The policy forced sterilization of indigenous people that went on from the postwar period up until the start of the 21st century is an excellent example.
I have always found confusing the existence of the gendarmes. They are indeed a vestigial force of the XIXth century, and should be transformed into a regular police force.
On the contrary, they are more relevant than ever in today's era of peacekeeping and anti-terrorism activities. They are fundamental to the stabilisation of the Balkans, for example. They fill the gap between full war and "normal" (punctual) criminality.
How about companies like Google and Apple collecting 30% off the top the last 15 years? They're the ones not providing that oversight and boy is *doing nothing* profitable: in court Apple revealed 75% profit margin on their fees!
> Senior described Schmidt being “violently interrogated” at Logan Airport for hours, and being stripped naked, put in a cold shower by two officials, and being put back onto a chair.
> She said Schmidt told her immigration agents pressured him to give up his green card. She said he was placed on a mat in a bright room with other people at the airport, with little food or water, suffered sleep deprivation, and was denied access to his medication for anxiety and depression.
> “He hardly got anything to drink. And then he wasn’t feeling very well and he collapsed,” said Senior.
> He was transported by ambulance to Mass General Hospital. He didn’t know it at the time, but he also had influenza.
It's torture even if applied to guilty people. But your point is valid, it's just "how to treat prisoners". Having no privacy on the toilet as a default is dehumanizing in itself but may not be torture, but sleep deprivation by strong lights and inadequate heating certainly is, according to most definitions of torture.
Everything felt like it was meant to break you. Nothing was explained to us. I wasn’t given a phone call. We were locked in a room, no daylight, with no idea when we would get out.
I just did 10 straight years of this. No daylight is common if the facility is strapped for land to build outdoor areas, or is inside a city where looking in or out would be discouraged. The hand towels they give you for showering suck.
I tried suing over those, but even though there is a statute saying they must be bath towels, laws in the USA don't necessarily have to be followed. There are two types of laws, mandatory and directory. Directory laws are laws that are just "if you wanna" and don't carry any weight. A large majority of laws governing prisoner rights are these type of laws and there is no enforcement mechanism when they are broken. [ironically these laws specifically use the word "shall" in their wording, but in most jurisdictions "shall" is legally read as "may" in the USA]
About #2 (disincentivize charter education): parents created charter schools because they disagreed on the choices that was made for them in public education. It is very hard to fight this, as 1- they see a huge difference in test results 2- they want to give their children the best chances in life.
Finland solution was to ban all private education. Once rich kids were forced to go to public schools, then suddenly education became a larger part of the gov budget, those parents spent more time asking for reforms, volunteering etc.
They have one of the best performant school systems in the planet. And all it takes is not allowing a percentage of the population think of education as optional
> How does the existence of private schools enables this thinking?
Here is a simple example. There is a family with a combined 6k income, their expenses are 2k on rent and 1.5k on child private school, grocieries etc account for 500, savings another 500 and the remaining 1.5k goes on taxes.
Now the goverment proposes a 10% tax raise to improve public schools. Do you think this family would vote for or agaiinst that bill?
Now lets propose a counter example. Same salary, same expenses minus the private school, which gives the family 2k of savings per month. Now due to shortages in public schools they have volunteered at their kids school, helped with field trips, met other parents and families in their neighbourhood. Now the goverment does a 20% tax raise for public schooling. Would this family be more or less willing than the other family to vote yes?
By simply being involved you and your vote become resposinble for it. If you can pay your way away, specially if you stretch your finances to afford it, then investing in the system goes against your own interests regardless of the social externalities of your position.
We could have a society were parents of privately educated kids voted for a public school improvement, but psicologically and economically we know they by and large dont. Therefore the existance of private schooling comes at the expense of a fair, well resourced, and functional public education
Those who care about education, can leave to a private school instead, and not spend time trying to improve the public schools, just leave them to their fate: noisy school-is-boring kids sabotaging the classes for everyone.
Or that's how I interpret what GP said. Happening a bit where I live: richer families don't want their kids go to school in problematic suburbs.
> and not spend time trying to improve the public schools
> noisy school-is-boring kids sabotaging the classes for everyone.
It seems that those parents realize that if the system does not care about ensuring that kids in school actually learn things, then they better leave than trying to fix the kids of others (i.e., parents who does not care).
I would argue that it is a net positive for those public schools: those parents still pay local taxes while making sure that there are fewer students -> better student/teacher ratio.
Maybe depends on how hard or easy it is to improve the schools, on how much influence the parents can have? In Finland, apparently it was doable, but that's, in a way, a very different place than here.
No, I'm proposing the opposite: that states try to act more like Norway/Finland by themselves, instead of hoping the federal government will do so (which isn't going to happen).
And yes, schools are funded by local taxes, but it doesn't have to be that way: if states really wanted to, they could take that power away from municipalities. The constitution gives the states broad powers to run themselves as they like.
The idea that French people constantly fight for their rights isn't true either; they basically just love rioting. Americans interpret this as noble political activity because Americans have an incorrect belief that protesting is an effective method of political change that comes from misunderstanding Civil Rights/Vietnam protests.
But when you actually see interviews with French rioters you find they're all conspiracy theorists who think they've uncovered French QAnon. Or they're farmers who want even more subsidies and want to get rid of climate policy.
This is just wrong on all levels - French "manifestations" are not limited to the "gilets jaunes", which were a recent phenomenon that already died out. The gilets jaunes were mostly people who never went to a "grève" before, never participated in Labor movements, never joined a "syndicat"...
