Government Condescension

See all of 'New Government Food Pyramid'

Posted 11/18/05

11/18/05 The Hill Details threats made by pork barreling Republicans from Alaska over the 'bridge to nowhere', publicized by Club For Growth elected members Jeff Flake and Tom Coburn.

According to witnesses, Young warned Flake and Musgrave that he planned to stay in Congress a long time and would not forget the stinging defeat.

Another lawmaker present said Young directed more fire at other members at the meeting for not defending the projects, derogatively referred to as “pork,” in the transportation bill, despite having received millions of dollars in funding for projects in their districts.

Young called Flake “ungentlemanly” and, “out of the blue,” hurled angry words at Musgrave, another fiscal hawk.

Who is ungentlemanly? A thief or the one exposing the thief? But the most galling part of this is yet to come:

House leaders have killed the project by adding language to the transportation appropriations bill erasing instructions funding the bridge that were in the authorization bill Congress passed this summer. Local Alaska officials now have a free hand to decide how to spend the more than $400 million slated for the bridges.

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, who with Young put together the transportation authorization bill, said that merely the name of the bridge had been deleted. He noted that Alaska would still get the money. Inhofe said that Stevens supported the proposal he showed him deleting reference to the bridge in the authorization bill.

So, they have not 'killed the project', they have just changed the wording so that the 'bridge' is not mentioned. Why have they done this? Because they have contempt for the American people. They believe that the American people are so stupid that we will believe our Congressmen when they say they 'killed' the funding for this wasteful porkbarelling bridge. They believe their deception will make this story go away.

A rocky mountain news editorial explains:

[This] means campaigning members of Congress can argue, with a straight face even, that they "killed" the bridge to nowhere. And if you believe that, they have a bridge to sell you.

Added to 'Transportation Socialism', 'Government Condescension', and 'Club for Growth; Defending Liberty'.

Posted 7/26/05

Home Schools Run By Well-Meaning Amateurs

7/25/05 National Education Association Condescension and idiocy from the NEA. As mentioned, the NEA has fought a decades long loosing battle with the tiny homeschooler associations. More on that:

A history of Homeschooling, Legislative battles

From the Home School Legal Defense Association

A number of courts in other states ruled against educational freedom, however. By the early 1980s, homeschoolers in many states were left with difficult choices: hide, move, or persuade the legislature to create a new legal option for parents who educate their own children in their own homes. Remarkably enough, homeschoolers were able to persuade one legislature after another to pass homeschool statutes in the 1980s:

>> 1982 Arizona and Mississippi legalize homeschooling.
>> 1983 Wisconsin and Montana follow suit.
>> 1984 Georgia, Louisiana, and Virginia pass homeschool statutes. Rhode Island gives superintendents the authority to "approve" homeschool programs.
>> 1985 Arkansas, Florida, New Mexico, Oregon, Tennessee, Washington, and Wyoming all enact homeschool statutes.
>> 1986 After homeschoolers won a federal court case, Missouri legalizes home education.
>> 1987 Maryland, Minnesota, Vermont, and West Virginia all permit homeschooling.
>> 1988 Colorado, New York, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania allow parents to teach their own children at home.

"The Evil Empire"
Three states (North Dakota, Iowa, and Michigan) prosecuted homeschoolers so fiercely that they became known as the "Evil Empire." One family after another was prosecuted for teaching their own children in their own homes, and the courts were quick to convict. Finally, in 1989, after seven fruitless appeals to the North Dakota Supreme Court, homeschoolers finally won. The legislature legalized home education.

The next state in the Evil Empire fell in 1991, when Iowa finally enacted a homeschool statute. One official within the Iowa Department of Education still did her best to block homeschooling through restrictive state regulations, but freedom-loving families in Iowa worked even harder to keep the freedom they had earned. (In the end, the homeschoolers won, and the disgruntled official left the Iowa Department of Education to work in another state agency.)
By 1993, only one state still routinely prosecuted homeschoolers: Michigan. Then, on May 25, 1993, five judges on the Michigan Supreme Court overruled four dissenting judges to allow sincere religious parents to teach their own children at home without a teacher's license. It was not until 1996 that the state legislature finally allowed any parent to teach a child at home without some assistance from a certified teacher.

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(From 'A Charter School Tale'

Janey Finds Widespread Failure in D.C. Schools Firings, Outsourcing Being Considered

10/6/04 Washington Post Reporters interview the new head of the D.C. public schools. He cautioned that improvement will not come quickly to the long-troubled system, and he was unsparing in his assessment of its deficiencies. <.> "I've been enormously disappointed in the lack of sound management policies," he said, adding that he was particularly upset about the shabby condition of many school buildings and the inefficient operation of food services. "There will be some dismissals in response to some of these audits that have just painfully pointed to irresponsible actions on the part of certain staff." <.> He said he would consider contracting out "those operations that affect the quality of life of students" until the school system's "internal capacity" to run those operations is improved. <.> Janey, 58, said the school system has suffered from "a series of false starts" over the past decade, with the constant turnover in the superintendency being only the most extreme example. He said he has noticed a "deep sense of despair among a wide range of parents, constituents [and] advocates" and wants to hold a citywide education summit this fall or winter, at which residents can express their opinions on the schools. <.> He also questioned the $8 million that he said is paid annually in rent for the school system's central offices at 825 North Capitol St. NE. "I'm hard-pressed to look my teachers and principals in the face when my office looks like a hotel room," he said. "It's a painful contradiction." <.> He said that nepotism and cronyism are "alive and well" in the school system and that he is determined to avoid any political pressure about whom to hire or what contracts to award. <.> Janey said he would consider shutting schools that have low or declining enrollment and in some cases sharing the buildings with space-strapped charter schools, which have soared in popularity since they were first authorized in 1995. With situations like this it's no wonder they became popular. The cap forcibly locking in the enrollment at Charter schools, a cap demanded by the teacher's Unions, are preventing them from becoming even more popular.

