Tuesday, February 28, 2012

When Rick Santorum Was a Snob

A college perfesser his own self, Dr. Rude-O lays into some frothy mixture:

The proper response to former Senator Rick Santorum calling Barack Obama "a snob" over the President's desire for every American to get further education (although Santorum seemed to think Obama just wanted everyone to get cultural studies degrees from Ivy League universities or, perhaps, as safety schools, small liberal arts colleges) is, truly, "Why aren't your hands filthy from work, Mr. Coal Miner's Grandson? And who the fuck are you to say what's elitist, Mr. BA/MBA/JD?" (Please note that Santorum has more degrees than Obama. Please also note that it did not turn Santorum into a progressive drone.)

What galled Santorum is the idea that "everyone" should go to college, which is not what Obama said, but, hey, "facts" never get in the way of a good applause line to the yahoos.

The Rude Pundit's gonna pull rank again here. He's a professor at a college where most of the students come from working and lower-middle-class backgrounds. He's been there at graduation and met their parents who never had the chance to get an education beyond high school. They don't ask if what their kids learned was liberal or conservative. They were just glad that, now, all those jobs out there that have a college degree as a minimum requirement were open to their kids. They were just glad that they learned something about the world.

Rick Santorum actually is guilty of the rankest kind of elitism: the kind that says you shouldn't aspire to something more than what you were born into. But, then again, his economic policies pretty much assure that some people, like, you know, the Santorums, stay on top while everyone else takes jobs fixing his cars or plumbing.

One other thing: a motherfucker who says believes that the government of the nation should be following the morality of a certain church really has no business talking about who is indoctrinating whom.

Damn, I hope FM's the nominee! Too bad he won't be.

By the way, Obama's right - 4-year colleges aren't for everybody. I tried it. Twice. It sucked. I spent the better part of forty years doing something I love - being around motorcycles 24/7 - due to a fine vocational education at L.A. Trade-Tech's College Of Motersickle Knowledge. Made a lot of good friends and met Mrs. G while I was there. You could say it gave my life a holeshot down the path I chose.

1 comment:

Fixer said...

They don't ask if what their kids learned was liberal or conservative. They were just glad that, now, all those jobs out there that have a college degree as a minimum requirement were open to their kids.

Exactly.