A union flunky speaks

This was originally a response to a reader comment that can be found here:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/27/census-data-shows-people-are-moving-from-blue-to-red-states.html#comments

The comment itself, from Bob Dobolina:

if the red states are so awesome then why are their "free market" systems not just blown up their economies? I mean if their lower taxes, pro business and family values then they should be just crushing it right? Last I checked that's not the case. The only one that wins out in those states is the companies that are there. Sure as hell isn't the people that work there. it is a fact that red states are welfare states. The are subsidized by the blue states. If their awesome systems really work and are so good then why are welfare states just that?

Republican foundations of lower taxes, pro business and family values are a good idea but in reality they are failed policies. Like supply side economics. Never worked no matter how many times the right pushes it. It's like a broken record. Cut taxes and regulations and the country will be awesome. Well, it's been going on for 30 years and look what we've got. It's no coincidence that the decline of manufacturing mirrors the decline in unions? Our country was made great on the backs of labor. But conservatives hate labor. The major things we now take for granted were originally created by the sweat and blood of labor. 5 day work week, vacations, sick time, etc.....

Over the last 30 years we've seen republicans main foundations front and center. And if they are so good then our country should be the crown jewel of the world and the stock market should be over 20k. Kill unions, ease regulations and massively low taxes. But check it out, during that time the rich and companies have seen triple digit increases in profits and pay. The regular folks that make those companies run have see what for gains over that time?

Zero gains for the working man. Didn't even follow inflation.

If these basic foundations they say are their core beliefs should be just blowing up our economy. Should be unparalleled prosperity. they've had their way for 30 years and if it works then we should be in a better place now. But no. They're like snake oil salesman. peddling these ideals that sound great but in practice the only benefits they have are for the rich. Record profits and oceans of cash but are those making their way to the regular folks? Nope. Businesses have employees over a barrel. They can pay them anything they want and show them the door if they don't like it. High unemployment is the best time for companies because they can pretty much do whatever they want and people are just happy to have a job.

Welfare states are red states. Pro business isn't pro worker. there is a difference. But hey, screw the regular people right? If job creators are happy then republicans are happy. Just sad that blue collar workers carry water for people that care zero about them and their families. My blue state dollars are paying for these people that scream self reliance. What a joke. Talk about how the poor are a bunch of slackers with their hands out. Maybe they should put their and in their own pockets when it comes to red state handouts.

My response:

There is so much wrong with what you've written that I don't even know where to begin. So I'll begin in the middle, then probably shower and go to work.

The decline in manufacturing does mirror the decline in union membership, but not because the latter caused the former.

Correlation does not mean causation.

Besides which, only fools choose to be serfs. That is what union workers generally are. They're unable to make a living on their own because they lack the skills and talents necessary to be independently employable. So they bind themselves together into a group and try to extract as much money as they can for their menial, but necessary, work. I don't hold them in contempt for this as such a development is inevitable. The capital investment most manufacturing requires means that firms can't easily chase the labor market. They set up shop somewhere, and once established cannot instantly move elsewhere just because the people there will work for less.

But even so this does eventually happen, just not as quickly. Instead of moving existing plants, they expand into these other labor markets and then close the previous plant as it becomes less profitable instead of refurbishing or retooling it when manufacturing processes change. Unions are created to prevent workers from having to compete with each other, but eventually they do, in this case with people in other nations who are willing to work for what would be less here in America, but is actually a good wage over there due to the difference in cost of living.

There are several consequences of this.

First, the unit cost of production goes down, making that company more profitable and therefore more competitive. Such companies generally lower the prices offered to consumers. Other firms must then follow suit and find ways to lower their own production costs, or risk failure. So they relocate as well, or go out of business.

Second these lowered consumer prices means that our money goes further. We can afford to buy more with less money (adjusted for inflation).

Third, the wages that are being paid to the workers overseas makes those workers more able to purchase goods and services from us, improving the economies of both nations.

The only people who lose are those whose reluctance or inability to compete in the labor market is what led them into union work in the first place. When you can't get a good paying job based on your own competence and merit, jobs that require neither are your only escape.

The lesson is to stay in school and to sharpen and hone your skills and abilities so that you are able to support yourself in a field based on individual accomplishment. Doctors, lawyers and engineers belong to professional associations, not unions. There is a reason for this.

Obama can't do the right thing

Why Obama Can't Support A Real Jobs Program

Obama can't do the right thing because it runs counter to what he and other leftists in the Democratic party see as their core mission: do destroy America while pretending to save it and blaming others for the obvious damage they are doing.

Socialism defined

Socialism: Stealing from Peter to buy votes from Paul.

A leftist tells us what he really thinks

I recently bought a copy of The Secret Knowledge by David Mamet. I've not read very much of this book yet, but I like what I'm reading so far. Mamet's prose is terse and could use the help of a good editor in places, but the content of what he says is profound. But this post isn't a review of this book, but a comment on something a reviewer calling himself Ben Bochner wrote on Amazon. Bochner's post was in response to another poster's critique of Bochner's negative review of the book itself, which can be found here.

