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Every candidate for president has come out in favor of improving American education. But just why is a mystery. It would be much simpler to be president if Americans continued in their blissful, uneducated ways.
Consider how Ronald Reagan continues to enjoy his presidency, just because Americans have failed to master elementary logic.
Last Tuesday, a federal grand jury indicted four men. Among them was Lt. Col. Oliver North, considered a hero in some right-thinking circles because he once took an oath to preserve and defend the U.S. Constitution and then indulged in some extra-constitutional foreign policy.
Essentially, North and the others were charged with stealing $11 million by overcharging the Iranians for arms that the United States wasn't even supposed to be selling to Iran. The ill-gotten proceeds then went to the contras in Nicaragua.
Oliver North says I did not commit any crime.
President Reagan has insisted that no laws were broken,
that these men are not criminals.
But they have been indicted, so they are certainly suspects. In the pre-Reagan days, criminal suspects were entitled to the presumption of innocence.
However, Ed Meese, whom Reagan appointed as attorney
general, is now the chief law enforcement officer of the
United States. And it was Meese who once declared that
If a person is innocent of a crime, then he is not a
suspect.
By Meese's reasoning, then, North is guilty, merely because he has been charged. But by Reagan's statements, North is pure as the driven snow.
Now, if we had all received the solid classical education that conservatives think we should receive, we'd know a great deal about formal logic. Every American would realize that North could not be both innocent, as Reagan insists, and guilty, as Meese presumes.
A rigorous logician would be forced to conclude that either Meese or Reagan doesn't know what he's talking about. The logician might even begin to wonder at the fate of a nation that so enthusiastically re-elected Reagan, who in turn appointed Meese and seems so satisfied with his work.
Fortunately, our inferior educations have spared us such worries. But suppose American education really is made rigorous, and our citizenry becomes learned in logic. What might happen then?
Would we continue an expensive and corrosive all-out
war on drugs,
whose major function appears to be to
raise the price of illegal substances so that their
thuggish importers and dealers make even more money?
Would American transportation policy still favor the automobile with ever more freeways, beltways and highways, even though these cures for traffic jams are at best temporary? Even though the cars consume vast quantities of an irreplaceable resource and convert it into the toxic clouds that blanket many cities?
Would we believe that defense
spending of $280
billion a year -- about $1,160 apiece -- really makes us
prosperous and secure? As secure and prosperous as, say,
the Swiss, who spend about $310 apiece each year to defend
their borders? Whose per capita income is $14,408, compared
to our $13,451?
Can you imagine how different this presidential campaign would be if American education had truly been improved? What potential president could possibly want an educated populace? A population that couldn't be hoodwinked and conned, but would have to be persuaded by cold logic?
Despite all the talk about upgrading American education, it's a safe bet that no matter who gets elected, we will never see any substantive improvements. Presidents want to be leaders, and sheep are easy to lead.
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