So it is on the internet.  Consumers are so locked into a shocking state of dysfunction–obsessed with “convenience” and immediate gratification that they’re “caught in the flow” and do not even question the terrible practices which online companies dictate to them through adhesion contracts, manipulative text and the rigid structure of their websites.  Thousands of Americans are burned every week by online companies who deceive them in a myriad of imaginative ways–perhaps it was by withholding information, or perhaps the company was intentionally unclear about the terms of the transaction.  Maybe that day, the website had “malfunctioning” check boxes.  Maybe the consumer tried to clarify how the transaction would work, but only found obscure instructions or no FAQ that exactly matched their concern.  Whatever the tactic, the company always wins online, and the consumer always loses.

I am extremely scrutinizing about everything I do online.  I rarely purchase anything on the internet.  I no longer pay any bill online and sadly, I’ve even given up eBay because of the questionable practices of its subsidiary PayPal (i.e. holding funds far longer than necessary, payment reversals: “When you receive a payment through the Service you are not protected against a subsequent reversal of the transaction, except as set forth in the Seller Protection Policy set out in the User Agreement,” and a USER AGREEMENT that is currently ten separate documents of tiny-print, legalese on multiple pages).  I will use Orbitz, but with trepidation, as I have seen people incorrectly billed for travel insurance in which they specifically checked that they did NOT want it.  The online marketplace is saturated with land mines ready to blast a hole in your budget, your credit rating and your expectations.

Using skillful cautiousness, developed from countless disputes with online and Earth-bound corporations, I endeavored to redeem a coupon for a Facebook Ad, given to me by my web host.  Sadly, as much as I like Facebook, I was very disappointed to see a successful, multi-billion dollar company resort to the same deceptive practices as any fly-by-night internet operation.

When anyone gets a coupon from the newspaper, the terms are pretty clear and are limited to what can fit on one or both sides of a little piece of paper.  Not so with Facebook.  I happen to already have a page I wanted to advertise, entitled “ETrade Class Action Lawsuit.”  I had never intended to advertise the page, but with the coupon being presented to me I figured I’d at least put it to use.  Now, when you go to the grocery store with a coupon–for lets say a free two-liter bottle of soda–the clerk does not make you leave your credit card information do they?  You give them the coupon and you leave with your bottle of soda.  The end.  Facebook, on the other hand utilizes the first of many one-sided transaction tricks:  Forcing you to invest your time and energy.  It may not seem like a big deal, but many people will complete an unfavorable transaction simply because they put a lot of preliminary effort into it, before they reached the “gotcha” page.  For Facebook Ads, this entails entering all of your information about the page you’re advertising, tags, the countries and languages you want the ad to appear in, which of your friends you want to market through, etc.  It can take anywhere from ten minutes to a half hour depending on how detailed you want to get.  When everything is all ship-shape, you click “continue” and guess what comes up–the credit card information page.  Since I had a coupon, I immediately scanned for a place to plug in my coupon code.  I finally found it at the bottom, in a link that asks if you have a coupon.  When you click on the link, a coupon code input box appears.  I entered my coupon code and expected that I would get a confirmation page telling me my ad is up and running.  That’s not what happened.  The subsequent instructions insisted that I enter all of my credit card information anyway.  If you don’t enter your credit card information, the coupon is essentially useless.  This is one thing that really angers me about internet commerce.  They want to promote, promote, promote on every page.  We endure annoying pop-ups, incessant banner ads and deceptive lures every day, but nearly every promotion is phony, impossible or unrealistic–a dozen hotel stays between now and next Friday gets me 10,000 frequent flyer points?  Really?  I’ll jump right on that.

