Yessiree Bob, the private sector thinks of nothing all day except inventing new ways to oppress us, while our fierce advocates in the public sector valiantly protect us. Yet according to this, high-profile New York business leaders have prepared an open letter calling for marriage equality in that state, citing reasons from recruiting the best talent to simple fairness. Same-sex marriage failed in the State Senate two years ago.
The article notes, "Some of the business leaders are close to the Senate Republican caucus, which voted unanimously against the marriage bill two years ago." In other words, Republican politicians are now pitted against what is nominally one of their core constituencies. A while back, I noted some reasons here.
"Government is always more progressive than the private sector". To be honest, this sounds like the kind of bad parody of "the left" that comes from consumer-addicts of the Republican spin machine's product. The quoted sentiment I see and hear NOWHERE.
ReplyDeleteWhat I see and hear all over is the assertion the "Business can do anything better than government". It's the excuse to privatize almost everything (except those things that are considered so important that they can't be left to the opportunism and the flakiness of private business -- like the military and the post office. Meanwhile it's a convenient bit of ideological resistance against government health insurance, which has small overheads (4% if poorly run) compared to private insurance (easily 25% or more overhead), with much greater difficult in actually getting necessary medical services. I'd say if there's real fundamentalist sentiment in regard to business versus government, it's virtually all on the pro-business side these days.
"The quoted sentiment I see and hear NOWHERE."
ReplyDeleteReally? You and I must travel in different circles and read different media, since I hear it fairly often. Also, your statement about "bad parody" shows that Poe's law isn't limited to religious extremism.
"except those things that are considered so important that they can't be left to the opportunism and the flakiness of private business -- like the military and the post office."
Yeah, 'cause the public sector always has a lower level of opportunism and flakiness, particularly in the military and the post office.
One other point, if I may. Regarding the difference between government health insurance and private health insurance, you may wish to look into the ways in which health care actually works in countries around the developed world before making such arguments. Some of the "socialized" health-care systems are in fact less socialized than is the US system.
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