Post 133—Public Funds for Private Schools

My intention for this post was to finish my mini-series in prostitution. Alas, it’s been almost two weeks since I did the second in the series. The reason for this long gap is that I’ve had a rough time, what with a surgical procedure topped up with a simultaneous bad cold. Since I am not exactly at home in the world of prostitution and need to do some serious thinking before I write the 3^rd in the series, I just don’t have the mental stamina for that. Instead, I will write a post on a subject matter more familiar to me and get back to that series when my mental stamina is up to it, hopefully next week.

The other day, one of my favourite Vancouver Sun columnists, Pete McMartin, blew it as far as I am concerned. He inveighed against private schools. His main emphasis was on the private elite schools but also referred to religious schools. Here’s the URL for the article, in case you want to read it yourself: http://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/pete-mcmartin-this-is-egalitarian-canada-so-why-should-private-schools-get-public-money.

I am going to focus on the religious schools. I sent the following letter to the editor, but doubt it will be published, since they have already published three others on the subject. So, you are invited to read a rejected letter!  Sorry. Here goes, two paragraphs in all:

“Oh, no, not again! More secular dribble about private vs public schools!  McMartin’s (22-10-2016) is a sorry case of secular blindness. Canada is a multi-cultural/religious country, where every religion is supposed to have the freedom to express itself. However secularism insists on defining these religions as private/personal affairs, which they are not and never have been. Secularism thinks it has a monopoly on reason and operates from a neutral platform, both of which are delusions. Religious people want their kind of school as much as McMartin wants his. Imposing his kind on the rest of us is nothing short of discrimination and oppression. We’ve rejected the de facto Anglican monopoly on education in BC long ago and have replaced it with secular monopoly, exchanged one public worldview monopoly for another. Secularism is now the de facto establishment worldview, while it pretends we have no favourite establishment! Nice try!

“The only neutral arrangement is for disestablishment of secular schools in favour of equal funding for all schools that meet the basic provincial educational standards. But that would require secularists to open their eyes, know themselves and admit to the belief system underlying their faith in naked reason—a far cry!” 

Now that letter contains nothing new. The same sentiments have been expressed thousands of times in defence of Christian schools. A hefty book has even been written about the struggle for public funding and the purpose of such schools in BC, but my secular friends, including Pete, seem to have deaf ears. The arguments for such schools are clear, rational, cogent, fair, etc. etc., but they run up against the rationalistic wall secularists have built around themselves. Trump could learn a lesson or two from them about effective walls; they are not brick and mortar; they are ways of thinking in which people imprison themselves.

As Christians, we know the core of our belief. It centers on Christ and then goes on from there. You take out Christ, and the whole thing collapses. Something similar is true for secularists. Among their core beliefs—and it is a belief, not an established or proven fact—is that their perspective is the only rational and neutral one; all others, whether religious or not, are subjective and irrational. That being the case, the only rational and neutral thing to do is to educate our kids within that framework. The objective and rational argument against that position is that, since it has not ever been proved and never will, it, too, is a belief system at the same level as that of the religious. So what is so neutral about it? There ain’t—and Pete and his cohorts better begin to realize that and quit living by their mythical delusion.

But that would exact a heavy price. You take Jesus out of Christianity and you’re left with a blank. You take the sense of a neutral and objective rationalism out of secularism, and they’r stranded, also left with a blank, without any further arguments. That price may be too difficult to pay.

Religious people do not demand that secularists give up their faith; they have a right to it. They just demand that secularism recognize the same right for believers without imposing theirs on the latter.

 Believers, did I say? Yes. We’re all believers, secularists as well as the rest of us.  We all believe in the core of our worldview or philosophy or belief, whatever you want to call it. Secularists, including Pete, you’re welcome into the company of believers!  You are one of us—you believe!  Now quit pestering us and acknowledge our equal right!