Why not enter my credit card information?  Why not just “go with the flow?”  I want the ad right?  What could it hurt?  Well, how you are charged for your Facebook Ad is based on the number of clicks your ad receives.  Facebook determines the price-per-click.  Mine was set at sixty-five cents.  I picked twenty-five countries that my ad could show in.  How on Earth am I supposed to know how many people will click on my ad?  Facebook doesn’t even know.  Clearly, if I was going to enter my credit card information, this adhesion contract had to have limits.  One limit is a feature that took a lot of digging to find.  You can set your daily budget.  Yet, I didn’t even know how much the coupon was good for.  I did some more digging and found a page that showed an amount-tendered-thus-far kind of thing, which totaled–$25.  I went back to the other page and set my “daily budget” for $25.  It was all set, but they still weren’t going to get an open-ended credit card of mine for back up.  I went out and got a pre-paid debit card with $5.00 on it.  Still, I’ve seen enough Judge Judy to know that a lot still lies on the back of the consumer to make sure their questions are answered prior to the transaction.  My question was “How do I know WHEN my coupon will end and my credit card will be charged?”  I went to their Help Center, which does not allow you to send in a question that you write yourself.  You can only write a question if it is directly related to a topic they have pre-written.  After spending MORE time and going through several links and several windows, I found this:

This article is for those Americans who think the “free market” solves everything…

Today, I got my Bristol West auto policy renewal.  First of all, let me fine tune this and point out that Bristol West is owned by Farmers Insurance Group.  Not enough corporate layering for you?  Then let me add that Farmers Insurance Group is owned by Zurich Financial Services Group of Zurich, Switzerland.  I believe it’s important to know just how many levels of billion-dollar companies there are in the entity I will be on equal bargaining ground with as I wield my mighty leverage as a consumer in this “free market.”

So when the state of Wisconsin became the second-to-last state (New Hampshire is still the hold-out) to mandate that all motorists carry minimum levels of car insurance, Bristol West, like many other insurers jumped at the chance to hike up their rates.  “Wait a minute,” you say!  If MORE people are buying insurance, then why would rates go UP?  With more people in the insurance pool, rates should go down, right?  Isn’t that the argument Massachusetts Republicans made as they crowded around their Republican governor to get mandatory HEALTH coverage passed in their state?  In 2005, Governor Mitt Romney fortified this movement by repeating the platitude “personal responsibility” when promoting his plan to forcibly insure everyone in his state by making it illegal not to carry your OWN insurance.

You see, it’s about “PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY.”

It’s not about “CORPORATE” responsibility.  It’s about “PERSONAL” responsibility.  However, I have been personally responsible about my auto coverage for decades and after the Wisconsin law, which mandates auto coverage, went into effect in July, I already had the minimum required coverage, except apparently for Medical Payments.  The state wants $10,000 and I had $1,000.  No problem, GEICO only charges $6.30 for $10,000 worth of Medical Payments coverage.  Other insurers I checked were about the same–all under $10.  Not Zurich-Farmers-Bristol West, though.  Apparently $10,000 Medical Payments coverage at my company is $19.00.  So, did my policy increase from $205 in July to $224 for the renewal period?  No.  It increased $51 to $256 with no other explanation given–A 25% increase!  Twenty-five percent!  Well, it’s about “personal responsibility” so I must have done something to deserve a whopping 25% increase in my car insurance premiums.  Let’s see, did I have any accidents during the last coverage period?  No.  Did I have any traffic citations during the last coverage period?  No.  Have I had ANY accidents or traffic citations in the last FIVE years?  No.  In fact, my agent told me at the last coverage renewal period that my premium would go DOWN because when I first signed up with Bristol West a year ago, I had a “lapse in coverage” when I decided to store my truck for awhile and use public transit.  Premiums are higher if you have had a lapse in coverage, but only initially.  At the first renewal, that lapse is gone and that penalty to your premium is eliminated.

Well, if I had no lapse in coverage, no accidents, no traffic citations, Medical Payments coverage is under $10 across the board and now ALL Wisconsin drivers have been forcefully added to the insurance pool, where does this $51, 25% increase in my coverage come from?

The answer is:  Companies like Zurich-Farmers-Bristol West raise rates NOT because of “personal responsibility” or to balance market forces, but because they CAN!  They can because they’re way bigger than any one of us will ever be.  THIS is how the “free market” works.  Because Republicans grovel at the feet of all corporate giants–something commonly done when you’re a free, liberated citizen–they believe corporations are of god-like stature and through them and the magic powers of the “free market,” consumer subjects like you and I will prosper with low, low prices and the highest level of efficiency.  Only the GOVERNMENT takes away your freedoms.

