Keepin’ ’em down...

One of the great satirical songs of the ’70s was Randy Newman’s “Rednecks,” in which the character singing boasts of “keeping the niggers down.” Now, as one of the great turnabouts of the ’10s, Rick Santorum boasts of keeping the rednecks down.

When Santorum claimed that Obama was a snob for wanting everyone to go to college, he simply reinforced the opinion of Palin et al that higher education turns people into liberal elitists. Real Americans are down-to-earth people and don’t need fancy eddication. Besides, if they need anything beyond readin’, writin’, and ’rithmatic, there’s always Sunday School.

But I suspect Saint Rick has a hidden agenda. Because he knows that the more educated a person is, the more likely he or she will question things that ought not to be questioned, beginning with the literal truth of the Bible. How you gonna keep ’em down – on the farm, in the factories, wherever – if they stop and figure out the foundation of your morality is a sham?

Of course, Randy does sing about “college men from LSU – went in dumb, came out dumb, too”; so maybe Rick has a point.