An ultra-conservative's views on this and that

19 June 2015

Debunking the feel-good progressivism of the minimum wage

A blog I frequent has the requisite couple of "progressives" who challenges the blog's author on a regular or semi-regular basis.

Yesterday, the author used the example of a plumber to illustrate how wages should be set by market forces, and not by some bumbling government bureaucrats.  The gist of the post was how the plumber is a skilled laborer, one whom can charge more for the service of fixing a leaky pipe than a fast-food cashier or burger-flipper.

Enter Dog Gone and her cognitive dissonance:

What a bogus argument you posit.
First of all, plumbers earn more or less based on their level of expertise and licensing – which is largely the case due to their belonging to unions, not just that they are skilled.
OK, not all plumbers are unionized.  And even the ones that are, in fact, skilled laborers:  They spend years learning the trade, be it from vocational schooling, apprenticeship, or some combination thereof.  They have to acquire the skills somehow.  When they take their licensing exams, or whatever plumbers do to get licensed, they have spent considerable time learning their trade.  The licensing just says that knowledgeable people in their field have evaluated the plumber and deemed him or her as competent enough to upgrade your plumbing without flooding the basement.

That has no impact on people earning a minimum wage, as for example wait staff or other jobs, where due to job availability the workers in point of fact have skill levels that far exceed the requirements of those jobs. 
So you admit that the job requirements are low.  In other words, the job is a low-skill or unskilled labor.  Answer me this:  When an overqualified person takes a job, does the employer pay for the employee's skills, or the work product they produce?

There is in fact no justification for anyone to work a 40 hour work week, and not make a wage on which they can live. 
Which is why said person should learn a marketable skill and/or gain experience so they can justify the higher wage he or she earns, in line with the quantity and quality of the work product he or she outputs.

To contrast the base wage with other jobs is falsely to equate apples and oranges.
To compare low-skill and unskilled jobs with high-skill jobs is the false equivalency.

Over half a million or more workers earning minimum wage have college degrees — like you do. They are underemployed. Half are women, and half are over the age of 24. It is not accurate to characterize these jobs as entry level minimum skill any longer. Rather the current minimum wage, when adjusted for purchasing power (inflation etc) is LOWER than it was in the 1960s.
Why do progressives always whine about unfair life is?  Did they not hear or heed that lesson from their parents?  Yes, it sucks that people with college degrees are flipping burgers.  But I would ask what sort of degrees these people have that they can't effectively market themselves in an economic downturn.  I would ask if they had a plan "B" for when their niche degree failed to land them a good-paying job.  My ex-girlfriend sat for and passed the Minnesota Bar Exam in 2007, along with 600 other new lawyers.  She quickly learned that in the legal business, it's not about what you know, but who.  She clerked for a judge for a lot longer than is common before securing a junior prosecutor position, or associate position at a law firm.  Ultimately, she moved to Texas and is working as an insurance agent now, a far cry from her goal of being an intellectual property attorney.  She learned that in Minnesota, with some 500 new lawyers being admitted to the bar every six months, that supply simply outstripped demand for her skill set.

Conservative policies since then are largely responsible for the stagnation in wages and the increase in wealth and income inequality.
 Come now, you don't get to make blanket statements and then not back them up.  How are conservative policies at fault?  The sub-prime mortgage fiasco is partly the responsibility of reckless lending, encouraged by a meddlesome government that thinks it's unfair that some people can't buy houses.  Again, life is not fair.  In its attempt to create fairness, both the government "watchdogs" and predatory/reckless lenders not only failed to help people buy houses and stay in them, but the policies resulted in a sudden dumping of real estate on the market.  Great if you're a first-time home buyer with the means, lousy if you're a homeowner responsibly paying his or her mortgage, only to suddenly end up upside-down on the mortgage when your house loses a huge chunk of its value.

If you really believe in capitalism and free enterprise, you would demand that employers pay an adequate wage.
Who sets this adequate wage?  Who defines what adequate is?  The dollar value?  What criteria are used to determine this value?  What mathematical formula?  How much emotion goes into it?

