Current Wisdom

“No child who goes to these schools should get through them without being humiliated.”—Charles Murray on the state of higher education in remarks at the Fordham Institute, June 26, 2012.

“Thwarting banditry is a positive good.” Jacksonville State University economist Christopher Westley

“In reality, the state does nothing else but redistribute and serve its own purposes.”— Deepak Lal at The Heritage Foundation on Tuesday, June 19, 2012.

“A ‘social justice bill of rights’ might begin, ‘Government must provide…” a home, car, job, French bulldog puppy, whatever.”—Jonah Goldberg , The  Tyranny of Cliché`s.

“Unfortunately, the idea that a small, enlightened elite should guide the ignorant people to what is good for them, even at the cost of misleading them, has become more prevalent in America.”—Luigi Zingales, a professor of entrepreneurship and finance at the University of Chicago.

“Why is it that the language of allegory, once generally understood by our culture as a whole, has been banished from our nation’s sacred sites so completely that one needs to spot naïve roadside memorials to find unambiguous statements of grief and love?”— Michael J. Lewis, the Faison-Pierson-Stoddard Professor of Art at Williams

“There is a myth that low-skilled immigration is good for the economy and yet in areas where there are no low-skilled workers, their laws get mowed and the dishes in their restaurants get cleaned.”—Barry Chiswick, George Washington University economist at the Cato Institute on April 26, 2012

“The value of an industry is inversely proportional to the number of awards it gives itself”— humorist and blogger David Burge

If our students are burdened with oppressive loans, why do so many university rec centers look like five-star spas?—Victor Davis Hansen

If parents abdicate all responsibility to liberal professors, there’s a good chance the graduate will come home spouting liberal claptrap and looking forward to his or her next Occupy Wall Street rally.—Henry Olsen of the American Enterprise Institute.

“In every documentary, the lessons are always what we want it to be.”—CNN’s Soledad O’Brien in an interview published in the May 2012 issue of the American School Board Journal

The dramatic increase in college president salaries has not produced better leaders.—John K. Wilson of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).