Democracy is Dead

This post is a contribution from a professor of physics at the University of New Mexico. These are his words, but his outrage is shared.

We are back at these “great” times where “a good Indian is a dead Indian” (except that now the word “Indian” has been replaced by “immigrant” or “colored”), and we are free again to hunt the buffalos to extinction (sorry – now “buffalos” has been replaced by “elephants”).

As member of the admission committee for PhD students, I have resisted the pressure to give preferential admission to US citizen. I principally object to having lower admission standard for US nationals than for foreign applicants. Where I come from, patriotism, chauvinism are banned. It was even forbidden to sing the national anthem in schools, considered to be at the root of most wars. This is in total contrast with the US, where children have to sing the National anthem —salute to the flag — every morning at school. This is to give them some unjustified sense of superiority, eliminate critical thinking and the curiosity to learn from “the rest of the world”. There is a famous thirty years old joke that still partially applies today. It goes something like:

An organization (like UNICEF) tried to make a survey asking the question: “give your opinion about the shortage of food in the rest of the world.” It was a total failure because (1) the East German did not understand the concept “opinion”, (you can see it is an old joke…), (2) the French did not understand the concept “shortage” (still applies today), (3) the Africans did not understand the concept food, and (4) the Americans did not have any notion of what was meant by “rest of the world” (applies today more than ever).

This is more than unfortunate. By living with blinders, this country does not realize that it has been surpassed by the rest of the developed countries in science and education. According to the New York times, America is only number 28 in education. I can testify that the ranking is much worse for higher education, having been in the admission committee for PhD candidates at the University of New Mexico for the last 38 years. Compared to “the rest of the world” I found the high school educational level in the US to be abysmal. The student selection process for higher education is financial wealth and army needs, rather than by academic potential and background. In the “rest of the world”, there is a national selection, to which the whole student population participate. Unlike in the US, the student with the largest stock portfolio has to compete with those that were not blessed with a rich father. In most developed countries, higher education is free, as it should be. People are happy to pay considerably higher taxes than in the US to ensure the success of the next generation. Until 2024, foreign students and immigrants have filled the educational and Scientific gap. Einstein was a Swiss-German immigrant. The 2024 Physics Nobel prize is a French immigrant (Pierre Agostini), who fled France to escape the mandatory retirement at the age of 62. The average European speaks 3 languages. The average American one. My dog likes to bark insults at the innocent bystander, just like Trump, but in addition to that language, he understands French, German and English.

Wake up, Americans! The foreigners are not stupid! You are!

The President has proclaimed that foreigners are responsible for crime in the US. When a murder takes place in France (a few yearly occurrences in a population of 70 million), “white marches” are organized throughout the country, The President and several ministers come to the scene to comfort the family of the victim. In the small city of Albuquerque (population 560,000), murder reports fill out the local news every evening. As seen by “the rest of the world”, the Americans have not evolved since the cowboy era, where the hero — as portrayed by John Wayne — is illiterate. This is why we are still measuring temperature in Fahrenheit degrees: the illiterate cowboy could not handle negative numbers. This can be seen also in the table manners — or lack there-off — of Americans. They still eat with one hand on their knees, ready to shoot their opponent under the table.

Wake up Americans. The immigrants are not the ”scum, rapist, murderers” as claimed by Trump. You are! This is a fact, not an “alternative fact”!

It is still a cowboy argument that Wayne Lapierre, president of the NRA, uses to support the second amendment. As he put it on national TV a few years ago:

Everybody should have a gun. It is well known (from Hollywood) that the “good guy” shoot fasters than the “bad guy”. So if everybody has a gun, there will be no “bad guy” left in the US.

He has a point, which inspires me to propose a solution to the refugee problem. Let us deport all our “good guys” with their guns to Syria or Iran, where they will kill all the “bad guys”, and Syria (or Iran) will become a haven of peace. We should replace the gun loving deportees by educated refugees, who do not carry guns, and will raise the intellectual level in this country. Unfortunately, I do not think our president will favor this excellent suggestion.

But … one may dream.

… and as a ”dreamer” I may be put by ICE on the next flight to Rwanda.

Jean-Claude Diels

Professor of Physics and ECE

Chair of the Optical Science and Engineering Program