The determination of this value, I've always felt, is a contractually-negotiated number between employee and employer.  That's what capitalism is.  That's what free enterprise is.  What makes the enterprise free is that the employer is free to decide what wage he or she is willing to pay to an employee for the work product, and the employee is free to negotiate for more or seek employment elsewhere.

Because when they do not, instead the balance of what is required comes out of your pocket, just a different pocket, in the form of health care subsidies, nutritional supplement subsidies,and other subsidies that we ALL pay towards. There is no legitimate reason that someone working at Walmart, making them quite large profits, should not be paid adequately, but instead have to rely on food stamps to make ends meet, for example.
Every time the minimum wage is raised, the employers operating on the thin profit margins have a couple of options:  Raise their prices, which endangers the business' life expectancy; Fire employees to cushion against the increased labor cost (and likely replace the employees with automation); or close their doors.  In two of the three scenarios, employees end up as beneficiaries of those same subsidies you're trying to get them off of, only now there's more of them.

We need to require that businesses operate with adequate wages. If they can’t then they need to revise their business model to pay their employees.
Wow, quite the arrogant statement.  What makes you an authority on how a specific business runs, and how many local, state, and federal laws they're required to comply with to stay in business?  But I'm not surprised:  Progressives are enigmatic mixture of arrogance with benevolence (in spending other people's money that is).

And before yo go off on your usual whine about teens and entry level jobs, other countries have show a better solution than stiffing workers on decent pay; they offer a ‘junior’ minimum wage for those who are teens, making a more competitive job market for people in those age brackets, without stiffing adults.
Other countries may be able to do that, but in this country, that's called age discrimination.  If a fast-food joint has a choice between a teen and a senior citizen, which do they hire?  The senior citizen who's likely to have a more business-like attitude and work ethic?  Or the teenager with the energy to work the longer or harder shifts and ability to learn how to more quickly work the cash register?

It’s been pretty clear that higher minimum wages result in economic growth and better stability, and that many businesses, like Costco, are thriving while doing so, even when they are in direct competition for the low-ballers like Walmart.
The thing is they are not in direct competition.  Wal-Mart and Costco cater to different groups of customers.  Here is an excellent dissection of that false equivalency, courtesy of Forbes:  http://www.forbes.com/sites/lauraheller/2014/06/29/walmart-and-costco-are-not-the-same/

No one wins with low minimum wages.
Well, an employer who requires unskilled or low-skill labor does.

It is another failure of conservative economic policy.
Paying people what they're actually worth, instead of what someone arbitrarily decides they're worth, is a failure?
Posted by at No comments:

15 February 2015

Snl @ 40

To Jane Curtain, re your comment on Blondes reading "fake news ": Jane, you ignorant slut!

Tell me again, Jane, the network you're on, didn't their anchor just got suspended for 6 months for lying.  What's that about people on glass houses?

Fuck you, Jane Curtain.

Posted by at No comments:

31 December 2014

2014

It's been an interesting year for all, and a terrific one for me, my wife, and the new addition to our family.

Happy New Year to all.  May 2015 bring you joy and happiness.
Posted by at No comments:

16 November 2014

Legacy

Tonight, I welcomed my son into the world.

Yesterday evening, my wife and I headed to the hospital to induce her into labor.  Originally, we were supposed to go around 8 in the evening.  We set out early, because snow flurries and slick roads made the journey to the hospital interesting.  On the way, we got a call from the hospital:  Not yet.  It seems some other woman or women had gone into labor ahead of us.

So I turned the car around.  Back home.

We relaxed and watched a movie while waiting for the hospital to call and clear us to come on in and get my wife admitted.  The call comes.  So once more on to the slick roads.  Snow sticking a little bit more.

