Yale professor who studies fascism fleeing US to work in Canada
theguardian.com
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Paying large sums of taxes for a school that is unquestionably failing my children, with no option to attend another school (without shelling an unfathomable amount of money for private schooling), feels like educational authoritarianism to me.
Either every university should get subsidies proportional to the effectiveness of their graduates or no universities should get any subsidies at all.
I am pretty sure secular policies would be avoiding advocating or prohibiting for atheism just as it would for any other form of views that fall into religious or faith beliefs.
That's the introduction from Wikipedia, which matches my understanding of the definition. It's not synonymous with atheism. However, given its stated mission of minimizing religion, it seems like it would be relatively unconcerned if atheism were to be treated more favorably.
> Secularism is not necessarily antithetical to religion, but may be compatible with it.
Generally applied to civil affairs means that it is not inherently interested in minimizing religion in personal lives.
Likewise, if a state relies on a religion for its legitimacy, then the religion chooses who is valid to serve in government and governs the practice of those outside it's congregation.
The church should be a refuge from the state, not necessarily in opposition, but in a protective sense. It should provide a way to live, but not be the only way to live. If needs be, then the state should be a refuge from the church.
As for these dogmas, if they exist, it's that they allow the things you speak of to exist and provide a framework for those things to be safely practiced. None of those things are crimes when practiced within a framework of law, but instead are the choices of free individuals and should always remain so. They are not religious functions, but secular ones. Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's; even Jesus was OK with that.
Your mistake is equating the belief they should exist with hatred - I they should be allowed to exist for all and any restrictions in their use or practice by an individual should be governed by that that individual's conscience.
Per my religion, God gave us Free Will. The State doesn't get to take that away.
Really, the government shouldn't be in the business of recognizing religions at all.
From what I understand it usually works better to pay for results rather than effort.
"Success" is often neither quantifiable nor immediately obvious.
So, how to achieve good results, if they are needed upfront to get subsidies and subsidies are needed to offer opportunities to achieve results?
It's not always better to pay for results. Paying for effort would also allow the headcount and university size to be regulated by the market. If you are a university no one wants to adhere to, then you also would not get any subsidies and have an incentive to become better in whatever you teach, without questioning first, where to get the money from.
I see it as a try to remove people without money from education. That fits with all the wisdom trump is producing every single day. Stupid.
Universities are pretty much always basically regional-monopolies, while it's true that not every university gets the same amount of applicants, I don't think they're struggling to get students altogether? But I'm not American, so maybe it's different in the USA?
If it's not different in the US, then this kind of subsidy is much worse then the result based one, because their incentive ends at getting people into courses, not successfully finishing them. So from a profit incentive, keeping them an extra year is highly desirable
The state supports, say, history teaching so religious artefacts should be partly financed by the state.
Which ones is the question.
Note: I am French, profoundly atheist and actively anti religion. But I love yhe culture and thus the history of my country.
Anyways, moving is not an option for me, as I have local dependents that I am responsible for taking care of and who would be abandoned if I left.
But, to answer your confusion, the median house price almost doubles in this area. So it's economically infeasible.
Besides all that, it seems like you simply disagree with the fact that this is a problem at all. If that's the case, we can agree to disagree.
Secondly, I am confused as to what you think should be done. Because it appears that you do not like paying a lot of tax money but expect there to be affordable quality education available?
I mean, if you want more educational options available in your area then presumably that means the government at some level (local, county, state, federal) would have to pay for it which means an increase in taxes (for someone at least).
Third, you did say "Low-income families have a higher probability of raising children in a dysfunctional home who then become a burden on the local school district. " So it seems fair to suggest that you should consider raising the level of your income to meet your desired needs.
Fourth, in all fairness I don't have children so I am not sure why I should have to pay any tax what-so-ever for your child to receive a poor education.
Because it’s a shared societal good, like government, roads, policing, defense, energy infrastructure, and many other things. An uneducated populace would burden everyone.
Beyond that, unless you went exclusively to private school, you also benefited from the system and it’s not unfair for you to now contribute.
I shouldn't be locked into a specific school based on where I live. If there's a school 20 miles away that I think would be a better fit for my children, I should be able to take them there. Basically, I'm arguing for a free market.
Otherwise what you're suggesting is that you should be able to place your child in a school that you yourself do not pay taxes towards since you're not in that district.
So other people in that district should disproportionately support your child's education compared to what you are?
This is what I meant earlier. Since you don't see a problem here, we're basically just talking past each other. The fact that I can't register my child within any school in driving distance represents a problem to me.
> So other people in that district should disproportionately support your child's education compared to what you are?
This is a symptom of the broken system that I am trying to present here. There are many existing proposals to amend it. For example, allow parents to use the taxes they are paying with any school. If I pay $5k in taxes annually, and the school 20 miles away pays $10k annually, then I can make up the $5k myself. The point is that I have a choice.
Moving is the current market solution or private schools.
