How can that be right?
Submitted by James on Mon, 03/14/2011 - 7:10pm
All my opinions notwithstanding, one thing must be understood. I do not think I am right about very many things. I do not have the secret to world peace or the answer to world hunger. But I do know this: Our headlong rush into free market mania is a dangerous game for our culture and our children.
Do we really want a world where money is the only measure of value, more precious even than the health of our planet and the education of our children?
How did we get this way? Years of affirmative action, of safety net programs, of Social Security, of promises we've made to one another in the interest of fairness and balance? Laws that protect our shared water resources and air? Rich people buying control of government? Reagan era tax cuts? Junior's unnecessary wars?
Do we really think that unions, school teachers, and environmental laws created the god damned mess we're in?
Whatever you believe about the future, firing teachers isn't the answer to any of these ills. In fact, it's no answer to anything unless your goal is to drive the economy deeper into the toilet. Our collective spending on education through taxes is part of the engine that makes economic recovery possible. Cutbacks now will put at risk whatever small progress we've made.
Teachers were once paid as much as lawyers, even in public schools. Now thousands are being laid off like dead wood, with those left behind having to take up the slack.
How can that be right?
The Supreme Court is becoming part of the problem
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/us/19roberts.html
My big fear is that the Show is going to decide to back some reactionary horses in the 2012 NC Supreme Court elections. A trifecta in the works.
Do good. Be nice. Have fun.
It's a faulty premise
The anti-government zealots don't trust people to come together for the collective good, but they trust that individuals acting on their own with no agreed-upon rules or process will (somehow) produce a good society.
It makes believing in the tooth fairy seem logical by comparison.
The faulty premise
is the idea that thinking about a good society should be done in the first place.
You must be a socialist, dude.
Do good. Be nice. Have fun.
The succinct point
For me, after fuming, screaming or fighting, I just think this: I don't understand how these selfish people sleep at night. All those toys, all the blood and evil to pile them up, and then you just die like everyone else.
Greg