Lori Alexander: "Big Gov't, Boo! Big Business, Yay!"

[GolightlyGrrl]

http://lorialexander.blogspot.com/2012/ ... nment.html

Lori Alexander's lack of critical thinking skills makes me shudder. Things aren't always so black and white, toots.

[Swamptribe]

This is one thing I've never gotten about fundies. They seem to absolutely worship big business, or capitalism if you prefer, and hence money.

[linnea27]

This is one thing I've never gotten about fundies. They seem to absolutely worship big business, or capitalism if you prefer, and hence money.

I don't understand this either. I don't see Jesus as a capitalist.

[Handmaiden of Dog]

Big business has never slaughtered its people like big government has done {Hitler and Saddam Hussein, for example}.

Bhopal, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, the entire Mining Industry. If Big Business can squeeze one more penny out of cutting corners on safety, they will. If workers die, well that is the price of doing business.

Big business doesn't take away your money unless you want to give it to them like big government does through taxation.

I would laugh if her ignorance didn't make me want to smack her. Enron? People lost their pensions. Bain? People lost their jobs and their pensions. Every time there is a hostile takeover people have their wages cut, their benefits cut, their workload doubled. What is that but taking away the worker's wages to increase profits of those at the top?

Big business doesn't make more and more laws taking away your freedoms like big government does.

Farmers around the world would like to talk to you about Monsanto.

OK that's the first 3 done. I'll let someone else tackle the rest. She is too stupid for me to waste any more time on.

[GolightlyGrrl]

This is one thing I've never gotten about fundies. They seem to absolutely worship big business, or capitalism if you prefer, and hence money.

Yep, to fundies, a struggling, unemployed person on food stamps is pure evil. But CEOs and Wall Street types involved in all kinds of malfeasence are just peachy!

[delilahdog11]

"Big business doesn't make more and more laws taking away your freedoms like big government does."

That is correct. Big business doesn't make laws because that isn't the responsibility of big business, but big business sure as hell does fund politicians that are willing to pass more and more laws regarding deregulation and loosening environmental laws. To name just a few, so big business does take away your freedoms.

"Big business doesn't waste your money in places you have no desire to spend it like big government does."

Big business doesn't have to waste your money because your money is wasted on corporate welfare. The government is our last watch dog against our country being run by corporations. We need to be educated about politics. Not listening to inane babble like this bullshit blog. Not like anyone on here doesn't already know that?

"Big business doesn't dictate to you how to educate your children like big government does."

Not really seeing her point. It isn't the job of big business to run public schools, but corporate welfare and social issues as they are presented by big media go along way to fucking the system. Also Texas Instruments does dictate how children are educated. They claim that they only way to learn math is to buy a calculator. They also print science books that attempt to dispell the theory of evolution.

"Big government can kill me, Coca Cola can't."

Actually Coca Cola can kill you. Diabetes anyone? Also there have been a couple reports of people landing in the hospital because they drank too much soda.

"Big government can take away my property and children,  Apple can't."

Big business does take away people's property by not paying living wages.

Her blog post made me all stabby. I need a drink.

[lilwriter85]

scienceteacher · 13 hours ago

I agree with most of what you mention here, however, the mention of education at the end concerns me. Without government funding for education, how would children become educated? Not all families have the resources

to send their children to private schools and/or home school them.

Yes, public education has issues. Yes, we are misusing assessments and over testing our children. Yes, there are major infrastructure issues with school buildings. Yes, we have unions that abuse their power and represent greed. But, despite all these negative things, there is still an obligation to provide a basic (k-12) education for all who desire it.

I do not profess (or even pretend) to have the answers to these issues, and I agree that there are big issues with the way the funding is handled and the way education is legislated for/against, but we can't completely obliterate the system.

I would be interested to hear your take on how this situation could be improved.

