Your Mandarin would like to direct your attention to this article by Patrick J. Buchanan. Your Mandarin suspects that the article will send the educational industrial complex (the unions and Democratic politicians), the race baiters, and the progressives into an apoplectic fit of rage and denial.

The article resonated with a couple of beliefs held by your Mandarin and possibly some of my fellow Gormogons:

1. Not everyone is going to be a winner. The hard cold truth of the matter is that not everyone has the innate ability or the drive needed to succeed. The dream of the “education industrial complex” of lifting everyone out of poverty by giving students the best education money can buy just does not work. The only people benefiting from this expenditure of money are the educators, unions, and administrators.

2. At what cost to the country does the “educational industrial complex’s” desire to level the playing field have? Your Mandarin thinks that the need to lower the bar to have everyone succeed not only destroys the country by holding back those that could perform better, but gives those who normally would fail a false sense of accomplishment.

3. Most of the money spent on inner-city schools is wasted on students that don’t have the family/community support to succeed. No matter what the schools may try, unless there is buy-in from the family/community these programs are bound to fail. Children draw their support and values from their families. The progressives have spent the better part of the last 100 years trying to destroy that structure and replace it with the government. Until these inner-city families are rebuilt and the traditional family is seen as the norm again these children will be bound to fail.

4. Unchecked immigration will ultimately be the downfall of the country. We no longer regulate the flow of immigrants entering the country based on skills that are required. And if you suggest that we should implement structured immigration based on immigrant skill levels and close off the border to illegal immigration, the left-wing/progressive smear machine goes into overdrive with cries of racism. The not so pleasant truth is that for the country to succeed and prosper it needs citizens with the skills necessary to perform all levels of work from assembly line worker to CEO. The country neither has the time or resources to give unskilled and uneducated immigrants an “on-the-job education.”

The cries of the liberal left/progressives have been that children are our future. In this case they are correct, we just need to determine which children we want to rest our futures on.

The Mandarin

The Mandarin, whose real name is 吏恆, joined the order in 1309, and introduced the Gormogons into England during the 18th Century.

The Mandarin enjoys spending time with his pet manticore, Βάρἰκος, or Barry (who can be found in the Bestiary). When not in the Castle…well, frankly, nobody is quite sure where he goes.

The Mandarin popularized the fine art of “gut booting,” by which he delivers a powerful kick to the stomach of anyone that annoys him. Although nearly universal today, the act of gut booting or threatening someone or something with a gut boot is solely due to him.