… It is a kind of ignorance that kills.

For the education of the American people, there is no question that considerable parts of this nation’s debts amounting to trillions of dollars were education expenditures that rival the mind-boggling cost of War.

The standard cost of educating Americans runs to 5.5% of GDP [published in 2007]. Imagine how big that is. For additional information, read Barb Kromphardt’s [bkromphardt@bcrnews.com] “The Cost of Education”. And also read “Education Cost Calculator Growth” to get an idea how we break our back while shouldering the cost of education as we fight ignorance — a frightening menace that threatens the survival of this country. http://www.csgnetwork.com/educostcalc.html.

There is a big difference between sheer ignorance and the Ignorance of the Learned or IOTL. An example of ignorance as ordinarily understood is the ignorance of mountain people or hillbillies who never lived in towns or cities, whose primitive way of life was hardly touched by civilization; they have never gone to school to get educated, or have not learned how to read and write. Based on US Central Intelligence Agency's World Factbook, there are 312,800 of them in the

United States today [approximately .1% of the population].

Examples of IOTL: Coming out from school or after knowing something out of reading certain printed materials, learned ignoramuses really believed that learning something the way they do is enough to know EVERYTHING!

There is nothing wrong about self-education, except when this kind of learning knocks at the top of one’s head and the little knowledge learned becomes dangerous not only to self but also to society.

It is due to this little knowledge that those stigmatized with IOTL are indisputably mentally dodgy or unreliably chancy and perilous when they view reality and act on it according to what they think they know!

The notion of literacy in the United States is that “the average American reads at a 7th or 8th grade level … which is … consistent with … [the] norms of readability for medication direction, product information, and popular fiction …” They comprised 15% of the U.S. population described as “functionally illiterate” where insufficient knowledge, similar to “little knowledge” or “misplaced knowledge” makes an emotionally rush individual or an ambitious delusional person dangerous. This was illustrated in the life of Adolf Hitler, the infamous Butcher of Millions of Jews [ Holocaust]!

After “self-educating” himself with some reading materials on fine arts and architecture, Hitler believed he had sufficient knowledge to capture the real meaning of life in his early paintings and artworks. He began painting and selling watercolors on the side to make his difficult life livable.

He attempted to enroll in the

Academy of

Fine Arts in

Vienna. He was rejected twice in his attempts to become a student of Arts, and was likewise rejected in his application to study Architecture. Both schools rejected him as a mentally “unfit” [delusional] young student-applicant. What he thought he learned from reading reference-information materials were more than enough to make him believe in himself and what he can do … that he already knew what was then being taught in schools, and what he needed was merely a formal credential to confirm his self-learned knowledge. That delusional arrogance caused him a forfeiture of formal education.

While Hitler’s first love was centered on Arts and Architecture, his attention shifted to his self-study of human interest, particularly with reference to his hatred of politicians and German politics while he was a Sergeant in the Army. By reading more books on humanity, he was convinced, as ambitious delusional minds tend to self-proclaim to all and sundry that he had enough knowledge to test his fortune in politics and to lead not only as an imagined defender of the oppressed German people but also as a Messiah in the propagation of the human race. Later in history, this delusion of grandeur gave birth to Nazi Germany, otherwise known as The Third Reich where Hitler fulfilled his heinous destiny.

One of the notable results of this “little knowledge is dangerous” part of Hitler’s life was his ignoble, horribly awesome ambition to create the World’s “Super-Aryan Race” that led to Holocaust or the extermination of millions of Jews in WWII as one of the inferior races aside from black and other colored races on the planet that in his fiercely delirious ambitious mind must be eliminated to create a superior human race.

Such is the mind-boggling cost of educating a psychopath like Hitler whose IOTL affliction should not have been taken for granted. Little knowledge is more than enough to convince Hitler that he knew everything!

Hitler is a true-blooded European whose hatred of Yankees is demonstrated by the present IOTL of old

Europe to this day. I experienced this incredible racial affront when I was in

Barcelona. I was playing poker in one of the casinos in

Barcelona when my seat in a fully-seated poker table was given to a well-dressed, Hollywood-looking Spaniard who just came in wanting to join the no-limit poker table game.

I was an American in a strange land, and my shock and protestation were to no avail. In the arguments that ensued, I was rudely told by the floor man in broken English that the locals make their casino rich, not by the patronage of few Americans who just come to the casino once in a while! I was “advised” [a polite term for a clear threat of violence to forcibly throw me out if I resist] to stand aside and wait until a new vacant seat becomes available.

I poked a finger on my face twice to wake me up to make sure that what was happening was not just a nightmare that usually occurs in a bad dream. But I remained cool-headed in spite of what was happening because I knew that my level of education and self-discipline were superior to that of any man present in that room — it never made me feel cheap even when I was publicly abused and embarrassed in front of people for the first time in my life just because I was an AMERICAN. On the contrary, I was even prouder that I was an educated American standing ten feel tall in that jungle of prejudice and ignorance.

It seemed to me that this deeply hidden hatred of Americans by highly prejudiced people had randomly surfaced.