Lori's response

Lori Alexander · 7 hours ago

I would like to see a voucher system where people are given a choice what school their children should attend. Competition is a good thing. It would cause the schools to do their very best so they could get more children attending them instead of a monopoly like what the government run schools are today. It has been proven over and over again that private schools do a much better job educating the children than public schools.

Public schools have a lot of problems, but not every public school is horrible. Also Lori, you should know that not all private schools are good schools. I have a cousin who sent her sons to a very expensive private Catholic high school in northern California. Her sons are 19 and 21, and both had to take remedial math and English classes when they started college. I do wonder if my cousin's sons have learning disabilities, because for several years they struggled in school. I do have to wonder about the Catholic schools they attended.

kalarachel · 5 hours ago

I always lurk and never comment, but I feel compelled to this time. I agree that competition is usually a good thing and could be a good idea, I don't think the arguement of private being better than public is something so cut and dry.____Private doesn't have to follow state testing and has the freedom to teach in a more customized manner than my public school teaching husband. They are instructed to teach to the test and not focus on other aspects of learning.____Also a good percentage of people that place their children into private school do so because they can afford to and are involved parents who will play an active role in their education. Far too parents in public school just send their kids off and never want to put in the work that is required on the parental side to help their child succeed. When I taught I saw this alot, as does my husband and many other teaching friends. Like anything else, it starts at home.____

This comment pissed me off, because she is demonizing public school parents a bit too much. I know a lot of public school parents who do play an active role in their children's education. I know a few people, who move around just so their kids can attend the better public school districts/zones.

[emmiedahl]

lilwriter, you would not by chance be talking about a Catholic school in Palo Cedro, CA (Redding area) would you? There is a reason we schlepped my stepson to Red Bluff, where Mercy High School is located :)

[lilwriter85]

lilwriter, you would not by chance be talking about a Catholic school in Palo Cedro, CA (Redding area) would you? There is a reason we schlepped my stepson to Red Bluff, where Mercy High School is located :)

No, the school I'm taking about is in Stockton, CA. I have read several good reviews of that school, but sometimes it is hard to tell if those are good indications. I'm in contact with my cousin quite a bit and I've gotten to know her two boys. Some things seem off with them. My cousin and her husband struggled to send both boys to Catholic schools from K-12. I do give them a lot of credit for saving money and cutting back on luxuries to pay tuition. On the other hand, I still wonder, if they ever realized there were issues with their boys or some of the schools they attended. I have another cousin who also sent her boys to Catholic schools in another northern California towns from grades K-6 and she said there were problems with those schools.

[emmiedahl]

No, the school I'm taking about is in Stockton, CA. I have read several good reviews of that school, but sometimes it is hard to tell if those are good indications. I'm in contact with my cousin quite a bit and I've gotten to know her two boys. Some things seem off with them. My cousin and her husband struggled to send both boys to Catholic schools from K-12. I do give them a lot of credit for saving money and cutting back on luxuries to pay tuition. On the other hand, I still wonder, if they ever realized there were issues with their boys or some of the schools they attended. I have another cousin who also sent her boys to Catholic schools in other northern California towns from grades K-6 and she said there were problems with those schools.

We have had great luck with our Catholic schools, when we could afford them, but we did drive stepson #1 to a town over an hour away for a high school because the local one sucked. It was basically a dumping ground for spoiled, wealthy kids on the verge of being kicked out of public schools. I know Catholic schools can vary widely, just like public schools and perhaps even more so. It seems a shame to make sacrifices to pay high tuition and then not get a reward.

[lilwriter85]

"Big business doesn't make more and more laws taking away your freedoms like big government does."

That is correct. Big business doesn't make laws because that isn't the responsibility of big business, but big business sure as hell does fund politicians that are willing to pass more and more laws regarding deregulation and loosening environmental laws. To name just a few, so big business does take away your freedoms.

"Big business doesn't waste your money in places you have no desire to spend it like big government does."

Big business doesn't have to waste your money because your money is wasted on corporate welfare. The government is our last watch dog against our country being run by corporations. We need to be educated about politics. Not listening to inane babble like this bullshit blog. Not like anyone on here doesn't already know that?

