2014-12-07

They Know Best

I forget where this letter to the editor came from but it was time I take it off my word page since it was doing little but take up space.

For the first 100 years of B.C. history there was no public funding of private or religious schools. The Social Credit government introduced public funding of private education in 1977 and only then did enrollment in private schools increase, taking a larger share of the provincial education budget.

Since the BC Liberals ascended to power, we have been subjected to a steady stream of ideologically driven public policy decisions that shift responsibility for providing and financing public services from the public to the private domain. 


/referee throws flag to the ground.

I immediately get suspicious whenever someone opens an argument by claiming their opponent is 'ideologically driven' driven. In any event, I don't think allowing private services is 'ideological' at all. In fact, social engineering by coercing one size fits all public policy in the interest of the public good is ideological.

As with other public assets, their aim is to privatize the commonwealth of the province. This is consistent with the ideology of the BC Liberals and the corporate media that supports reducing taxes on the wealthy and corporations and cutting public spending for social services. 

Yes. That's the goal. Feed the rich, make the children illiterate. The overall prevailing narrative is just the opposite, pal. You know, 'soak the rich' and 'pay your fair share' and 'you didn't build that' and 'we're in this together' and all that left-wing nonsense.


Privatizing public enterprises, goods, and services is usually done in the name of increased efficiency, but mainly has the effect of 1) concentrating wealth in fewer hands (the gap between the wealthiest and the majority of B.C. families has grown dramatically the past 30 years) and 2) making the public pay more for its needs (see, for example, BC Ferries).




As opposed to concentrating power into the hands of a few paragraphs. In any event, love the usual zero sum tactic applied here. Income inequality is not a static phenomena. There are many reasons for it and still many more ways to interpret it. Not necessarily all bad either.

And since when is increased efficiency a bad thing? Increased efficiency, in his world, means making people pay for more. Usually, the opposite happens. In the real world, you can't just run a deficit and expect to survive in the long-run like, you know, public institutions currently in a state of obesity.

Case in point. Daycare in Quebec. More ideologically driven an idea pimped by the government you can't get. What we got is a grotesque and inefficient system of daycare that's neither fair, efficient or of any substantial quality that other jurisdictions can use as a model. Quebec charges $7 a day - YAY! - but it costs them anywhere (depending on what study you read) from $60 to $100 a day to run - BOO! HISS! Let's run an obscene and unsustainable deficit because ideals. Conversely, private daycare charges $40 to $60 dollars a day and with far less corruption and political bull shit.

Who's better for society, pal? My new favorite word is pal as you can see.

The Bixi consultant in the post made a similar emotional claim. In theory, their ideals are noble and one in which I don't disagree with in principal. However, I do not expect or accept someone else should pay for one's nobility if you get my drift.

Greater good arguments ring hollow.

Not unlike charter schools in the U.S., public funding of private schools in B.C. is privatization through the back door. Elite private schools are subsidized by the public, while public schools are told to look to the market — recruiting tuition paying international students, setting up school district business companies, opening their doors to corporate programs and parent fundraising — to solve a budget crisis imposed by government’s distorted priorities.

Notice how he refuses to acknowledge that charter schools are want parents want because they want choice. Moreover, charter schools are proving to be quite a success story.

You know what I think about subsidies. Once the cost exceeds the subsidy - which is usually the case because most entities that get a subsidy are not profitable or operate in loser industries - it's akin to using money to light the fire place. In other words, you're burning it.

Guess what? Someone has to pay for the waste. What, you actually think this shit is free?

Taxes. Read my lips.

Private school enrolment is soaring because it is encouraged by public policies that divert public money to support private interests and by ideologies that promote individualism and private gain over community and shared interests.

Left-wing scare tactics. He's not ideological no sireee because he's for the 'public good' whereas I as a free-standing private individual and business are a smarmy, little greed head who could care less about the public.

He's getting on my nerves.

Public funding for private schools is at odds with creating a more equitable, just, and democratic society.

But coercing taxes from every single person who may not agree with this stance or wouldn't use the system if given the option is 'democratic', right?

Tyranny of the public good! Only one side is just, equitable and democratic and that's the public side.

Okay. I'll say it. Fuck off. We KNOW it's anything but that.

Everything government does, from guarding the borders to mass transit, to public education comes down to the use or threat of force. Be it fines, collecting taxes, threatening to throw you in prison or otherwise.

THIS is at odds, shall we say, with the fundamental principles of Western liberty. 

In the end, his argument is just part of the whole, "if you don't support the government solving ____, then you don't care about ____."

If you don't support public schools, you don't support education; if you don't support Obamacare or universal health, you don't care about sick people; if you don't support government taking over industries, you don't care about the environment.

Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all.


E. WAYNE ROSS, PHD, Professor, Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy. UB.

PHD. FIFFED. Got that? Mr. Ross is TOP MEN. He knows what's good for you just like his pals know how much money you should make in order to keep your self-esteem balanced, how much sugar and salt you should consume, censor and shield you from all sorts of nasty things like cigarettes, espresso and alcohol - no wait, scratch the last two. TOP MEN love that shit so those are safe.

Where was I?

Oh yeah.

Derp, derp, derp.

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