Philosopher Bertrand Russell suggested that “Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education.” And, it was Albert Einstein who explained, “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an international comparison of 15-year-olds conducted by The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) that measures applied learning and problem-solving ability. In 2006, U.S. students ranked 25th of 30 advanced nations in math and 24th in science.

Hot off the press is my colleague Dr. Thomas Sowell’s 43rd book, “The Housing Boom and Bust.” The book is an eye-opener for anyone interested in the truth about the collapse of the housing market that played a major role in our financial market crisis.

President Obama’s articulated criteria for his nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court is: “We need somebody who’s got the heart to recognize — the empathy to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom, the empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old. And that’s the criteria by which I’m going to be selecting my judges.”

What to call black people has to be confusing to white people. Having been around for 73 years, I have been through a number of names. Among the polite ones are: colored, Negro, Afro-American, black, and now African-American. Among those names, African-American is probably the most unintelligent.

Soon college students will come home and present parents with their grades. To avoid delusion, parents should do some serious discounting because of rampant grade inflation. If grade inflation continues, a college bachelor’s degree will have just as much credibility as a high school diploma.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry rattled cages when he suggested that Texans might at some point become so disgusted with Washington’s gross violation of the U.S. Constitution that they would want to secede from the union. Political hustlers, their media allies and others, who have little understanding, are calling his remarks treasonous. Let’s look at it.

Democracy and majority rule give an aura of legitimacy to acts that would otherwise be deemed tyranny.

Think about it. How many decisions in our day-to-day lives would we like to be made through majority rule or the democratic process?

Most of our nation’s great problems, including our economic problems, have as their root decaying moral values.

Whether we have the stomach to own up to it or not, we have become an immoral people left with little more than the pretense of morality.

Our Colonial ancestors petitioned and pleaded with King George III to get his boot off their necks. He ignored their pleas, and in 1776, they rightfully declared unilateral independence and went to war.

Ask the average person which is the correct answer to the following question: Which president gave the biggest tax cuts for the rich — Reagan or Bush? I would bet the rent money that you would not get the correct response, which is: Presidents have no taxing authority. Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution says: “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises.” I know that many politicians and news media people read my column. How do we characterize them if they continue to speak of presidents cutting or raising taxes?

Government health care advocates used to sing the praises of Britain’s National Health Service (NHS). That’s until its poor delivery of health care services became known.

Attorney General Eric Holder said the United States is “a nation of cowards” when it comes to race relations.

In one sense, he is absolutely right. Many whites, from university administrators and professors, schoolteachers to employers and public officials accept behavior from black people that they wouldn’t begin to accept from whites.

The idea that even the brightest person or group of bright people, much less the U.S. Congress, can wisely manage an economy has to be the height of arrogance and conceit.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was set up to combat fraudulent practices. The SEC’s website explains that “Ponzi schemes are a type of illegal pyramid scheme named for Charles Ponzi, who duped thousands of New England residents into investing in a postage stamp speculation scheme back in the 1920s.”

Here is what my George Mason University colleague Professor Richard Wagner wrote, which was published by Office of the House Republican Leader:

Many professors, mostly on the liberal side of the political spectrum, use their classrooms to proselytize students.

I have taught economics for the past 40 years and challenge anyone to find even one student, among the thousands who went through my classes, who can say, “Professor Williams used his class to proselytize students.” While acceptable at most universities, it is nothing less than academic dishonesty to do so.

Americans have been rope-a-doped into believing that global warming is going to destroy our planet.

Scientists who have been skeptical about manmade global warming have been called traitors or handmaidens of big oil.

Congress is on a spending binge. With all the calls for bailouts, economic stimulus and other assorted handouts, there is a real risk of inflation in our future.

How about a few civics questions? Name the three branches of government.

If you answered the executive, legislative and judicial, you are more informed than 50 percent of Americans.

There’s a growing anti-trade sentiment in our country. Much of the dialogue is grossly misinformed. Let’s try to untangle it a bit with a few questions and observations.

Despite the fact that President-elect Barack Obama’s vision for our nation leaves a lot to be desired, the fact that he was elected represents a remarkable national achievement.

For the U.S. Congress, news media, pundits and much of the American public, a lot of economic phenomena can be explained by what people want, human greed and what seems plausible. I’m going to name this branch of economic “science” wackonomics and apply it to some of today’s observations and issues.

One of the campaign themes this election cycle is “affordable” health care. Shouldn’t we ask ourselves whether we want the politicians who brought us the “affordable” housing, that created the current financial debacle, to now deliver us affordable health care? Shouldn’t we also ask how things turned out in countries where there is socialized medicine?

The Federalist Papers, written by James Madison, John Jay and Alexander Hamilton, is the document most frequently referred to when trying to get a feel for the original intent of the framers of the Constitution.

There is a H.L. Mencken quotation that captures the essence of this year’s politics: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed, and hence clamorous to be led to safety, by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Here’s what the U.S. Constitution says: “All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.”

As parents pack their youngsters off to college, they might ask themselves whether it’s worth both the money they will spend and their children’s time. Dr. Marty Nemko has researched that question in an article aptly titled “America’s Most Over-rated Product: Higher Education (www.martynemko.com/articles/americas-most-overrated-product-higher-education_id1539).”

By taking a couple of courses in economic theory, we could immunize ourselves from nonsense spouted by politicians and pundits, but in the meantime check out Professor John R. Lott’s “Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works.”

Most people know the tragic state of black education today. We know that billions of dollars are spent on federal government programs such as No Child Left Behind and the billions spent by state and local governments. If you were to ask an education “expert” to explain the tragedy, you’d get answers such as racial discrimination and underfunding.