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I heard a speaker raise a chilling thought a few years ago at a HS convention. While HS and some private school attendees may be the intellectually elite in this country in only a few years, it remains to be seen what their role will be.

They are destined to be either leaders or martyrs, but unlikely anything in between.

The U.S. has been on the road toward an educational aristocracy for quite some time now, and it is starting to come home to roost. If you look closely at the social and economic strata of this country, you will notice a couple of things:

1. The poor: You will always see a bottom 10% that are always there. These are the impossibly disadvantaged or infinitely unwilling in society.

2. The rich: the highest strata typically has inherited wealth. This top 10% will always be there regardless of effort, education, or drive.

3. Everyone else: The past 2 or 3 decades has seen a marked shift in how the remaining 80% is comprised. These days, one's education typically determines where one resides. More education generally equals more economic and social standing. And vice-versa.

Even now, however, the rapid polarization of our culture in to "have's" and "have-not's" is fracturing the fabric of our society. The 'Nots want more taxation on the Haves. Heck, the 'Nots sometimes seem fine with the idea of wholesale redistribution of wealth - disregarding the lessons of history.

Wait a sec - the lessons of history are lost on the relatively uneducated. And those who fail to learn from history...

Enter the HS'ers in large numbers. They threaten to further polarize our society. Add to this the fact that born-again Christians are grossly concentrated in the HS population, and you have all the key ingredients for serious persecution. Or leadership. It depends much on how things evolve in the next decade or so. The problem with aristocracies is that they tend to be overthrown - sometimes quite violently.

I, for one, have determined that while individual people can be remarkably smart and wise, people in groups are remarkably stupid and easily led. Hence the term "sheeple" that I believe was coined on freerepublic many years ago. I refrain from optimism about the American public whenever possible. After all, what will we get if an educational aristrocrisy is overthrown by the "disadvantaged" on the educational scale???