Now, take my auto insurance situation and apply it to something as ingenious as Mandatory Health Care through Private Insurance.  Just two years after the push for “personal responsibility” began in Massachusetts, health insurance premiums went up 7% to 14% and co-payments increased as well.  This is at a time when profits rose 428% at 10 of the nation’s largest insurance companies from 2000 to 2007.

CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY is not even on the radar scope.  According to Republicans, corporations do not need to worry about responsibility because the “free market” cures any abuse and the consumer is always “free” to vote with their dollar and go to another company.  What’s strange about that argument though is that I left GEICO after seven years because my premiums kept going up for no reason, every year, beyond the rate of inflation.  I voted with my dollar and went to Zurich-Farmers-Bristol West where I was certain my power as a consumer would surge again and yield total subservience from the insurance industry.  Apparently, that elixir wore off because a year later, I’m the serf again in this feudal system Republicans call the “free market.”

Well, I’m sure the Zurich-Farmers-Bristol West manor is doubling the number of guards around its fortress as I prepare to lay siege as a consumer and refuse to pay that 25% increase in my premium.  Or, maybe they’re just laughing all the way to the bank at my expense.

So, there we have it–a succinct description of what America stands for–a land, organized in such a way that its powers to govern are determined by the consent of the people, to ensure that their rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness are henceforth preserved.  Perhaps no nation in history has outlined in such a clear, compressed manner exactly what it stands for.

Such was the skill of articulation by great thinkers in the late 18th century.

Today, in the 21st century, it is nearly impossible to identify a clear consensus of exactly what America stands for.   More often than not, the United States is described by what it is NOT:  The United States is NOT a “socialist country.”  The United States is not a “Communist state.”  The United States is not “imperialistic.”   In the minds of many Americans, the United States, rather than being described in political terminology, is described in economic terminology:  The United States is a “capitalist country.”  The United States is a “country with a free market.”  The United States “believes that EVERYONE has the opportunity to go from rags to riches.”  Other people describe America in terms of presence:  “America is the greatest nation on Earth.”  America is about “respecting personal privacy.”  America is a land that cherishes “self-sufficiency.”

The United States seems to be so many things to so many people today, but what about those original notions penned by the nation’s forefathers, as they designed this “great experiment” of democracy in a world of monarchies, colonies, aristocracies, lands ruled by tyrants, chieftains, czars and emperors?

What is America supposed to be?   What do we represent to ourselves and to the outside world?  What values to we espouse?  What tenets do we hold dear?  Upon what foundation do we stand?

One hundred years after the Declaration of Independence was penned, under the rushed threat of an imperial crackdown, Emma Lazarus redefined what America stood for in her poem, The New Colossus:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

In 1883, America was a nurturing mother, a safe harbor to the world’s downtrodden.  The United States was a beacon of hope in murky times–a shelter, a place to start again, a place of reprieve and redemption, a refuge for those desiring to be free of whatever oppressed them in the faraway lands from which they fled in desperation.

One hundred years after Emma Lazarus, the earnestness of America’s egalitarian doctrine, its insistence in being a place of personal renewal and its open-armed embrace of outsiders seems to have dimmed the “imprisoned lightening” of Lazarus’ glowing beacon.   Today, masses of Americans, live “tired” and “poor” under the “storied pomp” of elite financial institutions and an “aristocracy of wealth.”  Redemption and renewal are hampered by credit reports that lock people out of homes, jobs and new beginnings–the “tempest tossed” victims of an economic storm wrought by the “brazen giants” of the corporate and financial realm that has committed “..a long train of abuses and usurpations.”

To look around America today, does it seem self-evident that this land still lays upon a foundation of inalienable rights–”Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness?”  Is every American “free” to obtain things so essential to life and liberty as a house or apartment or job when credit bureaus exist to block their pursuits?  Does “liberty” exist in a nation full of economic bondage, the terrorism of inner city gangs, businesses “too big to fail,” and cameras monitoring every square foot of the country?  Are Americans even afforded “life” with 39.8 million Americans living in poverty or with 20% of Americans below the age of 65 without health coverage? And what about HAPPINESS?  Can an individual worker or small-business owner realistically achieve rags to riches today, even when “riches” are defined as merely “having more than you need to live?”

