Welcoming the New Indentured Servitude

 So, there's a new crowdfunding idea that seems brilliant on the surface, utterly brilliant. Basically, those with more money would pay off part or all of the the soaring student debts of college grads in return for a cut of their paychecks for a contractual length of time. And right now, it's a fair system. The amount taken is based on what you make--meaning if your paycheck drops so does the payment you make--and nothing I see says that a contractee is required to work for the person they're contracted to, though there does seem to be a potential mentor/mentee relationship depending on the plan. This could be a real, workable solution until something better comes along, one of those touchy-feely, pay it forward sort of things.

Ideally this would be wonderful.

Ideally.

But before students start celebrating in the streets, lets have a long hard think about this. Imagine it, not now, with well meaning people who simply want to give others a hand, but five years down the road, or ten. Imagine it after it's become a successful and profitable venture, successful and profitable enough to be sold to a larger company, or for a larger company to notice and start cashing into the same business model. Because if it turns out to pay well and turn a nice profit, the big boys will get in on it, and do you honestly think they'll play fair with young grads who are just desperate to eat and keep a roof over their heads? We already have full blown slavery in this country (and have had, for a while), do we need to totally relive the sins of the past by opening the door again for the possibility of indentured servants?

Plus, if it does work it will detract from the real discussion we should be having, which is how to get affordable education to everyone. And if it becomes a viable business model, then no one will WANT to make education affordable because doing so would mean shutting down an industry and getting rid of jobs.

Plus, what we're really saying is we're getting rid of even the flimsiest of excuses that the rich are robbing from the poor. This will be an insanely easy game plan to wealth, no work required:

1) Set education too high to afford
2) Swoop in like a white knight to back struggling students
3) For no more reason than the fact you are ALREADY rich, dip your hand into their pocket, stealing part of the earnings that they worked and worked hard for and that you only have access to because you could give them charity when they were down
4) Continue to rig the deck to set even more people on an educational course into debt, back them with the money you made stealing from the last set of students, and continue to grow the debt pot indefinitely, as well as increase the amount of workers who are contractually unable to leave your influence until you choose to let them go

Appendix: Lobby Congress for laws in your favor and against students, and use the money you have to block any reforms to education or any individual or group challenges to the increasingly cutthroat and unmanageable contracts you place on the heads of young people. While you're at it, be sure to put in arbitration clauses that take away their right to sue and other flim-flamery that takes away their rights as workers and sometimes their constitutional rights--all things you can do as a private business. Then sit back and enjoy your slaves-in-all-but-name.

Yes, this is a fantastic idea at first glance. But ONLY at first glance. You have to think a year ahead, two years, five, ten. Think what a single mom would agree to in order to feed her kids. What a foolish, undertaught student may agree to, or a person on the edge of ruin and desperate to keep from becoming homeless.

We'd need laws in place to protect them, but our laws aren't doing so well these days. Florida just passed a law that basically says not only can the state's workers not have sick days, it's against the law to even broach the topic for future discussion. They outlawed even talking about the possibility of reversing the law. And even if that is unconstitutional (which it might not be), what took less than a month to do could take a decade or even two to undo, and a lot of money. Arbitration clauses take away a worker's right to sue, or really even have their grievances looked at and fairly judged. We have defunded OSHA to the point factories are exploding all over the US, and yet there is no discussion of correcting the deficiency. Instead, there's a push to defund the FDA, EPA, and any other protective agency, as well. Filming what happens on factory farms has been outlawed, and violators may even be labeled as terrorists. And who can forget that we still haven't lifted a finger to put a single meaningful restriction on Wall Street, even after they have repeatedly been caught doing the same crooked shit that nearly crashed the world economy.

Laws are being judged in favor of businesses left and right, so if this business model takes off, realistically speaking, in whose favor do you think any conflicts will be decided? College students without two pennies to rub together? Or the guys with the big bucks?

Someone pointed out there is precedent for this, as it's very similar to the way high stakes poker players get their funding. However, poker is a one shot deal. Those who back poker players are gambling just as much as the player himself is. If they pick the wrong "horse," they lose everything, and they know it. College kids are a steady stream of unlimited income, as long as you keep them impoverished and desperate enough to keep them signing those contracts. So if you're going to make a for-profit business model to "help the poor," would it really be in your best interest to actually help them? Really?

I think, until things become more equalized, this is opening a very ugly door, one that, if it swings wide, we may never be able to shut again. This should not be looked at in the short term or in one-off situations, but long tern and in context to our society as a whole. The whole changes the picture, and not for the better.

Statistics, Word Semantics, and Gun "Control"

Just because it's infuriating me at the moment, let me take an instant to talk about the paranoid causality people like to make of gun death statistics.

Every time the subject of guns comes up, people like to wave around statistics that show the more gun ownership there is, the more gun-related deaths there are. You know what I say to that?

WELL, DUH.

You know what else has a high body count? Automobiles. In fact, in places where governments allow more car ownership, there is a statistical increase in car related deaths. So where is our movement to get rid of cars?

Now, before any of my non-existent readers segue into the "but you don't use cars to run over a grade school full of kids" argument, please realize that my beef is with the often quoted statistic and the implications behind it. I will leave the broader issues of where and why I think we have a gun violence problem in this country to another post.

When you allow something dangerous into your life--drugs, needles, knives, cars, guns, prescription medications, ladders, etc.--you are increasing the possibility you will die from it. When you allow it on a wide spread basis, then that statistical probability goes up even more. YES, more people die from guns in countries that allow guns, YES, in countries where guns are sparse on the ground so are gun deaths. DUH. In other news, water is wet and the sky is blue.

An increased chance of being hurt by a dangerous item is the agreement you make when you take said dangerous item into your home. It is, in essence, the price of ownership. And the price we pay as a country to allow guns in our borders is the knowledge that, sooner or later, someone will misuse them.

The question we should be asking is not how to ban or control guns, because we've pretty much collectively agreed we either like the buggers, or just like the right to keep our options open. We don't want to ban or control guns, at all, ever, period. So be it.

What our question should be is: how do we respond to those who would use guns in a criminal manner?

Do you see the distinction? Our focus should not be guns, but people. Focusing on guns is simply a rehash of the same old question--do we want guns in this country and if so, to what capacity? The answers have been resounding after every crisis--yes we do, and in any capacity we damn well please. Asking the question again and again is not changing the answer, so it's time to start asking different questions. And it's time to start focusing our answers, not on the object, but on the person holding it.

How do we ensure that we can keep bad people/crazy people from getting guns? How do we regulate the use of our accepted tools (yes, a gun is a tool, ask any hunter) so that we can play with our toys in the safest manner possible, so that enthusiasts can collect, so that poor families can hunt, so that we can have home self defense without fear that that defense will blow up in our faces?

And to correct a rather widespread misconception, this isn't gun control. You'll notice we don't call getting a license or obeying speed limits "vehicular control." Why? Because it isn't. It's our way of making one of the tools we need to survive (cars/transportation) as safe for ourselves and others as possible. It's our way of controlling the people behind the wheel, not the vehicles themselves. Just like we have laws about proper road behavior, we should have laws about proper gun behavior, a series of laws that outlines the hows and whys of use so that we can drastically reduce the incidences of people harming other people using these items. People control.

So, if you want to see meaningful changes, stop buying into the spin by calling it gun control, and  by all the gods, stop using stupid statistics in trying to call for said "gun control." It really makes those of us who aim for responsible and safe gun ownership look like dumbasses, and that isn't helping our argument any.

Rant-o-matic complete.