Santorum: Obama is ‘a snob’ because he wants ‘everybody in America to go to college’

Discussion in 'Current Events' started by Think for myself, Feb 27, 2012.

  1. Think for myself

    Think for myself Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Wow.

    Since when did education become snobby? Or wanting folks to be educated being snobby?

    Apparently Santorum has run out of actual things to be critical of the president and instead is attacking the president for wanting folks to go to college.

    By the way, Santorum holds more college degrees than the president.

    I digress. Is this the level of discussion that Santorum is capable of? Or he just pandering to the ignorant, hoping to get the uneducated up in arms?

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...go-to-college/2012/02/25/gIQATJffaR_blog.html

    Speaking to a tea party group in Michigan on Saturday, former senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) accused President Obama of being a “snob” because he wants “everybody in America to go to college.”

    The statement is a curious one considering that Santorum — who holds a B.A., M.B.A. and J.D. — holds more advanced degrees than Obama, who has a B.A. and a J.D.

    And Talking Points Memo reported Saturday that in 2006, Santorum’s campaign Web site stated his commitment to making “higher education more accessible and affordable.”

    “Not all folks are gifted in the same way,” Santorum told a crowd of more than 1,000 activists at the Americans for Prosperity forum in Troy, Mich. “Some people have incredible gifts with their hands. Some people have incredible gifts and ... want to work out there making things. President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob.”

    As the crowd applauded, Santorum continued.

    “There are good decent men and women who go out and work hard every day and put their skills to test that aren’t taught by some liberal college professor trying to indoctrinate them,” he said. “Oh, I understand why he wants you to go to college. He wants to remake you in his image. I want to create jobs so people can remake their children into their image, not his.”

    Santorum graduated from Penn State with a B.A. in 1980, then earned an M.B.A. from the University of Pittsburgh in 1981. In 1986, he earned a J.D. from Penn State’s Dickinson School of Law.

    Obama attended Occidental College, then transferred to Columbia University, where he earned a B.A. in 1983. He later graduated from Harvard Law School with a J.D. in 1991.

    The statement from Santorum comes as the candidate is targeting working-class voters in his bid to blunt former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney’s (R) momentum in Tuesday’s key primary states of Arizona and Michigan.

    Santorum frequently blasts “elites” on the trail, and has brought his campaign not to meetings of business executives, as Romney has done, but to small, working-class towns, such as the former steel-mill town of Steubenville, Ohio, where he campaigned late last week.

    Both the messenger and his message appear to be resonating with working-class voters, a bloc of the electorate to which Romney has struggled to appeal, with limited success.
     
  2. Anikdote

    Anikdote Well-Known Member

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    Lots of folks on the right ESPECIALLY the evangelicals are anti-intellectualism and against any real learning in general outside of their dogma. This isn't surprising at all particularly coming from Santorum the Theocrat.
     
  3. Cigar

    Cigar Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    That is truly the most ignorant thing I’ve ever heard a politician say … but then we have a long way until November.

    Conservatives are truly afraid of Independent Knowledge and Free Thinking.
     
  4. stekim

    stekim New Member

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    Because we all know Americans are supposed to be indoctrinated by the church.
     
  5. RichT2705

    RichT2705 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I'm not a big Santorum fan.

    He does touch upon a good point on this though, College is not always the answer for everyone. We are always going to need skilled tradesmen who aren't going to come from a traditional College.

    This "college for everyone" mantra sounds good on TV, but it seems like trying to fit everyone into the same sized shoe, and it's just not going to fit.

     
  6. RichT2705

    RichT2705 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Independent knowledge wouldn't come from shoehorning everyone down the same learning paths would it?
     
  7. jhffmn

    jhffmn New Member

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    Yeah we should send everyone to college. Brilliant!

    Considering only about 64% of the working age population works, at least 1/3rd of that education would be wasted. And how much of the 64% do you think needs a degree to do their job, maybe 1/3rd of that? But sure, lets waste everyone's time and money sending everyone to college for 4 years.

    Everyone who wants to go to college can go to college. Education is colossally overvalued. It's the next massive bubble to burst. People are graduating with massive debt, spending more time than ever in school, and graduating with no real job prospects. It's like we are taking an entire generation's youth and tossing it into a fire. Our misplaced focus on a higher education that is more or less an excuse to spend 5 years drunk, is a tragedy. We are making people poorer and delaying their ability to raise a family and own a home into their late 30s/early 40s.

