The writer explains that meritocracy is not how the nation was founded but then seems to go on to invalidate his own point barring the tenuous claim that higher education circulates elites. I would argue this is true in “elite” schools such as the Ivies, but QUALITY educational availability lends to much better social outcomes when we grade on actual ability, not some virtue signaling Bell curve where you can be as illiterate as a mountain goat but still walk across the stage to receive a piece of paper comparable in assumed worth as someone who eschewed partying and skirt chasing for a degree in a hard science.
The writer’s premise, that Americans are better invested in meritocratic ends when they have “skin in the game” has been a stalking horse for generations now. We stripped away the need to be a landowner to vote, for instance, in the interest of fairness. Now millions of people vote with no interest or need to be concerned about a political platform, because raising taxes doesn’t impact them. They just vote a party line or for the individual who promises them the most stuff. Alexander Fraser Tytler warned us about this:
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.”
The Supreme Court’s ruling didn’t amount to much of anything, if we’re being honest. Universities are going to continue to figure out ways to admit students based on virtue vs. ability. They are promised largesse from our government and its agents in the interest of maintaining “social equity,” and so that Indian boy with a 1600 SAT and perfect extracurriculars still won’t be admitted to Harvard, Yale, or even MIT, because let’s face it: liberals are racist, and if you aren’t part of the current protected social order, you’re a pariah. It’s never about equality. It’s about how you can benefit a government agent in the long term. Virtue signaling uber alles.
I believe it. I wonder if we are living on borrowed time, since the people figured out LONG ago, how to steal money from the public treasury?
Remember when Clinton said Obama should be fetching their coffee?