Perhaps Americans would know what they want in their politicians if they were able to define what America IS.  If we could reach a consensus of what America is supposed to be, then perhaps charged labels like “socialist” and “communist” and “capitalist” could be shelved in the public discourse.  Does it matter if aspects of each are reformulated into this “great experiment” in order to create the society that fulfills our incipient dream as a nation?  Do Americans want to be known only as the nation that “ferrets out terrorists” or “cracks down on immigration” or bails out its richest aristocrats?  Is it a solemn principle of our nation now to only suspend our “free market” philosophy when insatiable financial institutions teeter on failing under the heft of their own greed and hubris?  Is this not the “storied pomp” we were to have left in ancient lands?  Do we, as the People, now subjugate ourselves to a government which contemptuously refuses to derive its power from our consent, but that also rushes to the aid of corporate despots, who would sooner wreck America than reform themselves?  Are we a nation that too cynically views “government by the people for the people” as a quaint anachronism?

Perhaps if America knew what it was, it would know better which candidates could lead us there.  Perhaps if Christian groups, that espouse looking after the tired and poor, aligned themselves with the American ideals spoken in The New Colossus they would not derail presidents and Congresses who are trying to help the tired and the poor because of peripheral issues like abortion and gay marriage.  Perhaps if Americans truly understood what “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” meant, they would not elevate corporate desires over the needs of their fellow citizens.  Maybe, capitalism does not accord entirely with the principles upon which this country’s government is intended to lay.

In this era of economic failure, widespread foreclosure and homelessness, the epidemic vulnerability of the uninsured, KGB-style credit reports, impoverished full-time workers, violence-ravaged neighborhoods, newly-emergent social castes, crushing indebtedness, fiefdom-inspired tax redistribution and a government who derives its power from the tithes of the rich, we FIRST need to redefine what America IS, for this era.   Only then can we begin the work of restoring these “united States of America,” which seem so tattered and disillusioned now.   Only in clearly defining what America stands for, can we set our sights on a course of action that will lead us through the divisive distraction of phony rhetoric, to a society that lives in harmony with its ideals.

Today, on NBC’s The Today Show, Jean Chatzky advised Stephanie from California not to engage in a short sale of a couple properties the caller acquired during better economic times. Instead, Chatzky wants this woman to cut her budget elsewhere, keep making the payments on these properties and to look into taking a loss by just selling the properties for what she can. According to Chatzky, a bank won’t negotiate a short sale if the borrower has been making their payments.

Business is business, right? Well, sometimes in business you acquire merchandise that won’t move on the floor, or your restaurant fails to make a profit on a new, special entree or the cost of your supplies suddenly increases. What do you do? You ADJUST.

Banks, through unprecedented con artistry, just received the largest handout of taxpayer money given to private companies in U.S. history. Part of their con scheme was to lend to individuals based on the potential appreciation of their properties during a suspiciously vigorous housing market. Banks failed to conduct due diligence on these mortgages and instead relied solely on for-profit credit reporting agencies (another industry of con artists) and the borrower’s own “declared income/declared assets” testimony. So is it really ALL of Stephanie’s fault that she is in the predicament she’s in now that the market has collapsed? NO! The bank which extended the mortgages to Stephanie did so using the same judgment Stephanie used–That her properties would appreciate in value, grow in rental revenue and ultimately pay for themselves at some point in the future.

So, after receiving billions of dollars in bailout money and being instructed by the Federal government to “work with borrowers” and spending millions of dollars on disingenuous advertising that SAYS they are indeed “working with their borrowers,” why does Stephanie’s bank and thousands of banks like hers, refuse to work with her on a short sale agreement? Wouldn’t a short sale benefit both parties who stand to lose everything if Stephanie elects foreclosure as a way out?