We get my wife admitted and settled in the room a little bit before midnight.  Monitors put on.  Medication applied.  We settle in the for the night.  I wake up frequently to the sounds of the nurses adjusting the "belts" on my wife.  I had forgotten sleepwear, so I slept in my long underwear.

The next morning, they put in the epidural drip and my wife's OB checks the progress.  Slow going.  During the day, nurses and OB notice the fetal heart rate drop with every contraction.  As afternoon approaches, we're given the decision to make:  Try and deliver naturally, or go with a C-section.  We opt for the latter.

Around 6 in the evening, they prep my wife for surgery and give me scrubs to put on.  My wife is wheeled into an OR and I'm directed to wait in an empty room.  The minutes I was there felt like hours.  My mind ran worrisome scenarios that only heightened my anxiety.  I noticed a book on Bible verses and pick it up.  I can't remember what I read, just that it comforted me in those nerve-wracking minutes.  When I entered the OR, I was calm.  The nurses found me a stool to sit on so I could keep my wife calm.  We settled on our child's middle name.  The first name had been decided for a couple of weeks.

My wife's OB calls me to stand up and look over the screen to see my child, and to tell my wife what I see.  And I see it, clear as day:  I excitedly tell me wife (though from behind my surgical mask, I'm not sure how much expression there was on my face):  "It's a boy!"

I remember tears of joy in my eyes at that moment.  It's an emotional experience that defies description.  One has to become a parent to know it.  I think to myself about the journey to this moment:  My own childhood, growing up in Florida, Arizona, and Germany.  My time in college.  Working in Minnesota.  Moving to Iowa.  Meeting my wife.  Our wedding day and honeymoon.  All those events that led me to this moment, cutting the umbilical cord and holding my son.  A son.  He'll carry the last name forward.  I sit on the stool by my wife and show her our son.  Tears well up in our eyes.

I accompany the nurse on the elevator down to the nursery, where my son gets tagged like merchandise in a department store.  He and I share a few private moments after he's been weighed and measured:  7 lbs 6 oz.  21 inches.  I tell him:

Hey there, little guy.  I'm your Daddy.  Your Mommy and I are very happy to finally meet you!  I can tell already that you're going to be a heartbreaker.  You're going to get your way quite often with Mommy.  I'll tell you right now that I'm going to be a little tougher on you.  But it's because it's my job.  I'm here to protect you.  To teach you what it is to be a man.  To be strong.  To stand up for yourself.  To teach you not to be fearless, but to conquer your fear.  To give you advice, even when you don't want to hear it.  To help you learn from my mistakes without having to make them yourself.  I'm here to also teach you compassion, generosity, and forgiveness.  But for now, I'll start with teaching you about love.  Love is simply this:  I will do anything, my son, to keep you safe, even give up my own life.  I hope it doesn't come to that, because I look forward to spending the rest of my life getting to know you.
So as I sit here in my wife's room with both her and my son asleep, ready to take him back to the nursery for the night, I glance out the window as another midnight approaches.  It's Sunday, so the traffic on the highway is sparse.  A thin layer of snow still covers everything.  And I still don't have any sleepwear.  But at this moment, I don't care.  I beam at my sleeping son and think how much different my life has become in the last 24 hours.  Yesterday, I was just a husband.  Today, I'm also a dad.



Posted by at No comments:

15 November 2014

Paid Maternity Leave - Why?

I've seen a lot of friends linking to articles on social media recently, about how the U.S. is the only industrialized nation that doesn't require employers to offer paid maternity leave to employees.

My first reaction is...so what?

Yes, I'm sure that sounds heartless. But I guess I've never been one to demonstrate my largesse with someone else's money.

Lost in the emotion of this issue, I think, is the notion of getting something for nothing. Why should an employer be forced to pay for an employee who's not working, whatever the reason?

There are many companies that offer some form of paid maternity leave already. I'm guessing their accountants have determined that the company can mitigate the financial loss of paying an employee to be a mother or father instead of working, with the benefits being that it helps the employer recruit and retain good employees. It's a similar notion behind paying for an employee's health/dental insurance, vacation time, and short-term and long-term disability. These are all benefits tacked on top of an employee's salary to help attract and retain high-quality employees.

