When the debate about whether we need to make available education to our citizens comes up I am often left scratching my head. It is similar to giving someone a loaf of bread and telling them to survive or giving them some seeds to grow a continuing crop of wheat in order to make an endless amount of bread and/or other wheat products. The distinction is clear. Think in the long term. The cost of spending on an education is repaid in the new intellectual vitality added to the society. The cost of not funding education is small but the effect of not doing so becomes a cost far greater in the lack of intellectual innovation. The dumbing down of our country only serves those who see inequality as an advantage. That mindset, sadly, is a mindset that promotes and perpetuates class distinctions between humans. It is archaic and an unenlightened way of thinking that serves the selfish natures of those who would allow it. We must all combat the parts of us that are denied compassion and curiosity. Those parts exist to destroy what good has accomplished. Instead of believing that we are different and only able to attain certain things based on some arbitrary concept, we must come to realize that we are all the same and worthy of fostering an intelligence within every one of us. Education at the highest levels must be open to and affordable for every citizen who can achieve it through study and desire. Having to have this conversation about the efficacy of providing education to our citizens should be a moot subject. However, there is a movement afoot to restrict learning based upon concepts that have their roots in the idea that we are not all equal. I would and will continue to advocate for the principles of our egalitarian society at every opportunity when this principle of equality is under attack.
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