"Big business doesn't dictate to you how to educate your children like big government does."

Not really seeing her point. It isn't the job of big business to run public schools, but corporate welfare and social issues as they are presented by big media go along way to fucking the system. Also Texas Instruments does dictate how children are educated. They claim that they only way to learn math is to buy a calculator. They also print science books that attempt to dispell the theory of evolution.

"Big government can kill me, Coca Cola can't."

Actually Coca Cola can kill you. Diabetes anyone? Also there have been a couple reports of people landing in the hospital because they drank too much soda.

"Big government can take away my property and children,  Apple can't."

Big business does take away people's property by not paying living wages.

Her blog post made me all stabby. I need a drink.

Texas Instruments is a good example of how big business can dictate how children are educated. I knew someone whose mom worked for TI. He never went into great detail about his mom's experiences. He basically said that TI and other companies that make educational tools and textbooks do control what is put in their products.

I also thought it was interesting that Lori put that in the posting. Sometime back, she had a posting about how sugar is bad for your health. I guess she must have forgot about that. Lori's son recently graduated from dental school, I'm sure she will be happy that he gets patients who may have dental issues related to excessive soda consumption.

[changemanagement]

I was less than impressed with the charter schools in my area. The test scores were at best equal to the public schools. While we were looking, we also found out the teachers didn't necessarily have to be certified.

Vouchers may work if there are some basic standards for participating schools. However that brings the evil government back into the equation. Darn.

[lilwriter85]

We have had great luck with our Catholic schools, when we could afford them, but we did drive stepson #1 to a town over an hour away for a high school because the local one sucked. It was basically a dumping ground for spoiled, wealthy kids on the verge of being kicked out of public schools. I know Catholic schools can vary widely, just like public schools and perhaps even more so. It seems a shame to make sacrifices to pay high tuition and then not get a reward.

I agree, it is a shame and I feel bad for my cousin because she spent 14 years paying high tuition. I think her boys will do ok in college, but she still talks about how they struggle with coursework and the remedial classes. I sometimes feel like telling her that she should have either had her boys tested for learning disabilities, or asked around if some of her sons' classmates were struggling.

[Gizmola]

Caveat: I do not have children.

With that in mind, I do not believe in the voucher program which diverts money from public schools. Well-funded public schools are in the best interests of every citizen, whether they have or do not have children, send their kids to private school or can't afford to send their children to private schools. Public schools exist to allow education to be accessible to every child, who has no control over their own education during their formative years. Some parents will be heavily involved with their children's education whether they send them to public or private school. Some parents will be totally absent no matter what. The point is not the parents, on whom we can only put so much stock because no matter what there will always be those children who are, in a sense, on their own. So it is the responsibility of a civilized and progressive society to support an educational system that accounts for those lost children.

I do not have children, as I mentioned above. I still, however, pay a school tax as part of my property taxes. I am very happy to do so even though I will never have children and will never utilize those services personally and directly. I amend that - I will utilize those services for one day those children will be doing everything for me, whether it is being a doctor, a lawyer, an actor, a garbageman, or the President. I consider paying for public education as an investment in my future and the future of our society as a whole.

Because of that investment, it's in my best self-interest to support, both ideologically and financially, the public school system.

[GeoBQn]

The voucher and charter school system is absolutely decimating the Milwakuee public school system. Charter schools, as a whole, do not produce better results than public schools. It only appears that way because they have the luxury of denying admission to children who don't perform at a certain level, who have learning disabilities and special needs, and who have behavior problems. They can also kick out students who don't perform well. All of these children end up in the public school system, which cannot turn anyone away and must educate everyone with increasingly tighter budgets thanks to the state diverting funds to the voucher program. (At least in Wisconsin, charter schools are considered private even though they accept taxpayer money.) Last year, a disability rights group called for an investigation into Wisconsin's voucher program claiming that the system is discriminatory to children with disabilities.

http://www.aclu.org/racial-justice/aclu ... ol-voucher

[Wolfie]

Actually Coca Cola can kill you. Diabetes anyone? Also there have been a couple reports of people landing in the hospital because they drank too much soda.

I'm no fan of big business, and I'm not going to say that Coca Cola is good for you, but it isn't a cause of diabetes- now if somebody has a genetic predispostion, and eats an unheatlhy diet, it can be a contributor, but it's not a sole cause.

Not to mention that the type II that runs in my family hits people who are very healthy otherwise, very active, not overweight and eat well. The media has spread a lot of misinformation on all the causes of diabetes. Type I is totally random and not at all connected to genetics, lifestyle or diet.

Okay, off my soapbox.

[Wolfie]

Public schools have a lot of problems, but not every public school is horrible. Also Lori, you should know that not all private schools are good schools. I have a cousin who sent her sons to a very expensive private Catholic high school in northern California. Her sons are 19 and 21, and both had to take remedial math and English classes when they started college. I do wonder if my cousin's sons have learning disabilities, because for several years they struggled in school. I do have to wonder about the Catholic schools they attended.

This is true of about 50% of the people I know who went to private schools. So many kids have had to do remedial courses after going to a very expensive private school. (my cousin being one of them)

I also will say that when I was a substitute teacher, I subbed at a few private schools. Only one of them was one where I would feel comfortable sending my own children

[Kristelle]

I honestly don't understand why people have such a problem with public schools.

I graduated a public high school last year, and I couldn't find any problems that you wouldn't find in any other school, private or public. I didn't have a problem keeping up with coursework my first year of college, either. I've heard that New York public schools are some of the best in the country, so that may be a contributor. I would have liked if the school system put more emphasis on math when I was in school, though, because it's the ony subject I struggle with.

[emmiedahl]

My son went to a highly ranked charter school in CA and it was the answer to a prayer because we could not afford Catholic school anymore. I researched the schools in my area heavily and this one was top notch. But it had a heavy parental involvement requirement and also really dedicated teachers who felt they could do better than they were allowed to in the general public schools. So everyone involved was gung-ho about giving the kids everything. It was a win-win situation and I left with a great impression of charter schools. I am really sad to hear about all the problems with other charter schools because I think that parental choice can be a really great thing.

Also, in my former area the charter schools all functioned as magnet schools. Ours was heavy on science and technology, like real science. A lot of their reading and language arts were on scientific topics and the math was explored from a scientific angle when possible.

I have mixed feelings about charter schools because I would like for parents to be able to select the mode of education that is best for their child. If a group of parents is willing to pull together and work hard at a school like ours that required heavy parental involvement, why not? I can see the issues for children who have special needs that will not be served in a charter school. Yet I get weary of the argument that involved parents need to leave their children in failing public schools because we are doing a disservice to the children of parents who do not care. Obviously I care about the success of every single child, but on the other hand my first duty is to my own crotch droppings.

I volunteered at my children's current school, a public school, and ended up reading with 2nd graders who are behind every time. The need is so great that I cannot fill it. Yet at the charter school, my time was spent doing things that benefited my own children, like running their Odyssey of the Minds group. So, here is the perspective of a parent who is very torn on the issue.

[flojo]

I dislike the assumption that private schools do better. I left a comment basically sharing with her the PISA study, which found that in the US, once results were ajusted for socio economic status etc, private schools perform slightly worse.

I als mentioned to her the Stanford CREDO study on charter schools (which I figure is the closet there is to a voucher system), which found that 17% of Chrster schools did perform better than contemporary public schools, but 37% performed worse.

[alba]

I can't think of any examples where big business has directly killed people, but it has certainly indirectly done so. They cut corners on safety. They're the reason so many people are unemployed and can't feed their children. Big insurance businesses are the reason people can't afford healthcare. Just because they haven't lined people up and put bullets in their brains doesn't mean they don't kill people.

