liberty · equality · eternity

There’s a lot of banter about fairness these days. What is fair?

No one tossing around the term provides specifics, even one-termers. The implication is that those better off than you are should pay more taxes. (That does seem fair.)

Of course, there is nothing fair about extortion. A case could be made that taxation is reasonable under a representative government. It would be impossible to make the case that the United States has a representative or proper government, since the politicians have legislated inequitable elections and routinely exceed the Constitutional limits of their authority. Most government boondoggles were initiated before we were born.

Recently, Elizabeth Warren, late of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, made waves saying that nobody in the USA got rich “on his own.”

According to her rhetoric, “You built a factory out there. Good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods on roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for.”

Her assumptions bode ill for us should she become the next senator from Massachusetts. Roads, education and public safety are state, not federal, responsibilities. And they are handled poorly by government.

One of these areas, Education, is becoming the nation’s greatest disaster, in tandem with the expansion of the Department of Education (DOE) since 1979. Costs have soared, results have deteriorated.

The problem centres around government schools. Politicians are aware of public education’s failings, most of them enrolling their children in private institutions. Unfortunately, Ms Warren is correct that we all pay for these failing schools, whether or not we have children. Predictably, the government’s monopoly is not working. Poor and average-income parents need choices that are offered to only the wealthy and the lucky.

The latest rub in the educational tub is arresting parents for stealing schooling.

“What?” you ask. I thought the problems were skipping school, dropping out and graduating without basic skills. Or inability to fire totally incompetent teachers or reward outstanding teachers.

Apparently not. There is a nationwide effort by localities to arrest parents for sending their children to an “inappropriate” school.

In one well-publicised case, Kelley Williams-Bolar was arrested in Akron, Ohio, 18 months after her children were forced out of a school not their district, although she maintains that they live part-time at her father’s house in the district where he pays taxes. She was convicted of two felonies and served nine days in jail for refusing to reimburse the school district $30,000 in back tuition.
  Rulers nail criminal mastermind Williams-Bolar 

Governor John Kasich (R) reduced the charges against Williams-Bolar to misdemeanors saying, “It seemed to me that the penalty was excessive for the offence.” He did not pardon her, so she will have a criminal record, as others continue to be persecuted for daring to get their children into better schools. Government not only makes schooling mandatory, they decree which school your will children attend.

While on probation, Ms Williams-Bolar must serve 80 hours of community service, not consume drugs or alcohol and pay the cost of her prosecution. She sent her children to another school because she did not feel her neighbourhood was safe, despite the taxpayer-financed police force.

Hers is no isolated case. Similar arrests have occurred in Connecticut, Kentucky and Missouri over the past year.  According to Michael Flaherty in the Wall Street Journal, “From California to Massachusetts, districts are hiring special investigators to follow children from school to their homes to determine their true residences and decide if they belong at high-achieving public schools.”

Since these cases involve minority parents in Democratic precincts, does that mean Democrats are racist? I’ll have to consult Janeane Garofalo.

Cali-bureaucrats do not see irony, or they could not be so scrupulous about where citizens attend school, as they promote education for illegal aliens. Wanna guess what happens when they find a non-citizen “stealing” schooling?

They don’t demand thousands of dollars, for that would be heartless.

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On the subject of illegals, the best comment ever is at the beginning of a Julie Brown song (“Those Latin Boys”) on her fine new album: