It's All Arbitrary. All Of It

Repeat after me, IT'S ALL ARBITRARY.

And so my liberal sister is finally grasping what's so damn evident about state codes in daycare. They haven't a damn clue or any evidence to back up any of their requirements.

Now. It's one thing to put down codes in a big, bad, black book and ask us to follow them and quite another to blackball daycares who come up short.

Most of the time the "manquements" (misses) that get published on a government website are harmless and useless but the government in its infinite wisdom actually believes it's a good idea.

I think it's a horrible and unjust idea, aside from making everyone paranoid, because my idea of quality and standards are different from the government and this can get me in all sorts of trouble for no reason.

Even the ratios we must observe are arbitrary. 1:8 is just a number made by various studies but nothing conclusive. You can have a super worker who can handle 10. If this is the case, then a responsible business owner should have the right to make that call. After all, they sign the cheques, pay the rent and payroll taxes, and cover debt obligations.

Not the government. Alas, in Quebec, there's an unhealthy suspicion of all things private and profit seeking.

And believe me. Daycare, since it became a corrupt political game, is in a state of incoherent anarchy. We're subjected to way too much grey area leaving us vulnerable to the interpretation of one lousy inspector. One bureaucrat can impact your business.

The problem I have with this, and it's a major, serious irritant, is that I, as a non-subsidized private enterprise must comply with rules and codes designed specifically for subsidized, public daycares.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that I have different needs and challenges than a public daycare and an entirely different cost structure.

Yet, the one-size fits all disease (a skewed, fucked up version of "we're all in this together" garbage) prevails.

One can only shake their heads.

Here's the other problem. It's not like I can pick up and go to another jurisdiction where the nanny-state is minimal. The neighboring states and provinces have all lost their fricken minds.

Especially New York.

It's mind-numbingly-boggling how in this day and age people like Mayor Bloomberg and Christine Quinn can hold such backward and stupid views on social policy.

Contrary to Bloomberg's silly notions of what government duties are, it's not his business to slap sugar tax and such on people.

People keep talking out of their asses about how if we don't know history we're deemed to repeat it, yet those same very people vote fuckers who repeat the error over and over and over and over.

Alcohol prohibition was the single most obvious mistake in the 20th century when it comes to using puritanical measures to control people's vices. Discouraging habits by using age limits is just about the most retarded and regressive thing politicians can do.

It's hilarious watching all those people at the podium talk proudly of their achievements when in fact all they've done is, well, add another useless law on the books.

On this front, social living that is, Europe has America beat hands down.

Alas, this rant is all for not since New Yorkers seem to like to having their hands held. It's sad really. And with it, they'll vote for Christine Quinn and Quinn will use it as an ok to continue her social crusade.

If you're one of these people that rationalizes such laws as being good for us and as a measure to "save" money for the health care system, then you deserve to be wrapped up in a bubble.

I leave it to this comment to summarize:

"Sure, pass this law! While we're at it, I think they should pass a law requiring everyone to get up at 6am and go for jog since heart disease is the biggest killer in America. Oh, and can there be a government worker on every corner to hold my hand as I cross the street? About 4,000 people die every year from crossing the street. There ought to be a law to protect us from that too. "

Indeed we can go on and on, in this obvious slippery slope. I remember back in the 1990s someone saying, "watch, they'll want to ban Coke next."

Not that far off, eh?

I once joked about a scenario where the government sends a bureaucrat to every home checking up on us. "Here's bureaucrat 9.245. Please be polite. Its rulings are final and prevail over the family."