Caveat: I do not have children.

With that in mind, I do not believe in the voucher program which diverts money from public schools. Well-funded public schools are in the best interests of every citizen, whether they have or do not have children, send their kids to private school or can't afford to send their children to private schools. Public schools exist to allow education to be accessible to every child, who has no control over their own education during their formative years. Some parents will be heavily involved with their children's education whether they send them to public or private school. Some parents will be totally absent no matter what. The point is not the parents, on whom we can only put so much stock because no matter what there will always be those children who are, in a sense, on their own. So it is the responsibility of a civilized and progressive society to support an educational system that accounts for those lost children.

I do not have children, as I mentioned above. I still, however, pay a school tax as part of my property taxes. I am very happy to do so even though I will never have children and will never utilize those services personally and directly. I amend that - I will utilize those services for one day those children will be doing everything for me, whether it is being a doctor, a lawyer, an actor, a garbageman, or the President. I consider paying for public education as an investment in my future and the future of our society as a whole.

Because of that investment, it's in my best self-interest to support, both ideologically and financially, the public school system.

I'm childfree and this is pretty much how I feel about public school.

[Childless]

I think we should run our educational system like most Europeans do. Each child is assigned a monetary value each year and they can take that money and enroll in whatever school they wish. It forces the public schools to compete with private/parochial schools and, in my opinion, makes them better. There is still government oversight of all the schools (even private/parochial schools) in that they must meet certain requirements. They must be doing something right over there as nearly all Western European schools (and even a few Eastern European ones) outperform schools in the U.S. Europeans also spend less money per student than we do here in the States. Throwing more money at the public schools isn't going to solve our problem. I don't feel the teacher's union is the problem either. I think our issues stem from uninvolved parents and outdated theories on education.

Back to the subject of the original post, I think that most often corporations are a bigger harm to our society than the government is.

[Kaylee]

I can't think of any examples where big business has directly killed people, but it has certainly indirectly done so.

It happened a lot, usually under the guise of anti-union measures, but most of those were pretty clear moves by big business to keep a hold over the workers and try to stop them from pushing for fair pay or safer working conditions.

In the late 1800s and on through at least the 1940s, there were several times big business hired the Pinkertons and similar "private detective" agencies as armed guards to intimidate striking workers, and several times this ended up with workers and sometimes random civilians being shot and killed. Sometimes militias and even police departments were used, but even then there were times when they shot unarmed strikers under the guise of putting down a riot (The 1937 Memorial Day massacre of unarmed Republic Steel strikers by Chicago police is one example).

This happened mostly with miners and steel mill workers - the "Harlan County War", Battle of Blair Mountain, & Ludlow Massacre. With the mines, since most of the housing and stores were owned by the companies and workers were often paid in scrip that could only be used at company stores, there were long strikes where people's families died from starvation and exposure because they were stuck living outside in tents and without food, like during the Paint Creek Cabin strike in West Virginia.

[The Archivist]

I don't understand this either. I don't see Jesus as a capitalist.

I don't get this about Republicans in general. Any concentration of power in one place is a bad sign for democracy.

[jaynie]

I can't think of any examples where big business has directly killed people, but it has certainly indirectly done so. They cut corners on safety. They're the reason so many people are unemployed and can't feed their children. Big insurance businesses are the reason people can't afford healthcare. Just because they haven't lined people up and put bullets in their brains doesn't mean they don't kill people.

Another example of indirectly killing people might be recklessly promoting unsafe products regardless of facts. For example, until the big scary government intervened, cigarette companies were all about marketing to children, who generally lack the ability to think about advertising critically. This was happening well after the link between cigarettes and cancer had been established. I mean, I can't think of a clearer demonstration that big business prioritizes profits over people!

I don't understand people who trust businesses over government *at all*. I may not much like the government, but at least if they do a terrible job we can vote them out come election time. (which can't come soon enough as far as this Canadian is concerned).