Sunday, March 29, 2015

Gloomy Day

I recently read a post from another blogger complaining about some funding cuts to his university/program.  The blogger sounded genuinely irritated.

To me, the complaining sounded, well, callous.  The level of funding the program enjoys even with the cuts is far, far beyond anything my program, or indeed, any program I've ever been associated with experiences (yes, even in my phud program, I'm pretty sure).

As I was on the edge of irritation, I realized that the way he sounds to me is probably a lot like the way folks at my university sound to less privileged folks in my region, especially people who are really hurting financially, who look at my health insurance and job and wonder how I think I have anything to complain about.

Unfortunately, those aren't the people being helped by tax breaks in this area, so they're just hurting more and more.  Moving the big budget cuts around here from the university to other state funded stuff will hurt them even more, since other than the university, the state pretty much pays for prisons, some Medicaid, some public education, some public health, state troopers, and some roads. 

***

The new law in Indiana allowing businesses to discriminate against people based on religious belief seems insane.  I hope every single ally in Indiana asks every time they walk into any business if that business discriminates based on religious belief, and if the business says yes, they turn around and walk out.  If someone doesn't want to do business with some folks they don't like, then I sure don't want to do business with them.

It looks like some other states are working on similar laws. 

How does that seem reasonable to anyone?

3 comments:

  1. RE Indiana - Mike Pence's interview with George Stephanopoulos was utterly painful to watch. Pence couldn't answer a yes/no question on whether this law makes discrimination legal. (The answer is yes.) What really pisses me off is that Pence used Bill Clinton and Barack Obama's voting record on bills like this one to justify his own signing it into law. The problem is Pence's faulty logic. (1) Clinton's bill was from more than twenty years ago. That's like people in 1970 saying, well, black people didn't have rights twenty years ago, so we're just going with what was legal in 1950. (2) Obama voted in a state that has legal protection for LGBT people, whereas Indiana does not consider LGBT to be a protected class. Plus, things have changed dramatically (!!!) for LGBT people in just the last 5-10 years in America. Anyone who thinks we're in the same social situation now that we were in 10-20 years ago has been living in a cave. Many states have legalized same-sex marriage in the last 10 years, including Indiana, and for the first time, we have a sitting president who openly believes in marriage equality. Times have changed. Indiana will be sorry if it does not wake up!

    It's too bad, really, because Indiana's economy has really been on an upswing. Now, this backwards law has the potential to drive a lot of that money elsewhere. Ugh!

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  2. You should read Rod Dreher, who thinks *objecting* to what Indiana is a hate crime. The double-think that Far-Right Conservative Christians are capable of just astounds me.

    (No, don't really read Rod Dreher. And don't read his comment section. You'll just make yourself ill.)

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  3. Gah. ...Indiana is *doing is a hate crime...

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