Statist The-daism
Anti-Statism, Political Correctness, StatismPolitical correctness is not the only source of damage to language. Indeed, outright implicit statism has been around much longer than PC. Take, for example, a common question asked when people move: “How are the schools in your area?” By this they of course mean government schools. Then there is the space program (NASA primarily), the post office, the police, the roads. These endless the-daisms are the not unexpected result of the monopolization of goods and services by the state.
The vast majority of people take these the-daisms for granted. One would suspect, however, that unless you lived in a heavily statist society, the majority of the population would reject the idea of having a single provider of homes, food, media or news. “How is the housing in your district?” or maybe “How is the grocery store?” In some states that’s already the case for liquor stores.
Even in industries where there is some competition, such as media distribution companies, we see the-daisms: the phone company or the cable company. Due to government intervention, these providers often obtain the monopolistic, legislative right to operate in a certain area, shutting out potential competitors.
It would sound ridiculous to ask about “the pencil system” or “the restaurant system.” Yet it is somehow perfectly fine to have, or to want to have, a uniform, government health system — the health care system. How unfortunate.