    Obama isn't a snob for wanting to send everyone to college. He's a moron. Or he is evil. Or quite possibly he is an evil moron.
     
  8. Cigar

    Cigar Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You’re absolutely right … college is not for everyone.

    But I was taught … to be the best you can be and for those who want to go to college, America wants these individuals and needs these individuals.
     
  9. Anikdote

    Anikdote Well-Known Member

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    College isn't for everyone, but the opportunity to attend should be.

    But what I absolutely hate is the tone. The idea that because someone has chosen education as their profession makes them 1) a liberal and 2) attempting to indoctrinate.

    Though he has to have his position, evolution is taught as a fact in biology courses, he certainly can be seen in collusion with people that know anything about the topic.
     
  10. Cigar

    Cigar Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    First of all you can't MAKE ANYONE who doesn't want to go to college ... GO to COLLEGE!

    So enough of the BS
     
  11. Brewskier

    Brewskier Well-Known Member

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    There is a huge shortage of skilled trade workers in this country at the moment because everyone, it doesn't matter who, is told to go to college after High School. Blue collar work is seen as "stupid" and "inferior" jobs for stupid people, so the genuinely stupid enroll in college and C minus their way to a worthless liberal arts degree in "Gender Studies". They leave college with no marketable skills and a pile of student loans to pay back.

    College isn't for everyone.
     
  12. Think for myself

    Think for myself Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Perhaps, but then again some community colleges do offer education in the trades, machinists, various aspects of the construction industry, and the like.
     
  13. Ethereal

    Ethereal Well-Known Member

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    Santorum is absolutely right. Obama is most certainly a snob, as is every other progressive in the country. They're the type of elitist who thinks a college degree automatically and almost exclusively equates to an "education". Of course, if that were true, the highly "educated" OWS protesters would be able to find a job with their philosophy and sociology degrees. Perhaps they would have been better served by learning a trade like plumbing or carpentry. Oh, but those aren't "intellectual" pursuits...:roll:
     
  14. Anikdote

    Anikdote Well-Known Member

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    Really???

    Education keeps you employed and making more money.
    Source:
    [​IMG]

    Typically the people who peddle the idiotic idea that education has no value are the same people who have none.
     
  15. Ethereal

    Ethereal Well-Known Member

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    Totally true, but the progressive "academics" who benefit from tuition subsidies and the like will never admit that. It's in their financial interests not to.
     
  16. RichT2705

    RichT2705 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Oh yeah, no argument there Cigar. For those who want that Path, I hope they can attain it.
     
  17. RichT2705

    RichT2705 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Absolutely right TFM, some do indeed.
     
  18. Cigar

    Cigar Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    anyone who thinks that obviously didn't go to college! :laughing:
     
  19. jhffmn

    jhffmn New Member

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    But we can overvalue college as a society and get people to waste a lot of time and energy. Yes, of course the students have to be complicit.

    Just like the people who took out mortgages they couldn't afford to pay back on homes that were overvalued are responsible. Yet, I bet you blame the evil bankers or Bush or something.
     
  20. Cigar

    Cigar Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    That's what the President is saying ...

    I don't think anyone is putting a Gun to anyone's head and making them go to college.
     
  21. Anikdote

    Anikdote Well-Known Member

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    This is something I agree with. Education is super important, but shouldn't be confused with certification. While the need for education has become more important, I feel from my experiences that the qualify of it has declined.

    Hence why the masters degree is the new bachelors and the bachelors is the new HS diploma.
     
  22. Ethereal

    Ethereal Well-Known Member

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    That's only on average, and that is the flaw with how many "education" boosters view the system. Instead of looking at everyone as an individual, they treat them like a collective that has the same needs and skills and interests.
     
  23. Ethereal

    Ethereal Well-Known Member

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    Shows how much you know.
     
  24. stekim

    stekim New Member

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    Well, I guess if you spent $70,000 getting a Masters in Art History one could question the payback. But in general you are far better off going to college than not. Not that everyone needs to or is suited for it. But the numbers don't lie. Want to make more money? Hit the books.
     
  25. RichT2705

    RichT2705 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Of course noone is forcing them at gunpoint. I think Santorums "issue" was more about this mindset today that everyone needs to go to college, and he doesnt think that to be the case...nor do I.
     

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