Sunday, February 26, 2012

There is no greater threat

Rick Santorum has been making some troubling statements these past few months. Every position he takes on critical issues is straight out of a comic book, and worse, his positions challenge the founding principles of American democracy. He and his ilk are a real threat to what I value most about being an American. He most recent statements lead me to think he is the single biggest internal threat to the American way of life. He wants to dumb down America while imposing his sect’s view of a Christian moral jihad. I do not understand who listens to Santorum, let alone how he is still in the fight for the Republican nomination for president. His positions are crazy and represent a slice of America that is out of touch with the rest of America and the world.

He thinks higher education is secular Indoctrination.

“I understand why Barack Obama wants to send every kid to college, because of their indoctrination mills, absolutely," he said. "The indoctrination that is going on at the university level is a harm to our country.”

Higher education is the only way we can remain competitive in the global economy. I’ve spent a lot of time in China. I’ve hired professionals there for various technical positions. I interviewed dozens of highly educated people, but that is not the real story. For one open position that required a freshly minted graduate degree, we had 17,000 qualified people apply; All applicants lived in the surrounding city. If I ran the same job search in America, the results would be less than 1,000 applicants, with maybe 75 qualified applicants. 6.6 million people will graduate from college this year in China alone (1.5 million in America). Add in India, Russia, the developing economies of South America, Asia, and Eastern Europe and well… we are in trouble.  30% of Americans have a Bachelor’s degree. 8% of Americans have a graduate degree. Just 3% of Americans have a Doctorate. 30% is not enough, nor is 8%. We face competition on a scale the fundie America cannot understand. Frankly, Rick Santorum is leading the charge toward failure.

America’s children need the right education in order to succeed. More importantly, for them to excel lead America into the future, more children need to go to collage. Looking backward is not an option. Pushing children toward the trades, or condemning them to ignorance, is not a viable strategy. Do not give Santorum a chance to become president. It sends the wrong message.

1 comment:

Pet (petpisces) said...

All of the republican nominees scare the shit out of me! I bit my nails when learning poll results UNTIL I saw stats... the stats that they are winning the primaries are not due to all the votes by all the registered republicans in those respective states for the percentage of turnouts are scarce (like some 10-30% of registed republicans). I find that comforting to think that majority of the republican voters JUST might find these guys to be a crock of shit!