Thursday, November 13, 2003



Clutching at straws

In the same post referenced below, RBC accuses me of trying to sneak the following meme in through the back door:

Universities (the more marginal departments, in particular) cannot survive without government funding. If you consider higher learning to be a value, you have to accept the existence of taxation to fund them.

Actually, no. As a case in point, the US has both private and state funded (to varying degrees) universities, and I'm fine with that. There are many different ways of building a functioning, fair and just society, each with its own balance of public and private sectors. What I am concerned about is that if the state provides funding, that it is done in a fair, open, equitable and politically neutral manner. And that's not "snuck in through the backdoor", but displayed in great flashing neon lights out the front.

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