So why does the government need to bring the force of law and mandate employers offer a perk? Especially now, as the country slowly climbs out of a recession, as the country sees high unemployment (I'm talking about real unemployment, as opposed the number that just measures the people who haven't yet given up looking for a job).  Why does the government need to mandate that employees get paid for having a kid?  Was that in the terms of employment when the employee was hired?

It shouldn't surprise me that the Obama administration should want to invade and nullify the contract, implied or formal, between employer and employee, given the administration's prior disregard for contract law.  I'm just hoping for a little more justification on why businesses should be forced to pay for their employees to have kids, other than lots of statistics about how other industrialized nations offer this and a general railing about the unfairness of the situation.

Wait a minute, who ever said that life was fair?

The thing is, if the government can show studies about how offering this benefit increases employee productivity and retention for employers, if they can show the businesses that offering paid maternity leave has short-term and/or long-term benefits for the employer's bottom line... wouldn't the businesses already be offering paid maternity leave?  The thing is, those studies exist, and some businesses have calculated that they can offer the benefit while staying solvent (Rule #1 of running a business is making sure you stay in business!)

With the Affordable Care Act, the law saw employees laid off or reduced from full-time positions to part-time positions so employers could stay afloat.

Consider this scenario, should paid maternity leave be mandated:  A couple with both people working consider having a baby much sooner, considering now someone else is paying the bills while they are off work, instead of waiting to get a little more savings built up and/or a better paying job so that they can weather the financial hardships of caring for another human being for the better part of 18 years.

So what happens if the business that employs the mother or father folds under this hardship of being forced to pay for this couple, and every other couple who decides to have children earlier?  Now the employer's money is gone, and the new parents are left to fend for themselves before they were ready?  Do they go on welfare?  Does the parent still employed have to find a better-paying job (with the possibility of longer hours away from his or her child), or worse, take a second job?

What about single people?  Or childless couples?  They weren't the same financial drain on the business.  Why should they suffer the economic consequences or this law?

I remember seeing a story a few years ago, about France's unemployment problems, and how French politicians toyed with the idea of allowing an employer to dismiss employees in the first two years of their employment for whatever reason.  Labor laws being what they are in France, it's very difficult to fire an employee, so businesses are reluctant to hire someone who might not be a good fit for the company.  See the law of unintended consequences playing out here?

Anyway, the French politicians considered the legislation, and the population, with their ingrained sense of entitlement, damn near rioted.  They couldn't see past the short-term benefits of having a guaranteed job and see the long-term negative of how the policy served as a barrier to employment in the first place.

Paid maternity leave, forced on businesses by the government.  Just another example of the staggering economic illiteracy you get when the president hasn't demonstrated the business acumen to run so much as a lemonade stand.
Posted by at No comments:

31 October 2014

Cowardly commenters

Last month, I mopped the floor with a liberal on Newsbusters, using the facts as my broom handle.

Here's his comment that triggered my response.  Names have been omitted to protect the galatically stupid:

The Star Tribune is now owned by a rightwing billionaire, but for years its political content has been managed by stealth conservatives who "balanced" the Strib's op-ed pages with movement conservatives and centrists in lieu of liberals. The Strib has been owned by investment groups since the '90s and toes the .1%'s line.
No one who knows anything about the ownership of American news media believes the hard right's asinine "liberal media" talking points anymore. If it was once true, it hasn't been the case for well over two decades. The media is wrapped around the Right's little pinkie, and someday the more honest conservatives among you will admit to this.

