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Whenever any kind of taxation is brought in, or a subsidy is scrapped, the Daily Mail always announces it as a 'stealth tax' - no matter how public the tax or cut actually is. The message is clear: nasty New Labour are ripping us off again.
Today's example is councils cutting costs by saying - basically - why should we fund school buses for children travelling to Faith schools outside of their catchment area? Surely, if parents have a religious conviction and want to send their children further away to a faith school of their choice - forfeiting schools within walking distance or that have transport provided - then they should damn well pay for it?
Seems like a perfectly reasonable way to save money, even more so when you consider that such funding aids parents in the systematic brainwashing of their children - something that Mailites normally despise when it is some harmless change made to the National Curriculum made by New Labour.
Needless to say the Mail report the story as another 'stealth tax' targeted at the poor, oppressed and silent majority of the middle-classes: Parents charged £400 'stealth tax' for sending children to faith schools as free buses are scrapped.
The opening paragraphs make it perfectly clear why the Mail is covering the story:
Thousands of middle-income parents are being landed with bills of up to £400 a year to send their children to faith schools because councils are scrapping their historic right to free transport.
The charge has been condemned as a 'stealth tax' on church schools that could put parents off applying for places.
This, to me, is fantastic news. Strangely enough I'm not happy at the thought that part of my council tax goes to subsidising people who believe in any kind of religion. I've thought long and hard about religion, read many books on the subject and have arrived at the conclusion that only an person utterly bereft of intelligence or someone very scared and needy can believe in religion. Perhaps though, this isn't entirely fair because this implies that religion is sold to adults, who would probably have the mental capacity to reject the bullshit being fed to them. However, faith schools, like christenings and other religious acts are busy implanting ideas onto clean, fresh impressionable minds that haven't got the experience to necessarily reason what a load of shite religion is.
This is why I hate faith schools. As Richard Dawkins' says: no child is a Muslim child, no child is a Christian, Jew or Catholic; they are merely children with Muslim, Christian, Jewish or Catholic parents. No child when they arrive in school at 4 or 5 years old could have possibly considered the case for the religion that they are being indoctrinated in, yet they are still defined by this arbitrary notion in the eyes of others. If religion was really as powerful and as wonderful as some would have you believe, then fucking prove it, sell it to fully formed adults, don't sell it to babies who don't stand a chance you fucking cowards.
Anyway, this is a digression. The Daily Mail naturally assumes that this is just another ploy to punish middle-income families for having aspirations about sending their kids further afield, but even the commentators acknowledge that this is a choice:
My two youngest children went to faith schools - my choice - and I paid the fare for both of them for years. I was never offered, or expected anyone else to pay. This was my choice, there were plenty of good schools around but I wanted a Christian education for them, and I certainly didn't expect anyone else to foot the bill for transport.
- Denise, Beds, 30/5/2009 9:08
Naturally, the Church of England is given a chance to voice its concerns:
'We are concerned that there is some evidence that LEAs are dispensing with offering free transport to church schools where it remains within their discretion to do so.
'We are particularly worried about the impact this will have on children from middle-income families who wish their child to attend a school that reflects their own religious background, but who may live some distance from such a school'.
Can I add my concern that religious fuckwits still believe that they have any entitlement to public money for pushing a personal belief. I'm sick and tired of hearing that 'religion is under attack from mean atheists' when in fact it is still protected by law against criticism and subsidised to the extent that the UK is littered with faith schools. I don't want any of my money going to towards faith schools, I find the idea abhorrent.
I'm a teacher and I firmly believe that education should not be tainted with any kind of religion - apart from a clear explanation of what the phenomenon is. How can you have a science department in a Catholic school? In order to work in a Catholic school you must be a practicing Catholic, so how do you get a good science teacher in a faith school?
The Daily Mail clearly thinks that scrapping free buses to faith schools is a bad thing, I think it should just be the beginning. Education should be about informing children, educating them to become functioning adults with hopes and dreams etc - the state (who will receive the tax revenue from a functioning adult) should pay for it. If faith schools want to plan their education around a particular religious belief then they should not receive any state money. The state is not concerned with indoctrinating children, it has no benefit to a functioning adult as a revenue generator, so shouldn't be funded.
And finally, it isn't a fucking stealth tax either. |
The idea that a teacher would have to be of the right faith for the school, rather than just be a good teacher in their subject, is ridiculous.
There is - IMO - quite simply no place for religion in education. They are not compatible.
Quite obviously this atheist, Nu-Labour "stealth tax" is deliberately targeting nice, Christian, middle-class families.