I left the poker room and walked my way back to one of

Barcelona’s grand five-star hotel s nearby [with Mamang] where I was billeted. [Mamang was unaware of this incident because she was playing the slot machine in the other part of the casino.] On the way back to the hotel, I was imagining that this kind of IOTL is dangerous to any less educated American with an attitude – probably to a drunk in a combat uniform with PTSD and concealed weapon who just came down from

Iraq for his well-earned furlough – a customer who wandered in the casino to play poker. Violent incident could have occurred, more so when ignorant Spaniards still think that all Americans are rogue cowboys who played it rough in the Old Wild West! Well, I thought I probably found the answer to so many questions behind the recent

Colorado shooting that similarly defied such logical explanations.

There were more question marks to learn from as to why

Europe is in a self-destruct mode. The exchange rate is US$1. 23 to 1 Euro-dollar. My economic sense is that

Europe

Europe but will center on the fast-developing Asian market where the economy is now the apple in the eyes of overseas investors. Obama has recently made a public statement that the venue of economic rivalry among rich nations will be in

Asia. Our

U.S. foreign policy has just been recently retooled to meet this challenge in the immediate days ahead, while countries in

Europe are still in bed snoring, so to speak. is pricing itself out of the market, because member-countries of EU compete tooth-and-nail with one another to boost their revenues as promised in the early formation of the EEC. My calculation is that Tourism – which is one of EU’s major industries – will shrink from minus 25% down to negative 45% within the next five years. The focus of international attention will no longer be on old

The President of the ECB [European Central Bank] Mario Draghi is considered a “weakling” by disgruntled bankers in

Europe. He was very “indecisive” in making critical decisions needed to combat Euro Zone’s debt crisis as some of you already may have probably known. He is somewhat similar to, and at the same time the opposite of, Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve who makes decisive decisions [opposite] but the outcome is also unpopular [similar results of negative approval]. The Euro is spiraling downward against the US dollar and when it becomes at par, Europe will lost its competitive edge against U.S., Japan and China and probably will result in its economic disintegration where each country is left each to its own, unless some remedial repackaging and constructive policy re-alignment are done soonest.

Europe’s airline industry sacks. In

France, the people are still ignorantly rude to air travelers. If you travel to

Europe, I would suggest NEVER to take Air

France based on my horrendous experience. Their computerized system in the airport is in total disarray; it was so bad that you could lose your flight, like what we almost did. I expect that Air France will face a lot of lawsuits if it is not already having some sort of legal troubles the way they handle their flights, to the dismay of traveling consumers. I would not hesitate to describe their computerized IOTL in airline travel as the worst in the world.

In some expensive

Paris restaurants where international visitors including Americans like myself dine with local customers and with some other visiting Europeans who speak English, ignorant and rude conversations are heard about Americans being ridiculed as obese or overweight. Spanish diners had reportedly been snickering at “heavy” and “plump” Americans because of oil-cooked MacDonald niceties they indulge in. I wished I could have just educated them with my unsolicited advice that according to my recently updated reference-database, close to 50% of adult Spaniards are far from nicely “healthy” and “slim” because they are all chunky and corpulent. In less than ten years, obesity will make the average “fat” American look like a “slender” model in People’s Magazine, while the average bulging Spaniard will look uglier than Green Hulk.

In general, anti-American prejudice seemed to have prevented Europeans from learning what life is in the

United States, hence their incredible ignorance about this country. Only a handful, so to speak, had traveled to the

United States, therefore only few had learned that the aging

Europe they patronized is about a century behind. If this is a childish conversation, I would use the phrase “European jealousy” of

America’s fastest development and tremendous progress that made this nation the greatest on the planet.

There has been no doubt in my mind that “

Europe’s left-wing elites” had painted a negative image of the

United States, and this IOTL among Europeans prevailed up to the present time. This tinseled knowledge of

America does not jibe with reality, and therefore I consider this negativity as an undesirable ignorance that holds

Europe back in time.

As stated earlier, in the

United States, the threat of ignorance to national security coming from those who had never learned how to read and write is insignificant or almost nil. Even their worst of doing any harm to this country or to the world like what Hitler did, is already geographically self-contained. Statistics show that there are only 312,800 of them. They live in the boondock or secluded remote areas as social outcast. They are hardly part of our mainstream society – they are not modern Americans like us that live in highly developed towns and urban centers. They just want to live their primitive way of life somewhere; they don’t bother us nor they want us to bother them.

On the other hand, the most dangerous threat of ignorance to national security in the

United States are the IOTL people who — according to the

New Hampshire newspaper — came from the “lunatic fringe”. IOTL breeds violence. There are 4.7 million of them all over the country.

This frightening force has a violent militia mentality that calls citizens to arms for the overthrow of the U.S. Federal Government. At the same time, they live with the bounty of the land, and enjoy the liberty and freedom of this unique land of the free to their heart’s content and yet hate America as an imagined “Evil Empire” they want to destroy.

I won’t describe them as mentally impaired ingrates or bloodsuckers worse than worm-like parasites that feed on the entrails of American society because that would be a grossly imperfect understatement coming from a writer who received his Awards of Excellence in Journalism.

© Copyright Edwin A. Sumcad. Access NWS

August 8, 2012.

Note: The writer is an award-winning journalist. He is a columnist of this website and other print and online publications. Go to NWS homepage, click on the columnist button to know more about the author or you may e-mail your comment to edwin.sumcad@cox.net. This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots … you may need JavaScript enabled, to view it.