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→Jun 07, 2011 — Rochester Teachers To Demonstrate
http://rochester.patch.com/articles/rochester-teachers-to-demonstrate-after-school-today#comment_883570
http://rochester.patch.com/articles/rochester-teachers-to-demonstrate-after-school-today#comment_883570
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Note 13
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“Public Education is a Monopoly”
“Public Education is Totalitarianism”
“Your Local Police Force is a Monopoly”
“Your Department of Corrections is a Monopoly”
“{{Insert Your Favorite Public Institution Here}} is a Monopoly”
“Asking your elected representative to account for his contact with lobbyists is McCarthyism”
We've been hearing those comedy routines so often lately from certain players that I'm beginning to suspect they all come straight out of the same script. They are, of course, the sheerest nonsense.
(Patchbot says my comment is too long. I will break it here and continue below.)
http://rochester.patch.com/articles/rochester-teachers-to-demonstrate-after-school-today#comment_885840
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Note 14
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Let's examine the last of those howlers on our stage.
We must respect the offices of our public servants. Those offices are the vehicles of sacred duties, and that is true whether or not the people holding those offices are fully cognizant of their real obligations or not. At any rate, the public office-holders work for us. When the offices are those of our elected representatives, their job is to represent our concerns and our interests to the Legislature, not to act as PR agents for the interests of some corporation in Kansas or the wildest dreams of some crypto-lobby in Washington.
So don't be fooled by that McCarthyism dodge.
No one is calling some Hollywood producer on the carpet for the alleged “pinkness” of his last film. That is what Joe McCarthy did — and that was not his right.
What we can do is call our employees to account for the quality of their job performances, including how and where they spend their time while supposedly working on our clock and payroll. That is all anyone is doing here — and that is our right.
They call that “accountability”, “responsibility”, or “transparency”, and they say it's good thing. I would have to agree, but only when it's a two-way street.
http://rochester.patch.com/articles/rochester-teachers-to-demonstrate-after-school-today#comment_885846
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