Caporegime
- Joined
- 18 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 33,188
When I was at university I took part in the NUS organised rent strike over unfair increases in halls of residence rent. We basically paid our rent money to the NUS rather than the university and as a result we got a fairer deal for ourselves. Was pretty intense for a while, got a letter from the uni telling me to pay up or get thrown off my course, fortunately the NUS forced another letter from the uni a few hours later rescinding that threat. Pretty tame by today's standards, but back then we were a much more passive bunch. Even now after significant "life experience" I'd do the same again. I applaud the current student protests (but not the violence), I think it's marvellous that these young people are prepared to stand up for themselves. Fist in the air in the land of hypocrisy etc...
You were standing up to pay FAIR amount for the place YOU were living.
Current protesters are standing up saying its unfair they have to pair fair costs themselves rather than the whole country paying for THEIR education, because the payment method was inadequate, vastly underfunded and not at all fair before hand.
Being unfair, inadequate and not sustainable beforehand doesn't make the current fee's unfair.
The same situaiton might be, you were living in a penthouse suite that for some reason the previous owner had given to you for £30 a month, despite market value meaning all costs included, the new owner loses money every month at that cost. When he raises the price to at cost, at £100 a month, you deem it unfair purely because the previous deal was better, this isn't true, the previous deal was "too" fair, the current deal fair, and £200 a month would be unfair. Thats where the students are right now. They want everyone else to pay for their education because everyone else always has, unfortunately Labour has pushed unprescedented numbers of students into university without increasing funds to cover it.
If you were already paying £100 a month, and the new owner was making a fair profit, and then asked you for £500 a month, that would be unfair, I'd protest, thats simply not the case here.
Worse deal does NOT automatically mean unfair, but thats the problem both with labour, and our country, if we have a vastly unfair system, changing it to be fair, if it costs more, is hell because people won't use common sense.
This is the inherant problem with morons like Blair/Brown promising more than they can ever deliver, they drive costs up, without ever paying or balancing the budget for them, eventually we go bust, or PAY for them, and when asked to, the people think its unfair.
Its no different to buying a £5000 car and getting 0% finance for a year, then thinking its really unfair they actually have to pay for it a year later.
THe big problem is, Labour think the government spending card is a 0% finance for 50 year credit card, and went utterly nuts without a single thought to ever having to pay it back, the country is now in major debt and being asked to rework its budget to allow a repayment plan essentially.
I get the general impression of protesters that its a 70/25/5 mix where 70% just join any cause as they want to seem to be thinking the same things as anyone else, lemmings who take on others opinions without understanding them because they don't want to seem different. 25% who think they know what they are talking about and actually care for the subject matter but are ideologic young people, too stupid to realise how the real world works, think the government should spend 100billion a year on developing clean energy tech and building schools in Africa, with no idea the country doesn't have that money to spend, 5% of just flat out stupid people who have no idea and never will have any idea how the country works, stick with their stupid ideological and completely impracticle beliefs all their life, and vote Labour.
