Tag Archives: Government

Videos

What can we learn about capitalism and socialism from Sweden?

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Video here. (H/T Big Government via ECM)

News

UK introduces hate registry for tracking students aged 5 years and up

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Story from the UK Daily Mail. (H/T Andrew)

Excerpt:

Heads will be forced to list children as young as five on school ‘hate registers’ over everyday playground insults.

Even minor incidents must be recorded as examples of serious bullying and details kept on a database until the pupil leaves secondary school.

Teachers are to be told that even if a primary school child uses homophobic or racist words without knowing their meaning, simply teaching them such words are hurtful and inappropriate is not enough.

Instead the incident has to be recorded and his or her behaviour monitored for future signs of ‘hate’ bullying.

The accusations will also be recorded in databases held by councils and made available to Whitehall and ministers to help them devise future anti-bullying campaigns.

[…]Many schools nationwide have already followed advice that they should record incidents of alleged racist, homophobic or anti-disability bullying.

One report last year by the Manifesto Club civil liberties think-tank said that 40,000 children each year are having racist charges added to their school records.

But ministers aim to make reporting of supposed ‘hate taunting’ a legal requirement for every school, primary as well as secondary, and every local authority across the country from the beginning of the new school year in September.

Incidents considered serious will have to be reported to local authorities. Children’s Secretary Ed Balls is set to introduce rules that, officials said, ‘will mean that schools will have to record and report serious or recurring incidents of bullying to their local authority.

I don’t think that it’s the government’s job to monitor and regulate playground interactions.

News

Police probe death of NHS hospital patient who begged for water

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Story here from the UK Telegraph. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

A hospital patient, Kane Gorny, died of dehydration after becoming so desperate for a drink of water that he called police for help.

The 22-year-old was not given vital medication after an operation at St George’s Hospital in Tooting, south London, according to his mother.

A coroner has such grave concerns about the case that it has been referred to police who are investigating Mr Gorny’s care.

[…]His mother, Rita Cronin, says he needed drugs three times a day to regulate his hormones, but he was not given them by hospital staff.

She said he became very dehydrated but his requests for water were refused and nurses called in security guards to restrain him when he became angry.

He became so frustrated that he rang the police from his bed to demand their help but officers were assured Mr Gorny was fine.

She said nurses assumed he was just badly behaved.

Mr Gorny’s cause of death was determined to be dehydration.

The UK Daily Mail adds:

Miss Cronin… said: ‘The police told me he’d said, “Please help me. All I want is a drink and no one is helping me”.

[…]’I told three nurses there was something wrong with my son and they said, “He’s fine” and walked off. I started to cry and a locum doctor who was there told me not to worry.

[…]His mother added: ‘When I went back to the hospital I was told that all the nurses had been offered counselling as they were so traumatised, but nothing was offered to me.

‘The whole thing is a disgrace. This hospital has a brilliant reputation and boasts of its excellent standards and safety record.

‘But as soon as my son walked into that ward, his death warrant was signed. Of the 32 people who were involved in my son’s care, every one made a mistake that ultimately led to his death, from the consultant to the care assistant.

‘There has been an internal investigation but St George’s never made it public and it was a whitewash-After his death the hospital never phoned me or wrote to me to apologise. How could this happen in the 21st century?’

When you buy something from someone, you stand a much better chance of getting quality service from them if you have the money in your hand and you can take that money somewhere else if you are not satisfied with the offer in front of you. That’s why free market capitalism is great for the consumer, but it sucks for the corporations. The corporations have to compete to give you what you want at the lowest price. But when government takes over a service, you have no choice. It’s a monopoly, and you dance to their tune. They get paid through tax money whether they give you what you want or not!

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