 My response, with bullet points.  See, there are sometimes I enjoy bashing someone over the head with examples that do fit their generalizations:

The Star Tribune is now owned by a rightwing billionaire,
Who bought it after the Star Tribune found a surefire way to lose money: Alienate roughly half of your potential readers with the likes of Lori Sturdevant, Doug Grow, Nick Coleman, and the despicable Steve Sack.
who "balanced" the Strib's op-ed pages with movement conservatives and centrists in lieu of liberals
Liberals like the names mentioned above? By the way, what is wrong with balance in the op-ed section? Successful media acknowledges a diversity opinion among potential readers/listeners/viewers (* ahem * Fox News Channel)
If it was once true, it hasn't been the case for well over two decades
Which is why (REDACTED) hardly ever has examples of media bias-- Oh wait...
The media is wrapped around the Right's little pinkie, and someday the more honest conservatives among you will admit to this.
Yes, we've got the media so wrapped around our pinkie, that:
- in 2000, the media called the state of Florida for the Democratic presidential candidate when the polls were still open in the panhandle, a traditionally Republican-dominated part of the state.
- in 2004, a reporter tried to discredit a sitting Republican president with documents that couldn't be authenticated
- in 2008, reporters spent more time vetting a Republican vice-presidential candidate than they did the Democratic presidential candidate.
- in 2012, in the aftermath of the Aurora, CO movie theater shooting, and ABC News' Brian Ross identified a James Holmes who was a member of a Tea Party chapter in Colorado. He had no confirmation this was the shooter and had to retract his comments when it turned out he had the wrong Holmes.
- in 2012, a debate moderator committed an arguably-unethical act in backing up the incumbent Democrat during a presidential debate. Worse yet, she got her facts wrong.
Just a few examples of how the Right has got control of the media. /sarc
My little citation of examples of how the media is not controlled by the right wing earned me accolades from some of my like-minded commenters.  It's not why I do it, but it's nice to get the virtual pat on the back every once in a while.

Now, unlike some, I don't spend every moment on the comment boards.  I figured if my debate opponent had a response, he would respond to me, which would translate into an email notification.

The thing is, he didn't respond to me.  He responded to someone else and "refuted" my examples:

1. Al Gore won Florida but didn't have the guts to fight the fix that was in.
2. George W. Bush walked away from duty but because of a Republican operative's ability to make the argument be about a side issue, Bush wasn't held accountable for going AWOL.
3. Sarah Palin adopted her youngest child. No clue what that was about but she's active in a crazy church and is never held accountable for her truly extremist views. I grew up in rural Iowa so please don't tell me hers are rural views because that defames all rural people.
4. ABC is a very Republican friendly network. I'm sure Ross was punished for slipping up.
5. Sorry, can't unpack that one. I need a name or a date or something to go by.
I comment under my own name and I am proud to be an American, but it shames me as an American when otherwise good Americans think democracy requires vote suppression like in Communist countries.
The biggest shock to me after moving to Minnesota in 1988 was that 1) the Star Tribune was not the liberal newspaper I thought it was, just another pro-corporate, pro big business daily; 2) that the Star Tribune kept visibly moving to the right, yet the insults from the hard right just grew more vicious even as they grew less factually based; 3) that the Star Tribune evolved into an outright Republican newspaper, yet still was abused by MN Republicans who by then had moved all the way into the John Birch Society camp (and I grew up reading John Birch Society literature and do know it when I read it).
The MN Republican party is now bankrupt having elected leadership that talked hard right but governed as kleptocrats and borrowed what they could not raise. They couldn't beat Al Franken (seriously, how hard was that?) because they couldn't do better than to run a former Democrat who had his suits paid for by an Iranian businessman.
But I will vouch for Ultra. He sounds exactly like a MN Republican: unwilling to let facts get in the way of his beliefs. Sadly, MN will keep reelecting people like Al Franken until such time as MN Republicans start trying to win instead of insisting on ideology first and foremost.
Of course, this happened a month ago, so I missed the whole exchange and comments on the thread are now closed.  He and I have both gone on to comment on other blog posts.  But when I saw this today, I smiled and shook my head.  I shouldn't be surprised.  And this blog doesn't get the visibility of others.  So this response is less for any audience, but more a catharsis for me.

