Nations have recently been led to borrow billions for war; no nation has ever borrowed largely for education. Probably, no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization. We must make our choice; we cannot have both. -Abraham Flexner, educator (1866-1959)

Pace Abraham Flexner, nations, i.e., governments, are all too happy to borrow—to say nothing of tax and counterfeit (via central bank “quantitative easing”)—for both war and education. The U.S. spends as much as the rest of the world combined for “defense,” and it still spends more per capita on education than do the enlightened, social-welfare states so esteemed by our chattering classes. Indeed, it betrays an astonishing naiveté to believe otherwise. Without their indoctrination camps (the so-called public schools), U.S. elites would be hard-pressed to brainwash the masses into so blithely embracing the permanent regime of war and empire—and all the futility, expense and (as the events of 9/11 demonstrated) very real dangers it entails.