Isn’t business just business? Isn’t it sometimes the case as a business owner that you are forced to adjust to plans that didn’t work out and go to Plan B during changing economic conditions? Isn’t efficiency and the ability to adapt to adversity in the marketplace a point of boastfulness amongst those who cry out for freer markets?

Why then does Stephanie’s bank refuse to work with her when it can only acknowledge that Stephanie’s situation was the result of something way larger than Stephanie? Shouldn’t Stephanie’s bank take responsibility for lending to Stephanie and not foreseeing a situation when Stephanie’s properties might depreciate or fail to generate adequate revenue to make her mortgage payments? Wasn’t the bank ALSO overreaching in their expectations surrounding Stephanie’s mortgages?

Where is the business logic in this situation? A short sale would pay MOST of the mortgage back to the bank and would put the entire burden of arranging the sale onto Stephanie. This would save the bank foreclosure costs, listing costs, realtor fees and possibly the outcome of an even lower sale price than what a short sale might bring. What idiotic businessperson would turn down an arrangement like that given the current economic crisis CAUSED by the BANKS?

Yet despite Stephanie’s pragmatism and initiative to arrange a short sale, Stephanie is instead supposed to cut her budget (something I’m sure Stephanie would have never thought of doing, on her own, without Jean Chatzky’s ingenious advice) and basically strain, stress and struggle for years on end because her bank is being petulant and rigid about resolving a situation they are partly to blame for.

Because Jean Chatzky failed to do so, I am going to give Stephanie the realistic advice she really should have gotten when she asked The Today Show her question:

Stephanie, market conditions have changed dramatically since you first took out those mortgages. Your bank is living in a state of delusion and greed, brought on by a pathological failure to acknowledge their own complicity in your situation. Therefore, you need to stop making your payments immediately and for several months. I have seen it over and over again that these obdurate lenders will suddenly capitulate the minute they do not receive a payment. Of course they’re relying on the fact that you’ll be too intimidated by the credit rating system to take such a bold action as missing a payment, but this is the only way to make banks sit down and beg. So WHAT if you have late payments on your credit report? You’re facing much graver consequences to your lifestyle than bad credit, right now. You do not need more credit anyway. Also, you will have a much easier time getting a mortgage in the future if you do not have such a heavy credit burden as the one you are currently shouldering. You and all other Americans need to stop caring about your credit scores and start doing what you need to do to right your lives.

My friend just recently tried to work with his mortgage lender to get them to acquiesce to a short sale and they flat out refused him. Finally, in a state of total fatigue, my friend stopped paying and rented out his home on a month-to-month basis. After the very FIRST missed payment, the lender called him (sometimes six times a day) to work out a short sale. He now refuses to talk to them. The short sale he had lined up came and went by the time the bank was willing to do business. He knows, however, that it will take a year for the lender to complete a foreclosure action. Meanwhile, he is renting a beautiful apartment, for himself to live in, at half the monthly cost of his former condo mortgage payment. His renter is thrilled with the place and is fully aware that he only has a month’s notice, at any give time, to move out should the foreclosure kick in.

My friend was able to use the money he saved to pay off all of his credit cards. Is he concerned about his credit rating? A little. But that fear pales in comparison to the state of relief he is now living in. His life is back under his control. He is happy and free of the stress he has now shifted back onto his former lender.

Now, that being said, if your credit score is such a huge concern for you, then understand that it is totally within your rights to coerce the bank, in a short sale agreement, to remove any negative credit reporting concerning this transaction as a condition of the sale. Yes, it is entirely within their power to do that.

Stephanie, you’ve been a a prudent businesswoman, you’ve tried to work with your bank. They are being impractical and seem incapable of adapting to changing market conditions due to their complete inefficiency as a business, so you have to take the lead and stop making your payments on these buildings. The bank WILL approach you after a missed payment or two to arrange a short sale. Make them squirm for a few months after that. You will get your short sale and your life and credit will not be harmed as severely as the toll taken if you followed Jean Chatzky’s advice by continuing to endure years of stress and hardship. Don’t waste any more of your life shouldering a burden that is not entirely yours to shoulder.

