Just because something is taught in a public school does not mean it is learned in a public school. I don't actually believe that when you say "I have no idea who 'Minipax' and 'Miniluv' are," that you really do, and are in fact just playing coy for effect.
First, the obvious: one need not have attended private school to think that there are serious flaws with public education. Indeed, it would be only the most provincial minds, steeped in an unconscious tribalism, that would assume that merely because there exists a criticism, it must come from outside the thing being criticized.
I was talking about the fact that your statement reflects (or at least is presented in the language of) a very disturbing authoritarian philosophy -- that the good of "society" can "surge onward" to "remedy injustices", and that if that surging makes others uncomfortable, well, to use your own words, "too bad."
1) Orwell: well, that's okay, Acrimone, I haven't read 1984 in a *very* long time. But I did take the Minipax/Miniluv comment as a metaphor for some sort of actual institution existing in the real world of 2007. In hindsight, I think you're right that the poster meant the jab quite literally.
2) Public education: the problems with it are legion, but there are some truly excellent ones, in my opinion. It all depends on the neighbourhood, resources, and so forth.
3) I didn't mean to sound authoritarian. I can see why you took it that way, but I'm not sure there was any other way to express the sentiment. For the record, I was thinking of things like the Civil Rights Voting Act, or desegration, or, I don't know, women getting the right to vote. Those are the sorts of surges (that made some people uncomfortable) to which I meant to refer. Thanks for the opportunity to clarify.