Janey's solutions? He would, 'raise teacher standards', 'establish high school graduation exams', 'recognize the need for a core curriculum and greater uniformity in what students study', 'favors a midyear assessment of student performance, starting in January, in addition to the standardized tests administered to all students each spring', and thinks principals 'may have too much leeway in determining curriculum'. Sounds like he is in favor of a monolithic, bureaucratic, uniform, uncreative, bloated top-down, socialistic type system that can only be doomed to failure! He is the person who can solve on the problems by creating a strong central system under his omnipresent wisdom. Does he even once mention the needs and desires of the parents and their kids? Well, he does say he would like to use some of the buildings to create "parent education centers" that would offer classes on effective parenting... Again, condensation and elitism rears its head. It's not the schools fault, it's the parents fault their kids are failing!

Bush's 'Competitive Sourcing' Worries Disabled Workers (Posted 5/6/05)

/ Initiative May Put Employees With Special Needs At a Decided Disadvantage, Their Advocates Say

4/18/05 An absolutely brutal story by a liberal reporter at the Washington Post that perfectly illustrates the kind of demagaugery anyone trying to reform government runs up against. First, Bush's plan, unfortunately, doesn't reduce government at all. It merely states that private sector companies can bid on certain jobs that are currently done by Federal workers. Similar to Charter schools, if the Federal workers are as efficient and productive as they claim to be then no changes will take place. Of course, just as parents flee public schools given the choice, these reporters know that at least some of the bloated and inefficient Federal bureaucracy will be no match for the private sector and will either have to be let go, or be reassigned within the department, or have to work for a private contractor (in some departments no one can even be fired!). The only possible result of this new law is that government might become a little more efficient and taxpayers will save money. Interestingly, this reporter says: Advocates say Bush's focus on the bottom line ignores the fact that for decades, through various policies and laws, federal agencies have gone out of their way to hire members of certain populations, from veterans to disabled people to welfare mothers and students. Now, let's translate this. This reporter and these 'advocates' are actually insulting veterans, disabled persons, welfare mothers and students - a pretty big chunk of society. They are assuming they are incompetent. Do you see this? It is a pattern I try to consistently illustrate in many of my posts. We get more condescension earlier in the story: It's a nice job. I like the people that work there. They are nice to me," said Goodman [who is autistic], who works from 8 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. every weekday and lives independently in an apartment in Rockville. Besides portraying Goodman as a dunce, this reporter drudges up his mother (further implying he can't take care of himself) "Part of the success of this job has been his co-workers in his office, who have been with him for 14 years. For a person with autism, who he is with is as important as what he is doing," Susan Goodman said. <..> Her son does not understand that his job may be in jeopardy, she said. Perhaps because he knows that: top officials at the Department of Health and Human Services, NIH's parent agency (where Goodman works), have said that employees whose jobs are shifted to the private sector can get new training and another federal job within the department, so no one will be thrown out of work. Now, if Goodman is indeed as incompetent as this reporter makes him out to be, we need ask whether the role of the government is to govern, or to charitably employ incompetent people. The answer needs to be one or the other because certainly we don't want to be governed by incompetents! (although I wouldn't argue with any who suggest that this might already be the case ( Congress) :) The situation we have here is analogous to the much ballyhooed 'New Deal' we all heard lauded in our public school text books, whereby money was taken from businesses who were productively employing people and creating wealth, and given to unemployed people to perform such tasks as digging ditches and creating useless earthworks, thus prolonging the great depression and bringing misery to untold millions. Should the Federal government have a roll in charity? Read, 'The Founding of the United States and the Constitutionality of Charity' for an answer.

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Living on a dollar and a prayer
(Liberal) BBC 1/18/05 - Amazing story on the poverty in Zambia. They interview the finance minister who says, In most of our Zambian communities, particularly in rural areas, people do not pay for water, lighting, housing and energy so it is true that many of them live on less than $1 a day. Sounds like the Pine Ridge Indian reservation in this country! An organization then talks about food baskets they give to the population. Despite the obvious socialization of Zambia the BBC says (of the finance minister): He conceded that privatisation had brought some poverty, but felt we were making too much of an issue of living on less than a dollar a day. Privitisation!!!!! 'Conceded' sounds like the BBC got him to grudgingly admit the truth - which is the opposite of the real truth! The worst part is the 'victim hood' and condescension the BBC paints the local population with. Juggling this meagre income then becomes Patricia's headache - Dominic just hands the money to her: "When I get that money I just get confused." It seems to me that poverty in Zambia is caused by high taxes, used to support Socialistic programs that discourage work and foreign investment and impoverish the population. How Zambia might get out of poverty can be viewed here. The BBC description of Zambia is a disgrace and works only to further impoverish that country.

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