by arthur Weinreb, associate Editor,
June 7, 2004
For some strange reason, when the weather starts to warm up, at least one Toronto City Councillor comes up with a crazy idea. and this year is no exception.
Councillor Howard Moscoe is proposing that the city set up a "beauty school". People who are caught littering can avoid paying the $360 fine by attending a beauty school where they will learn how to be neat and tidy. The left wing councilor is quoted as saying, "students would learn things about recycling and how to better manage their properties and maybe even take a tour of a landfill". Wow!!! Is this a great idea or what?
Moscoe compares his moronic idea to the "john schools" that were set up a few years ago to give an option to men who were charged with attempting to obtain the services of prostitutes so they could avoid going to court and risking a conviction. To anyone who thinks about the issue, there is a big difference between the john school and Howard Moscoe’s proposed littering school.
To begin with, an attempt to obtain the services of a prostitute in a public place is a criminal offence and a conviction for that offence carries all the liabilities that attach to having a criminal record. There may be a few of Moscoe’s fellow travellers who will entertain thoughts of suicide at the idea of being convicted of a contravening the littering by law but not enough to fill an entire school. and men who end up in a john school can actually learn something. When certain areas of the city become a magnet for johns that cruise for hookers, those areas become overrun not only with prostitutes but with pimps, guns and drugs. The property of area residents become littered with used condoms and needles, not your everyday Howard Moscoe litter. Women who live in the area are constantly harassed by men who figure that any woman who walks down the street must be a prostitute. It is not the victimless crime that a lot of johns think that it so there is some merit in having a john school.
But even the john school is probably a waste of money. anecdotal evidence suggests that johns who are caught soliciting have an extremely low rate of recidivism. Some men don’t even realize that it is an offence. Others are afraid that their spouses will find out what they have done and once they are caught, give up trolling the streets in pursuit of their extra marital activities. a lot of men know that the police put undercover officers on the street, but learn the hard way that they cannot always tell the difference between a prostitute and a police officer. By and large, john schools probably do more for those who run them than they do for their "students".
anyone who has half a brain (and this excludes socialists like Moscoe) knows that they shouldn’t litter. What can they possibly learn about littering except that when they do it the street looks dirty? If guys like Howard had any sense they would forgo the schools and use the money that they collect in fines to pay for city services. after all, every dollar that is put towards city spending is one less dollar that Mayor David Miller, the city’s chief panhandler, will have to beg from the provincial and federal government.
Moscoe’s "beauty school" idea is nothing more than an admiration of the communist system of re-education camps. all the city’s problems could be solved if only the proletariat could be re-educated to think the way Howard and his left wing cohorts on council think. That is the real reason for the idea of a beauty school. To attempt to teach those who litter that throwing garbage on private property or the streets is wrong is insulting to those who do it. They know it’s wrong. They don’t need to go to school. What they need is to be fined so that they will be deterred from littering in the future.
Re-education is not the only thing that the city mothers have borrowed from communist states. The idea of snitch lines where people can inform on their neighbours who commit such atrocious acts as illegally killing dandelions or improperly using their blue box is also in vogue with the socialists on council. The only difference between the former Soviet Union and the city of Toronto is that the former Soviets weren’t as anti-american as their Toronto counterparts.
a beauty school--spring has sprung in the People’s Republic of Toronto.