Here is what Bochner had to say to the other poster:

Be careful, Mr. Wolf - you're not on Fox News now, your nonsense will not go unchallenged. The majority of Americans are buying into what Mamet is saying? The whole reason the Republican Party is in such trouble is because it only appeals to white people. A political party cannot muster a majority anymore in this country by only appealing to white people. The Republican Party is going the way of The Whigs - and Fox News ain't far behind.

When I first read this I didn't really know how to respond to it. Even now I find myself wondering whether Bochner actually realized what he was saying.

There is so much wrong with what he wrote that I don't even know where to begin. Bochner seems to believe that a person's political philosophy is not a function of the ideas they believe in, but their skin color. Stop and think about that for a moment. Is that not the most absurd and insulting thing he could possibly say?

He seems to believe, in all seriousness, that racial distinctions are not merely skin deep, but signify profound differences in the way human beings think, feel, and experience the world around them. In other words, the composition of their soul.

He seems to think that "white" people possess certain emotional and intellectual traits that make the Republican party attractive to them. Meanwhile other people who are not white, possess other traits that make this party unattractive to them.

The man is a fucking nut.

I'd call him a racist except to do so would drag out a very old and tired cliche that has been used to tell far too many lies and obscure far too many truths.

So I'll just say that he's crazy and ignorant and bigoted and leave it at that.

Huntman pisses off the dingbats while trying to pander to the leftards

Jon Huntsman: Call me crazy but I believe in evolution and global warming

I find it pathetically sad that someone even has to say that they believe in evolution. It's like saying that you believe in electrons, or hydrogen. No one should have to come out and proclaim to the world that they believe in any of these things because the existence of each has been proven not just beyond a reasonable doubt, but beyond the shadow of a doubt. Either these things exist, or everything we know is wrong.

Despite what some people want so desperately to believe because their sense of self hinges upon it, the world was not created in 6 days roughly 6,000 years ago. The universe is billions of years old and the timeline for life on earth goes back almost 4 billion years. This isn't what it says in the bible because the bible is the collected and codified writings of Jews and Christians living in antiquity. Genesis is the Hebrew creation myth put into writing. Any relationship it has with physical reality or cosmological history is purely coincidental. The parts of the bible that deal with people and human nature are where the good stuff is to be found.

Does this mean that there is no God? Anyone who makes that argument is lying since the question of the existence of the Judeo-Christian God or any God or Gods cannot be falsified based on the flaws found in a creation myth. But of course that won't stop some Christian-hating pseudo-atheists from trying. As an irreligious person with no axe to grind nor converts proselytize to, I have no animosity towards people who are religious, but I do find people who pretend to be non-believers when they are actually motivated by malice and bigotry towards Christians to be odious in the extreme. Unable to come out and just say that they hate Christians, they instead pretend to find fault with the tenets of that faith, a faith that they would be disinterested in if they were truly not religious. A faith that they would judge by the effect it has on its believers. The value of religion is not in its empirical validity, but in its efficacy. A particular religion's mythologies may have no basis in fact, but if they inspire otherwise wretched human beings to become better people, I don't have a problem with that.

An atheist isn't someone who doesn't believe in god, but someone who hates it that you do. They're emotionally immature losers who cannot see beyond their own arrogance.

As for Global warming, it appears to be a leftist scam, a manufactured imaginary crisis cooked up to justify policies that they once tried to use other arguments to support. Arguments that failed. Arguments that were bald faced lies and evil agendas wrapped up in sophistry. These arguments went by many names and euphemisms, but the most clear and definite name for them was Communism.

Global Warming is nothing but Marxism through other means.

A quote from Robert Heinlein

"Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort."

I think he was absolutely right. One of the core criteria for being a leftist is the desire to control other people, ostensibly for their own good or for the good of the many, but in reality for the good of the few - those who exercise control. Such it was with the Nomenklatura of the Soviet Union and so it is with the Friends Of Obama. This of course is tyranny. There are non-leftists who are also motivated to control others. They subscribe to other ideologies, some of which are seemingly opposed to Marxism and its analogues. Devout muslims come to mind. But while the end goals of their tyranny may differ, their desire to lord themselves over others does not.

HIV, Smallpox and the incurable epidemic of human stupidity

Pathogens May Change, but the Fear Is the Same

The problem with a disease like HIV is not that it is fatal, but that it takes so long to kill its victims. HIV is extraordinarily difficult to contract. It is not airborne. You can't get it from drinking bad water. You can't get it from casual contact. To be infected requires the exchange of bodily fluids, blood and sexual fluids in particular.

This is why, of all diseases, AIDS is the one most closely linked to pathological behavior.

A 2007 study by Columbia University scientists found that almost 60 percent of gay American men who knew they were infected and were still having unprotected anal sex did not mention it to all their casual partners.