Banks were instructed by Obama and by the Federal regulators to work with borrowers like yourself. If they refuse to help clean up the mess they made, then people like you need to make them.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”  –Thomas Jefferson

It is not commonly discussed, because the press is hesitant to alienate its followers through the use of socially-relevant, intelligent journalism, but America has reached a precipice where its collective ignorance is now a serious threat to the very foundation of its government.

In his 1964 work:  Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, which also won him a Pultizer Prize, Richard Hofstadter sought to explain the conditions by which American culture shifted from the classical European tradition of nurturing intellect to the growing modern trend of treating intellectualism with contempt and ridicule.  What he identified as the components of this shift were science, business, religion, utilitarianism and egalitarianism, where they intersect with the deeply-embedded American heritage of European colonialism and evangelical Protestantism.

Early in America’s history, education was a tough sell for the communities of a primarily agrarian economy.  Children were needed as farm hands and thus were not free to spend a large part of the day sitting in a schoolhouse learning and nurturing their intellect.  In fact, it was not until 1918 that all states even required their residents to attend school.  Even with this requirement, only an elementary level education was mandated.  Prior to government educational reforms, schools in the United States–all the way up to the university level–were instituted primarily to train ministers and later to ensure that colonists and eventually U.S. citizens were sufficiently literate to read the Bible.

Historically, in the European system of education, schools were founded by monasteries for the purpose of training monks to transcribe the Bible and other works of classical literature or to ascend the ranks of the Roman Catholic Church.  In China and other countries, education was reserved for aristocratic families and those deemed worthy of ascending in secular bureaucracies.  Unique to America was the evangelical, Protestant notion of learning for the sole purpose of worshipping God.  Classical European education was centered on the idea that the goal of learning should be to develop the ability to “learn for oneself.”  Education was a lifelong pursuit and not something to suffer through until the governmental requirements were met.  Europeans resolved their conflicts between schools and their adversaries very early on.  Aristocrats, burghers, and other local city officials who felt threatened by the monastic schools were kept in check through papal bulls which limited their ability to refuse teaching licenses to qualified individuals.  Full autonomy from censorship and outside control of educational institutions was granted by the papal bull of 1233 (Toulouse) which gave the studium generale (university) and universitas (corporation of students and teachers) protection of their curriculum and freedom to teach everywhere without further examinations.  Henceforth, European education developed a tradition of education that remains resistant to outside political, religious and social pressures.  The European curriculum has held to the traditional concept, modeled on the classics:  Trivium (grammar, logic, rhetoric) and Quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy).  The underlying concept being that if these disciplines were learned first, the individual would have the basic tools to go forward and learn anything else.  In fact “trivium” and “quadrivium” directly translate into “three roads” and “four roads,” respectively, in Latin.

American education, unfortunately, does not enjoy similar protections from outside political, social and religious forces.  As Hofstadter came to understand, American schools are subject to the whims of local politicians, elected school board officials and the citizens who elect them.  Consequently, in religious areas, pressure is put on schools to bend and censor the curriculum to satisfy religious ideologies that may not even comport with proven scientific evidence.  In this respect, the American educational model resembles those of theocratic nations such as Iran and Afghanistan.  When homeschooling in the U.S. is factored in, this religious goal of education becomes even more pronounced.

Hofstadter also noted that it was not democracy per se that contributed to the decline of intellectualism in American society but cultural tensions between urban intellectuals and “village culture” as the agrarian way of life in America became overtaken by the industrial age and expanding cities.  Villagers resented the educational mandates placed on them from an urban government and the encroachment of cities and “immoral” city life in their rural communities. Villagers perceived urban intellectuals as having lives of luxury, whereas village life relied on the practicality, utilitarianism and physical labor to run farms.  Villagers, who were loathe to send their farmhand children to school, imparted their contempt towards the “luxury lifestyle of intellectuals” onto their children.  It is this hostility and sentiment that remains rooted in so many Americans and is so easily exploited by candidates like Sarah Palin who seek to divide Americans along socio-economic lines.  At the same time, Palin has no problem accusing Democrats of inciting a culture war between rich and poor, when the issue of unbalanced taxation is discussed.  Sadly, ignorance blinds these villagers from seeing that despite her status as a “hockey mom” and speaking with a village dialect and worshiping an abstract, one-size-fits-all God, Sarah Palin has little else in common with the villagers she cultivated such a vast following from.

