‘We will sacrifice quality if necessary’
The newly elected president of the National Union of Students (NUS), Liam Burns, spelt this out very clearly. Speaking to the Scottish Herald before his election, he said we should put aside the archaic idea that universities should encourage the advancement of knowledge and the pursuit of truth, and welcome the fact that unis are now training grounds for youngsters who want to have brighter career prospects.

‘I think we should be honest about our priorities’, he said. ‘At the end of the day, the point of the university has changed. If you look at when only five per cent of the population went, that was about knowledge, discovery, pushing boundaries, people talked about the crème de la crème. [Now], it is about social mobility and people changing their lives. The reality is you need that bit of paper [a degree] to get into better jobs with greater earning potential and influence. So we want as many people to get one as possible, at the expense of quality if necessary.’...

Why I Detest the State
...You should know it is because I love my country that I loathe its government, in all its forms, for a host of reasons. How I don't just despise government because it is wasteful, arrogant and immoral. I don't hate it solely because it is coercive and legally steals for its livelihood. It is true that I abhor government because it cloaks its crimes with euphemisms: It robs, but calls it taxation; it defrauds, but calls it "social security; it kidnaps, but calls it "busing"; it enslaves, but calls it "conscription; and it counterfeits, but calls it inflation. It does the very things I cannot do without committing crimes, but do you know why I really detest government? (I thought you would never ask.)

It is because of what government has done to my friends, and has much to do with what Karl Hess has termed the most pernicious institution in the United States today: the public school system, how he didn't just say that because so many high school seniors read at a fourth grade level, have difficulty filling out a job application, or trouble making simple change in the market place. He said that because there is where government transforms fine, young, mental timber into petrified, apologetic tools of the state: so that they will stand mindlessly and pledge allegiance to a piece of cloth, with 50 stars for 50 percent taxation, and think they are free; so that they will lend their lives as cannon fodder around the globe whenever El Presidente goes on the warpath, all in the name of peace, you understand; so that they will lock step behind officials of state in a myriad of assaults on human liberty, and cry out with the multitude, Crucify! Crucify! That's why I loathe government because of what it has done to my friends!...