ARE AMERICANS “EDUCATED” OR “KNOWLEDGEABLE?”
by One Pissed-off Vietnam Vet
(Jul. 6, 2011) — A person may very well be “educated” yet not possess proof, such as a diploma; by the same token, a person may have plenty of “proof,” yet is not necessarily educated. Years ago, only those who had others working for them had the leisure to learn to read and write, and to pursue disciplines outside their personal scope: maybe a wealthy Lord of the Castle or a Cattle Baron would delve into the mysteries of the cosmos. However, since the advent of the printing press, even the poorest of souls received a primer on the three R’s.
At the outset, schools of higher learning were the only institutions able to afford the newest, the largest, the most costly books, hence a real demarcation of a gentleman vs. the commoner, the gentleman being vastly more knowledgeable. However, the chasm narrowed when the library was invented and the “Harvard Classics” became available to any who wished to pursue a higher degree of learning.
Nowadays, anyone who wishes to improve his or her ability to reason has only to read books that were once available only to the aristocrat, so today a less wealthy individual can be on an equal footing with a rich person, education-wise.
An educated person is a person who has the ability to see through smokescreens and arrive at an independent conclusion, even if it bucks the status quo, which is why people like Nicholas Copernicus and Abraham Lincoln are considered “educated.” A knowledgeable person is not automatically an educated person. One who possesses knowledge is not the same as one who can decipher fact from belief; even though the world may look flat and everyone says that the world is flat, it doesn’t add up to a hill of beans when, in fact, the world isn’t flat, as was the prevailing wisdom of the days of Galileo Galilei.
When the first Platypus was introduced into the Royal Society in London in 1798, everyone thought it was a hoax. They thought, for instance, that the bill was from a duck and was glued onto a otter. Upon further investigation, the scientific community has accepted the Platypus but still regards it with suspicion because it has many attributes usually associated with singular classifications.
Using an educated process of not relying on errors of definitions of the past, we now classify Islam as a political philosophy, a quasi-religion, and a Totalitarian police state. Islam is a combination of many controlling factors and is unique in many ways, but classifying it as a religion is demonstrably misleading. In fact, the definition of Islam as a Totalitarian system of government is the most accurate, with the quasi-religious aspect of it under the subheading of “Citizen Control.”
It offends me that adherents of Islam are not only allowed in the United States, but also given tax breaks because it has been mis-designated as a religion rather than as a political philosophy that is at opposition with the United States Constitution. In order to realize a future for America, we must label Islam correctly and place it in the column of arch-enemies, as a Totalitarian system of government, if we wish to survive as a nation of laws based upon our Constitution.
We must use our God-given ability to reason and not believe what may have been written in an encyclopedia or dictionary years ago. We now know that the earth isn’t flat, as we now know that Islam isn’t a religion. Act on it.