – you know, the ones who are causing all the problems for us.

The Council on Foreign Relations report was chaired by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former New York City Department of Education Chancellor Joel Klein, both of them dyed in the wool statists.

It states that America's educational failures pose five distinct threats to national security: 1) Threats to economic growth and competitiveness; 2) U.S. physical safety; 3) Intellectual property; 4) U.S. global awareness; and 5) U.S. unity and cohesion.

"A massively undereducated country is not going to be competitive. It's not going to be cohesive," said Klein. "This sense that your kids lives won't be better than your lives; that, to me will erode America's confidence. That will make us more divided."

He actually thinks that America’s confidence is at stake – that a collective can have confidence rather than individuals – a common deception in conscious thinking. It’s the nation that’s important, not the individuals, in their deluded minds.

"Disadvantaged kids are the most impacted. But even at the high end, we are sort of fat, dumb and happy," Spellings said. "Some new data out suggests that even in Beverly Hills and Princeton and Scarsdale, any affluent community you can think of, those kids don't perform very well compared to their peers around the world, either."

So, our kids are 17^th among 195 or so nations on the planet and these statists are worried about national security.  What to do? What to do?

My solution is simple. I’ve said it many times before: Education: We Need Wal-Mart. All we really need to do is turn the matter of education over to the private sector entirely where, unlike with government, the people who provide it are responsible for the results. That’s the quickest way possible for American individuals to become #1.

It should come as no surprise, however, that the statists don’t see it that way. They aren’t concerned with individuals, only the collective. They want the bulk of education in America to remain firmly in government hands. Even private schools they want subject to government oversight and control.

Their report recommends these three main concepts:

1). Expanding state standards to offer more lessons necessary for safeguarding national security, like science and language. (I thought that George W. Bush tried that with his “No Child Left Behind” boondoggle and it failed miserably.) They’re focusing on the wrong purpose.

2). Provide parents and students school choice. (This sounds good but they’re still talking about choice between government controlled education systems which are always prone to fail because it isn’t focused on individuals.

3). Conduct "national security readiness audits" of all schools and hold them accountable if they’re not meeting standards. (Since when have government controlled education systems EVER been held accountable?) That’s simply not going to happen.

Klein and Spellings are urging Americans, whether they have kids or not, to discuss education issues with their local legislators. "Don't talk about tax abatement. Don't talk about pollution. Talk first and foremost about transforming education," says Klein. "That's the only way I know to make the political processes change."

Don’t talk about what is important to individuals, they stress. Talk about what is important to their collective.

As long as they do that we will remain: stupid Americans.