Republicans, who quite transparently place corporate interests over all other aspects of American life, care little for the educational well-being of citizens.  American companies have made great advances in transforming their operations, through automation, into workplaces that can largely succeed by employing trained monkeys, who are simply replaced time and again by those with little or no education.  For the practical and utilitarian sensibilities of “villager” Americans, there seems little reason to educate their children beyond what is required to obtain employment as a trained monkey, at any place of business throughout America.  So long as their family members are employed and receiving a paycheck, villagers see no deficiency in their way of life and thus see more of themselves reflected in anti-intellectual representatives like George W. Bush, Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber, or representatives who vocalize the same evangelical, Protestant ideologies they share.  Intellectuals in America are seen by villagers as critical of America, critical of the village mentality and a threat to their religious belief systems.

What is not understood by the willfully ignorant demographic, residing in pockets throughout the United States, is that being the president, or being a congressman, senator or governor requires a great deal of education.  It simply is not adequate to run a public office having only evangelical, Protestant convictions and quaint cultural similarities with other villagers.  Government office is complicated.  It requires great talent–talent which is rooted in the trivium and quadrivium of classical education.  It is not acceptable to dismiss large-scale social problems with a sarcastic remark and to reduce complex military strategy down to bumper sticker soundbites such as “mission accomplished” or “bomb, bomb, bomb Iran.”  A universally well-educated populace would not permit such juvenile rhetoric from its elected officials.

What America’s slide in intellect has done is create a population of imbecilic parrots who spend little time reading, thinking or seeking to educate themselves so that they can become better custodians of their own democracy in the way that Thomas Jefferson articulated.  The willfully ignorant spend a lot of time talking about how religious the forefathers were and how the forefathers envisioned a “nation under God, ” yet they spend very little time acknowledging how intellectual and educated the forefathers actually were–so much so that they had the wherewithal to Constitutionally separate STATE from RELIGION.  The intellectualism of the forefathers can be seen in the very architecture and design of the nation’s capital city, in their numerous writings, in their private estates and in the details of how our government is structured.  None of this would have been possible without surpassing intellect, derived from an intensely cross-disciplined education.  Yes, rural practicality is a decent virtue.  Of course pride can be found in hard, physical labor.  Certainly things have to work and government function has to balance utility with enlightened philosophical thought.  However,  hockey mom’s do not create nations.  Biblical recitations do not create great, inspirational, historic speeches.  Ignorance does not provide the foundation for a great country like the United States.  So then, why do these villagers, these Sarah Palin followers, think that our nation can remain great with elected officials who seek to validate proud Americans, who are willfully ignorant?  Does the preservation of our liberties and our way of life require no education?

If “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” are indeed cherished American ideals, they have been eroded in recent years by the special interests of corporations and the wealthiest individuals–an Aristocracy of Wealth.  An ever-growing, ignorant society allows this aristocracy to prosper.  Hearing the ignorant, parrot followers of Sarah Palin, one gets the impression that the villagers do not even comprehend the state of our lives as worker monkeys, the erosion of our liberties and our diminishing ability to pursue happiness.

Thomas Jefferson, in all of his intellectualism predicted this:

“Instead of an aristocracy of wealth, of more harm and danger than benefit to society, to make an opening for the aristocracy of virtue and talent, which nature has wisely provided for the direction of the interests of society and scattered with equal hand through all its conditions, was deemed essential to a well-ordered republic.” –Thomas Jefferson: Autobiography, 1821. MW 1:54

An aristocracy of virtue and talent can never exist in a culture of willful ignorance. Thus, the foundation of our government and our American way of life now stands under threat–not by terrorists, not by liberal ideals, not by government spending, but by Sarah Palin ignorance and the ignorance of her parrot flock.

Today the United States tolerates widespread ignorance throughout its citizenry. This is profound ignorance that our religious forefathers would never have imagined could exist in a nation of free citizens, who are charged with the sober responsibility of being the “depository of our political and religious freedom.”