I’m not sure how to title this post, because the utter stupidity of the conversation that sparked it annoyed me so much I needed a couple of days to decide how to approach the subject.
Two days ago Minnesota held Primary Elections. I was outside letting Ragnar snuffle around instead of doing the business he was supposed to be doing, and my neighbor walked by. I’ve talked about her before, and to be fair we mostly get along. But Tuesday she received a real response from me, because her self-absorbed stupid was just amazing.
She started the conversation by complaining that our property taxes will go up again because my city had “yet another stupid school levy pass”.
Ok, I was confused at the bitter snarky tone. “Why is that a problem? Good schools mean good neighborhoods which mean good housing prices and upkeep.” I honestly think she expected me, a single woman with no kids, to actually agree with her. Instead I continued, “I don’t have kids but I WANT good schools, so I’m happy to pay the levies…a good school system makes the whole city better to live in.”
Selfish to the core, she immediately changed tactics, because ultimately her fussing is purely based on “I don’t have kids in school, why should I have to pay” which I find to be an underlying formula based on self-absorbed myopia among many MAGA folks: “I don’t have/do x, so I shouldn’t have to pay for y.” Yeah. I’ll get to that idiot argument in a minute. Her argument changed to “well it all goes into teacher pensions anyway, none of the kids see any of that money.”
OH MY FUCKING GODDESS, YOU SELFISH IDIOT.
I didn’t say it out loud. I so wanted to. Instead I said, calmly, “So…teachers already don’t get paid enough for what they’re doing, and you begrudge them a decent pension after they spend decades putting their own money toward underfunded school supplies and work ridiculous numbers of hours for ridiculously low pay to educate the people who will eventually run the nursing home you end up in? I disagree.”
She flounced (as well as a 70 year old cranky old bat can flounce, anyway) with the following parting shot: “Nobody paid for MY pension and I never made enough money. Why should I pay for them?” Can you hear the nasty combination of whine and bitterness in her tone? I did. Ugh. Then she slammed the door, thus endeth her proclamation.
So, as amusing and idiotic as she is, the whole conversation disturbs the crap out of me, particularly in this current political climate and with an a-hole like Betsy Davros at the helm of national education directives. Let’s remember what the difference is between SOCIALISM and SOCIETY is, shall we, because there seems to be some serious confusion regarding freedom, socialism, education, and the benefits/responsibilities of living in a society by a whole fuckload of selfish asshats since the idiot cheeto came to power.
- If you drive on roads, YOU BENEFIT FROM SOCIETY.
- If you get city water/sewer service to your house, YOU BENEFIT FROM SOCIETY.
- If your public education is decent, your neighborhood is more desirable.
- If your neighborhood is more desirable, your housing prices rise (including the value of your own property, which is essentially an investment of many folks’ personal wealth) and those who buy into the neighborhood tend to take care of their property, and YOU BENEFIT FROM SOCIETY.
- If your home is on fire and you call the fire department, YOU BENEFIT FROM SOCIETY.
- If you have need to call 911 for cops or paramedics, YOU BENEFIT FROM SOCIETY.
If you can read, you can learn to understand the laws (you know, laws enacted by society?). If you can understand the laws, you can support or dissent. If you can disagree with a law you understand, you can discuss with others and potentially change the law. Freedom requires participation, which in our country usually requires at least a base level of education. Otherwise, you are just going along with what others impose upon you and your say is silenced.
- Just for the record – SOCIALISM is defined as follows: a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
No Pithy Phrase 