A Challenge to My Critics!

ATTENTION! To my very passionate, emotional critics, please do not expose your idiocy. Argue properly. Raise your objections in a rational way. Don’t be so stupid. Don’t show your hippyish mentality. Your actuation, behavior is painfully hilarious and appalling.

A blog commenter said: “Just one question Froi, Im just curious so please answer with all honesty. Did you took the ACET or the UPCAT? Did you pass?”

I consider such a question so pathetic, invalid and bereft of self-respect and of reason on the part of those who try to adduce this

"Mediocrity” does not mean an average intelligence; it means an average intelligence that resents and envies its betters."

monstrosity. But I consider it my act of charity to reply to this message. I also received the same pathetic imputation  from my Ateneo hippie-critics when I wrote my academic bigotry blog last year. But since you’re so curious about it, let me answer it by re-publishing what I posted on my FB wall yesterday:

“Did I not pass the UPCAT (and ACET for that matter)? Well, enrolling at UP (and Ateneo for that matter) never ever crossed my mind in the first place. I’m really amused by this argument from intimidation, which simply means an act of ‘involuntary surrender…’”

… and this:

“Some people said last year I took on Ateneo with my ‘academic bigotry blog’, this year I’m taking on UP and public schools with my anti-public education blog… when will I attack my school. For their information, we had a weekly attack on my school when I was the EIC of our weekly campus organ. I believe the campus paper caused the removal of a high-ranking school chancellor, professors, and school officials.”

And commenting to an FB friend who said- “People get too emotional about their schools……like people get emotional in their race and religion……How collectivistic…”- I wrote wrote the following:

“I call it an irrational, unearned pride… There’s nothing wrong about being proud of one’s school as long as you consciously know where that “pride” is coming from. I’m reminded of Quentin Daniels, the enterprising engineer of Atlas Shrugged, who consciously knows how great Patrick Henry University is. He knows that his alma mater is great not because his professors said so, but because he’s consciously aware it performs the real objective of education: to teach a student how to live his life—by developing his mind and equipping him to deal with reality. This is not what most elite universities do- they indoctrinate their students to be more obedient to an established social order, to a collective deity they call “great society.”

Hence, I consider such a pathetic monstrosity invalid, envious, mediocre, malicious, and bitter, because ever since I decided to turn this site into a political-philosophical online crusade, I made it my personal objective to comment on, demolish and expose some of the fallacies, lies, myths, and stupidity in our society. I started with political and social commentaries. But then I realized that there is one definite source of these myths, lies, fallacies, stupidity and mediocrity: the Philippine education sector as a whole. This is why I’ve been saying that ideas matter, and that the breeder, the propagator, the conditioner and the producer of most evil, invalid, dangerous ideas are our universities.

Where did former President Gloria learn her Keynesian economics and big-government politics? Where did most of our politicians get their mediocre, altruistic and self-immolating policies? The country’s universities, especially the so-called elite ones, are a threat to this country and to the freedom, lives, and limbs of its people.

Before you speak of some nonsensical, highly outrageous claim, which is clearly a by-product of your mediocrity, please know that I consider “school” very insignificant. Like most of my American friends who believe that Harvard U is the greatest threat to America, I believe that most of our elite educational institutions are doing our country a great disservice. In fact, such an invalid point- that I wrote this piece because I failed to pass the UPCAT- is a clear manifestation of empty arrogance, of academic bigotry. Yes, it’s a sign of academic insecurity and mediocrity.

So your guilty charge is that I wrote this piece because I didn’t pass the UPCAT or that I failed to enter UP for the matter? This is what I have to say: I am very much glad- and so proud- I’m not from UP and never had any plan to study there. It’s an advantage on my part. In fact, I suggested to a friend who plans to study economics to try other private schools (Ateneo excluded) and just read the right books, which are definitely not part of the Philippine curriculum. I also made the same suggestion to a classmate who plans to take master’s in International Law after finishing law school: to take it abroad. But I believe that if there’s a group or class of students who deserve to study at UP, it would be those who know and believe in the ideals of free-market capitalism.

I challenge you all then- you whom I consider the “seeds of evil”, if you know what I mean- to express your refutation in a proper manner instead of resorting to personal, ad hominem attack. I tell you, I’m very much thrilled whenever I see that my opponent resorts to personal attack, because it simply shows he’s got no valid, no sane argument to adduce. Show me that you’re from UP and that you deserve your passing the UPCAT. Show me that you’re entitled to a higher education subsidy! Prove that you have the right to the earnings of the people who work and produce! Prove that you have the right to turn the government into a legalized thief or extortionist. This is my challenge.