Rick Santorum: Not just a snob, but an arrogant, patronizing snob

Chris Lowe

Rick Santorum thinks he knows better than parents what they should want for their kids.

That's the clear if bizarre message of his attack on President Obama for having a policy to help parents who want their kids to be able to college.

His message makes Rick Santorum an arrogant, patronizing snob.

Santorum thinks colleges and universities brainwash students. He'd rather they learn less and have worse job prospects than trust them to be able to handle dangerous ideas that he fears.

Of course, it wasn't too dangerous for Rick. H'e's got three degrees. He not only has a B.A. from Penn State, but an MBA from Pitt and a JD from Dickinson. He used those degrees to rise from working class roots to make a fine professional living for himself and become a U.S. senator.

But you want your kid to have similar ambitions? No, bad idea. You're just deluded, getting yourself into deep waters you can't possibly understand, and probably getting above yourself.

And for President Obama to suggest that federal policy should make that easier, that it's good for the country as well as our kids for them to be able to get as much education as they want, to help families fulfill their ambitions, to dream that children might have better lives than their parents? Well, that just makes him a snob.

Obviously.

While Santorum's position is idiocy, it's more than garden variety idiocy. It shows his true colors.

It shows him as patronizing snob who thinks what's good for him is too good for other people.

Even more significantly, it shows him to be an authoritarian ideologue, who, despite his protestations about favoring individual liberty, actually doesn't trust people to be able to think for themselves, to judge if teachers are trying to foist an agenda on them, to reach their own conclusions.

In fact Santorum hates critical thinking. He doesn't want people to think for themselves, and considers it brainwashing if they get higher education that encourages critical thinking.

This is part and parcel with other manifestations of his authoritarianism, such as his desire to control women and their bodies, and take their control over their own health and reproduction away from them.

Well, thanks Rick. For anyone who hadn't figured it out already, you've made it blindingly clear that your snotty, authoritarian paternalism is thoroughly ingrained. And also that you're an arrogant toerag, as Hermione Granger would say.

By Chris Lowe Feb. 27, 2012