Commentary: Arizona and the myth of the free ride

Imagine an ice cream stand where you can have the flavor of your choice at no cost! No mess, no stress, no weight gain! 

Well, step right up and welcome to Arizona and the myth of the free ride! A fantasy based on the seemingly unassailable notion that people should get to choose the thing that works for them and that your friendly state government will treat you to more for less.

Let’s consider, for example, schoolrooms and prison cells. What’s their connection? Funding for each is at the heart of the current debate on the state budget. The gain of one is seen as the loss of the other.

But if you look for closely, you’ll see that the ice cream vendor’s strategy is the same for both. Wrapped in sugar cones labeled seductively as privatization and choice, the real scoop is that the education of our children and the rehabilitation of our offenders are being sold to the highest bidders and the public consumer is getting sold out.

Follow the money and you’ll discover corporate lobbies buying votes to convert public schools and prisons into products of commerce, from social goods that benefit everyone to private goods that benefit special interests.

Schools? Have a vanilla one, if you don’t like chocolate.

Educational standards? Don’t tread on me; I know which version of American history and science are best for my child.

Prisons? In business to punish for a profit.

Failed schools? Feeders to private prisons.

Meanwhile, the Grand Canyon between haves and have-nots expands and the foundations of the core institutions that have unified us as a community of shared purposed are crumbling. In their place are the festering hostility to the rightful roles of government, a full frontal attack on public schools, and the illusion that choice can be exercised without bearing accountability or consequences.

The nagging question is why patrons of the wishful ice cream parlor don’t see that what they’re being fed is poisoning them.