America has a serious problem on her hands, in case you haven’t heard.Forget Al-Qaeda. Forget the deficit. Forget unemployment. The biggest threat facing our political system isn’t terrorism, global warming or H1N1 virus, according to the bloated heads in the Beltway — it’s the widespread “stupidity” of its citizens.Slate writer Jacob Weisberg is leading the charge against the “childishly incoherent” public, with the argument Americans should stop blaming our benevolent politicians and instead blame today’s problems on “the biggest culprit: the childishness, ignorance, and growing incoherence of the public at large.”Unsurprisingly, many other political pundits have also rushed to pin the blame on American citizens.This pathetic blame-game beautifully illustrates the jaw-dropping hypocrisy of our political intelligentsia.Why is it so hard to take these claims seriously? Because the same government these pundits praise is entirely responsible for “educating” the vast majority of American children.Figuratively speaking, blaming today’s woes on the American people’s incompetence is as illogical as cutting off a wide receiver’s hands and blaming him for dropping the game-winning pass or blaming a date-rape victim for not using protection. This mind-bending self-delusion would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic.One only needs to take a cursory glance at American history to see how far these self-righteous pundits must have crammed their bloated heads up their lard-filled asses.Americans have been forced to finance government-subsidized “education” for more than a century. And like so many other government “fixes,” the more taxpayer dollars our government has funneled toward “reform,” the more disappointing the results have been.”The United States increased public elementary and secondary education spending to $553 billion in 2006-2007, roughly 4.2 percent of gross domestic product,” according to the Department of Education.”In 2004-2005, an average of $9,266 was spent per pupil in American public schools. This means that a student entering first grade in 2004 could expect approximately $111,000 to be spent on his or her entire elementary and secondary education.”Ironically, this is roughly $25,000 more than putting a child through most private schools.In other words, taxpayers are paying top dollar for a low-grade education system that transforms fertile young minds into intellectually crippled dependents.Economist Thomas Sowell doesn’t see these results as coincidental. “Much of the stupidity we see today is induced by our educational system,” Sowell writes. “In a high-tech age that has seen the creation of artificial intelligence by computers, we are also seeing the creation of artificial stupidity by people who call themselves educators.”Given the magnitude of today’s problems, it’s important we ask how we wound up with such a terrible education system.Early American education was essentially a private activity. There were no compulsory attendance laws and no income taxes. Yet this system produced the most literate, independent-thinking generation in history without any centralized governance.Contrary to popular belief, government schooling wasn’t the result of popular demand or absolute necessity. “Before Massachusetts created America’s first compulsory public-school system in 1852, literacy rates in the New England states were close to 97 percent” education policy analyst Joel Turtel notes.So why were public-school systems so politically desirable?To solve this riddle, we need to go back to the origins of public schooling — 19th century Prussia — where public schools were expressly designed to instill patriotic duty and condition children for public service.Those who know history might recall how this manufactured allegiance played out during the World War I.There’s no doubt we want to ensure every child has access to a quality education. But the best way to help the next generation isn’t to pretend we’re giving them a real education by forcibly herding them into tiny, brain-distilling penitentiaries euphemistically called “public schools.”America doesn’t need to waste more money on fruitless reforms. We need to reform the way we think about public education entirely.Scott Burns is a 20-year-old economics junior from Baton Rouge. Follow him on Twitter @ TDR_sburns.– – – -Contact Scott Burns at [email protected]