I submit that the primary reason these men were infected in the first place was because they were having unprotected anal sex with casual partners. If they had pursued a monogamous relationship with another man who was also monogamous, then they would be no more likely to contract HIV than anyone else. Promiscuity, not homosexuality is the problem.

If the symptoms of AIDS appeared in a week, and the disease was fatal in three, then this would not matter. The epidemic would literally burn itself out. But because it takes so damned long to kill the idiots who go out and get infected with it, they are free to go out and infect countless others, achieving a geometric progression that is limited only by the fact that male homosexuals make up less than 3% of the population, and they don't all know one another. IV drug users are the other group who spread this disease around, but they too are also a small population, and not all of them are going around trading needles like baseball cards.

Sexual promiscuity is self-destructive, even without fatal diseases like HIV going around. People who go out and stick their dick into every Tom and Harry are mentally ill.

The reason why normal, monogamous, drug-free (but I repeat myself) heterosexuals are almost never infected with HIV is precisely because we are monogamous and drug free. There are promiscuous heterosexuals in this world, but they are the exception rather than the rule, just as IV drug users are the exception. Gay men, on the other hand, are almost rabidly promiscuous as a general rule.

Normal people don't catch diseases whose vectors depend upon abnormal and self-destructive behaviors.

This is a big part of why I'm so unimpressed with whining gay activists who complain incessantly about how they are discriminated against. Of course they are. Junkies get the same treatment and for the same reason, they do things that are damaging to themselves and put others at risk, and most people take exception to that.

The left has succeeded in fooling so many into seeing discrimination as a bad thing, when it is not. Discrimination is not a bad thing at all. It is a fundamental expression of moral judgment. People discriminate against those who choose to do things that are wrong. This is valid discrimination. Of course there is also invalid discrimination, such as refusing to give a qualified candidate a job because of what that person looks like, or what they have between their legs, or any other number of qualities and characteristics that have no moral significance, have nothing to do with the job at hand, and which they have no control over anyway. The thing is, the left would have you believe that all discrimination, all discernment, is of the invalid kind. Once again, they lie.

As long as male homosexuals continue to be the most promiscuous group on the face of the earth, then people like me will continue to shun them. I don't care that they are sexually attracted to members of their own sex. It is of no concern to me. I don't understand it, but then I don't need to understand it. Freedom means freedom, it doesn't mean the right to do only those things that other people understand. Provided a choice or a pattern of behavior causes no harm to me or to the world, I don't have a reason to care what someone does. Unfortunately for gay men, spreading diseases like AIDS does cause harm to the world I live in and I take particular exception to the patterns of behavior that cause that harm.

Gay men need to embrace monogamy. Until they do, I will forever ostracize them. As the article above mentions, "gay men should stop defining their struggle for equal rights chiefly as the right to have promiscuous sex."

A quote from Rush Limbaugh

"We've had a AAA credit rating since 1917. The Great Depression, we had a AAA credit rating. World War II, we had a AAA credit rating, and we lose it now, and for what? For what great purpose did we lose it? Except an ideological hatred of American capitalism and a love of class warfare, what did we lose our AAA rating for? A naked effort to get still more and more money to buy votes. A never-ending quest for power, that's why we lost our AAA credit rating."

Obama

You could say that Obama is a bad president, but the truth is that he isn't even a president at all. He's an empty suit. Even a bad leader actually LEADS. He, as another commenter noted elsewhere, operates in one of two modes: arrogance or petulance. The American people were fooled by the Marxist Socialist Media into voting for someone whose presence in the office of president is worse than having no president at all.

With the election of Obama, the left thought that they had the American people fooled into subscribing to political and economic ideas that have been proven demonstrably false by the history of the 20th century. 50 million dead, and countless millions more living in pain and misery. Those are the wages of Obama's ideas. Those ideas are incompatible with freedom. Those ideas are incompatible with the truth.

Nothing will change unless we make it change.

Canada!

(This was originally posted as a comment here)

Canada, unlike other nations of the world, is defined not by what it is, but by what it is desperately trying not to be: The United States.

Canadians generally resent us. We meanwhile, generally don't think about Canadians or their country at all. We don't hate them, we just don't notice them. How can we when they don't really do much to make themselves known?

Other than the Mackenzie brothers and the Red Green Show, definitively Canadian cultural content never seems to make its way down here. I don't know why because lots of Americans love British TV shows. Why are there no Canadian shows of note? Lots of Canadian actors show up in American films and TV shows, with Elisha Cuthbert being my personal favorite, but when they do they're playing American characters, not Canadians. Why?

The Shipping News, set in Canada and supposedly about Canadians, used an American, two Brits, and an Australian as actors to portray the main characters.

For all these reasons and more, Canada is one of those places that you don't really think about unless and until something comes up that gives you a reason to, and then its like "Oh yeah, there's this whole country up there isn't there?"

Thought for today

Marxism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be prosperous.

(With apologies to H. L. Mencken)