This has little to do with Quebec per se and more to do with the wider debate, if not war, about personal civil rights across North America. That the Quebec government is tyrannical about its education laws is not surprising. It's their shtick. As I pointed out, they've decided culture comes before individual choices.
However, those who complain have to realize they allowed this to happen. We accepted government social welfare programs which led to excessive interventionism in the private sphere. We signed that contract and to break it will take nothing short of a revolution or renaissance of some sort. The day we signed over our bodies to the state under universal health care was the day the government accepted the signal as becoming the point guard in our lives. After all, what can be more sacred than our bodies? We willingly offloaded our rights to the government for the "collective good."
Not judging that decision. Just sayin'.
It's not surprising then that concepts of private property is limited. If you sit on oil, think twice if you think it's yours. Eminent domain limits your private property rights. Or that the government is now mandating where people can't smoke including in private spaces. Or that they now have the courage to begin an assault on your diet. Or that they, as is the case in Quebec, control education with an iron fist dictating where people can send their kids AND what they will learn. If people would take a step back, they'd realize education is part of the private realm. We've been conditioned to believe it's the state's job. If you want to fight Bill 104 go here then.
Premier Charest, or any politician, doesn't care about you or you're rights. The mere fact he's taking people, free, tax paying citizens, to court is heinous in itself. Remember that. It's an attack on all Quebecers.
Like I said. Quebec is not alone on this front. The province goes a step further than most jurisdictions because of the language issue but it's no different from what I read goes on in California, New York, Massachussets or Ontario.
We've been witnessing a slippery slope for 50 years now. It's all dried up by now I reckon.
Hello?
Are you not permitted to send your children to a private school? Public education isn't a way of standardizing, it's a way of ensuring even the poor have an opportunity. On top of this, you could homeschool your kids or pay for private tutors, but again, the option of public education is there for people without the means to do otherwise.
ReplyDeleteThe war on diet? Yeah, how dare they stand in the way of your right to eat the fingers of workers who got too close to the grinder. It's your right as a Canadian to consume tainted milk and diseased meat if you choose! Seriously, a little less abstract and a little more specific would be nice (did they take salt away and now all your food is bland?).
If you live on oil in America, you have the right to pay a private company to dig it out of the ground for you... and then magically your sink can catch fire. Think I'm kidding? Look up Gasland, a great documentary on how private oil companies are victimizing citizens and skirting any responsibility for their actions.
All I'm saying is, if you really buy that bullshit about your rights being "God given," you must have your head up your ass. Your rights are established by the state, and if the state disappears, so do your rights. Of course this doesn't give the state the right to infringe on its agreement to grant said rights, but I think your alarmist overreaction is hilarious considering you're probably sitting comfortably and just aching for something to complain about. Why, I have no idea...
In case you're interested, a nice trailer for the Gasland video can be found here.
ReplyDeleteAlso, do you mind if I include you in my "Blogs I Read" section of my blog? If you get spammers or something linking through, I can take you off at a moment's notice. I have to ask first, because I had a complaint, so clearly it can happen.
I think you've read me enough to see I'm pretty reasonable and don't advocate utter destruction of government. I'm ok with basic regulations like - as you point out - diseased meat; even though it's not really fair to the government given they apparently lack the manpower to regulate it well.
ReplyDeleteI have every damn right to get pissed off in places where the government tells me I can't eat effen sugar or smoke a pack of cigarettes. That's not effen alarmist Bret, it effen happens. They over step their bondaries all the time to the point where they even - the courts anyway - overturn punishments parents give their own kids.
You can sleep on thinking it's alarmist but I certainy don't.
It's not Canada as education falls into provincial jurisdiction so in this case it's Quebec and its laws are patently prejudicial.
Nah. Ga'head. If you think reading this shit has value it's good to me.
It's complicated. Bill 101. Yeah, you can sign up for private school but the state sticks its fat nose there too. French-Canadians, ironically, have less rights than non-FC's when it comes to sending their kids to English schools.
ReplyDeleteYour point about about means and the underprivileged. Absolutely. My problem is it's one size fits all. If people want to send their kids to English private school with Catholic instructions and you happen to be French-speaking LET EM.
But the government won't allow them and quite frankly, the education ministry is a joke here. But apparently we're not allowed to get upset according to you.
I thought liberals were all for constant questioning of authority.