Maybe it is just a feature of getting older but whenever I read about more or less anything to do with students and politics I find myself thinking that we should bring back National Service is a prerequisite for those wishing to study for a degree. Of course National Service was something I dodged by about thirty years, but when I was a student only 10% of folks went to university. We were - with a few exceptions - an elite. These days almost half of young folks go to what are, in many cases, laughably called Universities and it seems that large numbers of students are pathetic, idle or stupid or all three.
The leader of Britian's students, Malia Bouattia is a 28 year old perma-student fanatic who has featured here before as a supporter oif ISIS and fanatical Jew hater. The other day she told the world that Tory cuts to higher education (regrettably there have been none) were driving students to join ISIS. She is a barking mad fanatic but the fact that she was elected as head of the National Union of Students shows just how many students live in a parallel universe based on discredited ideas and a sense of entitlement.
Post the Brexit vote, in which only 30% of those between 18 and 25 could be bothered to get of their arse and put a cross in a box, the outpourings of grief from the young people who are "working" their way through the University system have been a hoot.
A thread on the student chat room ( stop chatting and get back to your studies you lazy fuckers) "The Student Room" entitled "Does anyone else feel genuinely depressed about Brexit?' is, it seems, humming. Comments include:
'I've felt so down all day because of this, and just have this constant sick feeling in my stomach.
'I genuinely feel like I'm grieving. I feel like I'm grieving for our growing economy (slow but steady). I'm grieving for our loss of cultural enrichment.'
'Took about an hour for my hands to stop shaking, and for my knees to return to some semblance of working order after I saw the result.'
"I have felt sick all day, and ashamed. And angry, with special little peaks of rage dedicated to the claptrap by degrees either ignorant, racist or both, that leavers have peddled as their "reasons".'
"Can I class Brexit as a traumatic event when fail my exams next week? Because honestly I'm so distracted now because of it."
"II wonder if I can get special consideration for my Further Maths and Physics exams today because I was stressed about Brexit?'
Ends.
Hmmmm, so we leavers were all ignorant racists while the intelligentsia preparing to get a 2:1 in a joint course in media studies and basket weaving are now traumatised by the whole event. Whatever. Perhaps they should all be given counselling?
But who from? A lefty academic well known to me, who actually voted to leave, reports back that her facebook stream is unremittingly gloomy. Natch nearly all her facebook pals are also lefty academics and all are gloomy and also lashing out with the narrative that leave voters were ignorant and racist and that the world is going to end. Such is the violence of the "groupthink" on this that this individual has not dared to fess up to a single friend in academia that she voted to leave, lest she be branded a racist too. Or just thick. Or both. She just sits and listens as they rant on for they cannot consider the idea that the she voted to leave. They assume because of her job that she is part of the group think.
At the "victory" party the same person attended on the night of the 2015 General Election as the results started to filter in there was a similar shock among these lefty academics. They could not believe what was happening because, as one put it, "I don't know anyone who voted Tory."
British academia has been expanded massively in the past three decades on the basis that this expansion was self funding via student fees and loans. Of course many of those taking out such loans will either emigrate ( some folks always do) or in many more cases just not earn enough to have to repay and so, in the end, it is the taxpayer who will pick up the tab for this massive default.
We have thus created a system which lefty academics will fight tooth and nail to defend whereby not very bright folks go to bogus new Universities to learn not a lot and to have their tiny brains polluted with lefty groupthink by an academic establishment will will not tolerate any dissent from what it deems to be the truth.
You would have more chance of a fair debate on cultural diversity with a team from the Spanish Inquisition than you would have on discussing in a balanced matter: global warming, changes to immigration policy, the benefits of capitalism, the right of Israel to exist or the merits or otherwse of the EU on a campus in Britain in 2016. If you are a student or indeed lecturer reading this, you can go to Google to discover what the Spanish Inquisition was.
And as a bonus the expansion of all this nonsense is anything but self funding. At some point that will become clear. You the taxpayer are paying for this totalitarianism and excercise in futility. Are you sure that it is worth it?