Our Endangered Principles

In 1959 a revolutionary war ended in Cuba when forces led by Fidel Castro, his brother Raul, and Che Guevara overthrew the military dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, thus bringing about one of the longest-standing political (and almost nuclear) conflicts in modern history. Castro was a communist, and he created a communist state: one party, nationalization of the economy, a terrifying secret police, a policy of harsh reprisal against anyone set against the regime, and the guarantee of a subsistence lifestyle for most--but certainly not all--of the populace. Don't be mistaken; Batista was not a nice guy. He was a greedy, corrupt power monger who made himself and the upper class grotesquely rich at the expense of the poverty-stricken majority, and his police state was just as terrifying as Castro's. Batista earned getting kicked out, and more. But Castro repudiated all the United States held dear, and embraced its arch-enemy, the Soviet Union, and for that he was to be despised, punished, and hopefully, destroyed.

When Castro's intentions became clear at the start of the 1960s and the war of words between him and the Kennedy administration became increasingly strident, the animosity between the two countries heated up. John F. Kennedy did not want a communist state at the southern doorstep of the U.S., especially one led by an obnoxious blowhard. This led to a decades-long attempt by this country to kill, overthrow, or at least humiliate Castro. The result? Kennedy is dead; Lyndon Johnson is dead; Richard M. Nixon is dead; Castro is still there. He won his little piece of the Cold War simply by surviving.

Of course, the United States government did not want to look like a gigantic bully picking on a tiny, helpless victim--which was exactly the case--so the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency were tasked with finding covert ways to get rid of Castro and his regime. What came out of these efforts was a long string of ridiculous, unethical, and downright criminal plots, none of which had the intended effects, but did give the impression there was a secret federal Department of Dirty Tricks, and that it was in the capable hands of Larry, Curly, and Moe. An intended invasion sponsored by the U.S. was a fiasco; outright attempts at assassination never even got close; even a plot to make Castro's famous beard fall out failed.

Probably the most dangerous of all the proposals to get Castro was Operations Northwoods. The danger wasn't to Castro, though, or to Cuba; the danger was to American citizens. Operation Northwoods was a plan to commit acts of terrorism by Americans against Americans, and rig them so they appeared to be perpetrated by Cubans as a pretext to go to war against Castro. This unbelieveable idea came, not from a group of identifiably crackpot right-wingers, but from the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs of Staff, the most powerful officers in the United States military, under the guidance of their Chairman,  General Lyman Lemnitzer. These men were all part of Tom Brokaw's "Greatest Generation."

Operation Northwoods was not just some nutty idea thrown out during a meeting. It was put on paper and submitted to Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense, and then to President Kennedy. Fortunately, Kennedy was not a lunatic, and he rejected the plan. Lemnitzer lost his job although he then became Supreme Allied Commander of NATO. He retired in 1969. Amazingly, he was later appointed by Gerald Ford to a commission to investigate possible misconduct by the CIA.

The point of all this is that anybody in a position of power is capable of conceiving, and carrying out, stupid, evil, unconstitutional, criminal, dangerous ideas. That's why nobody in government can be trusted. Lemnitzer and his buddies undoubtedly thought of themselves as patriots and believed their ideas were in the best interests of this country. Patriotism does not automatically confer righteousness, though. Adolph Hitler was a patriot and believed he was acting in the best interests of Germany. The result was the greatest mass murder in history and the destruction of the thing he purported to love. I'm a patriot, too. I served in the military, and would be willing to die for my country.

But my loyalties don't lie with the United States government per se, and certainly not with the people who make up that government. I am loyal to the principles that make the U.S. unique. I am loyal to the Declaration of Independence, the Preamble to the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. That is where the essence of this country is found. I am loyal to the concept of freedom from the government, my God-given right to be an individual, and government's responsibility to protect that right. Lyman Lemnitzer and his band of dirty tricksters were willing to destroy peoples' right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness by killing--or at least terrorizing--the very people they were supposed to protect, for the sake of beating up a pipsqueak nation, an idea anathema to American principles.

Those men were not unique in their willingness to do violence to the principles of this country in order to "protect" it. There's a group of neocons in Washington right now who are stridently insisting we invade every region, country, and hen house where people who hate the U.S. reside, and they think it's just peachy that the National Security Agency has carte blanche to spy on every citizen, in order to "protect" us. Such thinking does tremendous harm to what makes America America, because if our principles are destroyed, what's left to protect? Football? Flat-screen television? Disney World? Terrorism cannot destroy the United States; goose-stepping "patriotism" can.

Dumbing Down America

The United States of America is the world's only remaining superpower; the leader of the free world; an unmatched economic dynamo; the place the world's poor dream of coming to.  So how does the future look for this Utopia? In a word, grim.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a 34-member organization that supports economic progress and world trade through democracy and market economies, sponsors a student test called the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which tests three areas: reading, math, and science. The most recent test was conducted in 2012, when 510,000 students from 65 countries and other political entities (for example, Singapore, a city-state) participated.

The U.S. was humiliated in all three areas; the shining stars were Asian entries, and especially China. This outcome should frighten anyone interested in the future of this country; and I don't mean the distant future. Reading, math, and science represent the vital core of a 21st century education. They aren't the only important subjects, of course, but a generation that does not produce exceptionally well-trained people in those subjects, in a world driven by technology, is in deep trouble.

This is not a new problem. American test scores from the 2009 PISA were abysmal. But the 2012 scores were worse, so things are going backward. How bad was it? Well, the U.S. rank in reading was 24th, in science 28th, and in math 36th. We were lower than our old friend Vietnam in all three, even though it is one of the poorest countries in the world (per capita GDP is about $1,900; in the U.S. it is over $53,000). Not only that, but this country spends more per student than almost every other country in the world.

But we haven't reached the bottom yet. Not only were our overall scores bad, but our top achievers couldn't match the average scores of higher-achieving countries. And please, let's not get into any anti-U.S. nonsense--the OECD is not out to get us--or talk about cultural bias. People who outscored us came from Asia, Europe, and North America. Hong Kong--a city--outscored us; Poland outscored us; Slovenia outscored us; Estonia outscored us; Canada, our first cousin, outscored us.

At the end of World War II, the United States was the undisputed global power. Americans had invented a substantial amount of the twentieth century. We were famous for innovation and the creation of wealth, all of which came out of an educational system modern educators sneer at. But after throwing a breath-taking amount of money at schools, after endless theorizing and experimenting, we have nothing to show for it but a downhill slide. Our alleged experts are good for nothing but the creation of hot air.