Miss South Carolina made the news by giving a truthful answer to an extremely demanding question. When asked why many Americans cannot locate the USA on a map, she said the education system does not teach enough of that. But of course, such a response doesn't make the news; she stammered too much. The stammering created the opportunity to attack her personally. Ad hominem attacks always have the ulterior motive of erasing truth.

The education system is doing everything but teaching intellectual activity. Intellectual activity is extremely demanding, while everything else is a breeze. Why is there an evasion of the primary purpose of education?

The modern world is racing away from intellectual activity on a grand scale. The internet shows this. There are massive web sites which are used for entertainment, while intellectual web sites are left in the dust. There are also indications in education. Very few Americans go into science, while foreign names make up the rosters of science departments at universities.

The basis of intellectual activity is rationality, which is extremely demanding. Rationality is limited by the development of abstract realities in one's own mind, which is what education is supposed to be all about. No one can put abstract realities into another person's mind. People can only develop their own. This is why real education requires involvement by the students. Students have to educate themselves. No one can do it for them. Good teachers know this, and they know how to direct students along a path where they learn how to learn.

All of this is too demanding for the modern, affluent world. There are substitutes which are a lot easier. Competition is a method of creating personal advancement and worth which do not require abstract knowledge. Competition requires technical skills rather than rationality; and the test is relative to other persons rather than the demands of the universe and its problems.

The winners at competition become the most successful persons throughout society; and they design the social order to promote that which they succeed at. The greatest impact is on education. The designers of education were winners at various types of competition, and they promote competition to enhance that which made them successful. To a large extent, the same is true everywhere, as demonstrated by employment applications and personal bios. A person's successes are the highest importance in determining worth.

How then do you list rationality on an application or bio? You place a lot less significance on applications and bios and focus more on problem-solving activities. Solving problems places the highest demands upon rationality and constructivity.

Katrina demonstrates these points. When the largest scale of total destruction occurred in the most predictable way, no one responsible had a clue as to how to solve the problems. They argued over authority instead of solving the problems. The person with the most authority was a horse showman who went to sleep, because no one told him what to do.

Another example of brain dead stupidity is "Cap and Trade." It means that the worst polluters give money to the least polluters. Then Wall Street buys and sells the debt obligations through their pyramid scheme, much like the "collateralized mortgage debt" which is in the process of bankrupting the banks. How does a gambling scam remove carbon dioxide from the air? It's like a person needing a new auto, so he burns his money first and then goes shopping for it.