> For example, allow parents to use the taxes they are paying with any school. If I pay $5k in taxes annually, and the school 20 miles away pays $10k annually, then I can make up the $5k myself. The point is that I have a choice.
Sounds like a good solution. Not having children then I should also have the choice to not pay any tax towards other people's children's education.
I'd certainly be in favor of that. I don't expect anyone to subsidize my children's education. Granted, as one commenter pointed out, some people believe it to be a societal good (like state-sponsored health care), so you're likely to get a lot of pushback.
But I think the current system lacks the correct incentives. My theory is that free market competition among public schools, similar to what we have in universities, will align the incentives more than they do now. The first step is introducing consumer choice back into the system.
Why not just remove the middle man and eliminate public education then?
This is a red herring. Local taxes are not the only source of funding, and state / federal finding is deliberately allocated in a way that makes up the difference. Or iirc often more than makes up the difference.
I don’t see how that makes your child’s school better, can you explain how we get from A to B?
My point is that during the time period where USA was considered fascist-fighting heroes according to the mainstream account, they themselves had many views that were considered normal back then but strongly “fascist” today. I guess the definition of fascist must have changed?
Nowadays fascism has become synonymous with right extremists in popular culture, I guess because it's an easy way to discredit a political opponent.
I believe that scholars who study political science have a different and more consistent definition of fascism, though it too likely evolved to capture the essential characteristics of related ideologies.
A significant difference between Jim Crow's America and fascist regimes is the concentration of power into the hands of one man (or a small group). That means that separation of power (executive, judiciary, legislative) that existed through American history did not exist in Fascist Italy or Nazi Germany. Another one is nationalism. There are likely others.
Check out this summary of Umberto Eco's Ur-Fascism essay, with 14 characteristics of fascist movements/regimes.
https://www.openculture.com/2024/11/umberto-ecos-list-of-the...
Like many diagnostic criteria, it's not sufficient to only check one or two of the boxes. It's also worth being honest and examining the aspects of American culture that have made it particularly susceptible to fascism.
Many scholars consider that Nazism was greatly inspired by American racism. Calling 1923 America fascist would be anachronistic, but also American racist policies were less related to Italian fascism than to Nazi doctrines. But plenty of scholars make the connection. Here is an example: [0].
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-American-Model-United-States/...
I’m commenting on the apparent worldview contradiction or blind spot in people who are calling current events and people fascist.
To return your argument, if you poll people who call current events fascists and ask them if that 1923 Supreme court decision is fascist, would you be as confident that 95% would say it's not?
That people's view of fascism has changed after world war 2 is obvious and not particularity insightful. So has their view of antisemitism for instance.
I also should add that I agree with you on the great danger of labeling too many things fascists, including the current events. It is entirely possible to oppose Trump's second term and even think that it is a threat to democracy without resorting to calling it fascist. It is also possible to compare it with the rise of fascist regimes if one provides appropriate arguments.
I just don't think that your example with 1920s America illustrates that point particularly well.
The Left has spoken of "bundling" for many years now (of issues or complaints, or, looked at another way, of identity or pressure groups). That too is the idea of the fasces. The word "bundle" again suggests it.
I also note that there is a certain irony here, because, besides "fasces", we already have a succinct two-syllable word meaning "a bundle of twigs".
There is also the tasty cognate, "fajita".
I’m guessing not the people literally using the slogans of the American movement that opposed fighting fascism.
> Or was the US fascist in 1923 when the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind that Indians aren’t white and therefore can’t be granted citizenship?
It was racist (which, alone, is not sufficient to be fascist, though fascist governments are often racists and the Nazis were specifically inspired by US race policy in their racism) when it adopted the naturalization law that the Supreme Court interpreted in that case, sure.
(The fixed country-based caps in current immigration law are also largely based in racism, but a much more mild expression of it than the whites-only naturalization rule.)
I'm just one person. It's anecdotal but speaks volumes that I'd know that many.
2. If anything it's "fascism lite" and it's only for 4 years.
3. I'm not sure that forcing some belt tightening on a bloated academia is the worst thing in the world.
Didn't get any better under Obama, we saw a massive increase in the surveillance state under his tenure. It was incredible how quickly the media dropped the journo wiretapping scandal.
Let's also not forget the summer of love riots and the behaviour of protestors storming the congress over justice Kavanagh, they've galvanised the right somewhat. Over here we have a growing right wing movement that came from the COVID lockdowns, where our elites and institutions pretty much burned every scrap of goodwill we afforded them for seemingly no end.
The post war paradigm is dead, and I don't think we have the language to describe the new one that's currently forming yet.
Not like this one. The free speech censorship now is hugely worrying, not to mention the recent inhumane treatment to people for things like a denied Visa. It's pretty bad. I'm not sure people are paying enough attention.
Now they have Project 2025 and people who know how to dismantle the system efficiently.
There won't be a fair presidential election in the US in 4 years unless something drastic happens, like the democrats winning a supermajority in the congress and house.