Let's dissect this:

 1. Al Gore won Florida but didn't have the guts to fight the fix that was in.
The thing is, he didn't.  You have no proof.  And by the way, what does this have to do with media bias?  Try to stay on topic, please.

2. George W. Bush walked away from duty but because of a Republican operative's ability to make the argument be about a side issue, Bush wasn't held accountable for going AWOL.
Again, where's your proof?  Dan Rather and Mary Mapes levelled accusations against a sitting Republican president with documents that couldn't be authenticated, especially when it looked like they were typed in Microsoft Word in 2004, and not like they were typed in 1973 on an IBM Selectric typewriter.  Once again, however, my point was about media bias.  You seem to want to debate historical events.  It's possible Bush was AWOL.  But the thing is, you can't prove it!  Neither could Dan Rather or Mary Mapes, which is probably why they fired/forced to resign:  They made inflammatory accusations based on shoddy "evidence."  Journalists must be held to high standards.

3. Sarah Palin adopted her youngest child. No clue what that was about but she's active in a crazy church and is never held accountable for her truly extremist views. I grew up in rural Iowa so please don't tell me hers are rural views because that defames all rural people.
Good Lord, do you have a learning disability?  My point was how the media spent so many resources trying to dig up dirt on Palin in Alaska, when they couldn't be bothered to look into Obama's past.  I said nothing about her children or her views.  Further, I didn't say anything about how Palin's views reflected rural values, or anything like that, but maybe my super-secret straw man filter wasn't on.  By the way, I have visited rural Iowa, and I can confidently express this:  You don't speak for rural people, either.
4. ABC is a very Republican friendly network. I'm sure Ross was punished for slipping up.
Really, you're sure?  That's your defense?  Isn't he still working at ABC?  Seems to me his punishment wasn't severe enough.  Like I said, journalists should be held to high standards.  When your job has the potential to endanger a person's like or livelihood, a suspension doesn't necessarily cut it.

5. Sorry, can't unpack that one. I need a name or a date or something to go by.

Well, if you'd responded to me, I could've clarified my example for you:  I was talking about CNN's Candy Crowley and when she moderated one of the debates between Obama and Romney.  In a blatant unprofessional move, Crowley interjected into the debate to correct Romney and side with Obama.  Turns out, Romney had his facts right, and Crowley was mistaken.  Even if it went the other way, she should have not stepped out of her role as a debate moderator.  She gave Obama an unfair advantage in the debate-- he should've been the one to correct Romney!

Then there was this gem:
I comment under my own name and I am proud to be an American, but it shames me as an American when otherwise good Americans think democracy requires vote suppression like in Communist countries.
I'm sorry, what was the point of this?  Was this a dig at me?  Does my use of a pseudonym negate the validity of the points I made?  Maybe I've seen enough stories of people exercising their free speech rights and getting subjected to various forms of retaliation.  Why does it matter to you?  Did I thwart your plans of trying to make the debate personal?  Good, because debates shouldn't be about the people in the debate, they should be about the ideas.

By the way, who brought up vote (fraud) suppression?  I mean, besides you?  Once again, you're probably lucky I didn't see your response until it was too late.  I'm not sure your psyche could withstand the public trouncing.

The biggest shock to me after moving to Minnesota in 1988 was that 1) the Star Tribune was not the liberal newspaper I thought it was, just another pro-corporate, pro big business daily; 2) that the Star Tribune kept visibly moving to the right, yet the insults from the hard right just grew more vicious even as they grew less factually based; 3) that the Star Tribune evolved into an outright Republican newspaper, yet still was abused by MN Republicans who by then had moved all the way into the John Birch Society camp (and I grew up reading John Birch Society literature and do know it when I read it)
 Where to begin?  If this guy thinks the Star & Sickle is a right-wing newspaper, I'm guessing he thinks Lenin was a moderate!  By the way, I read his crack about MN Republicans moving all the way into the John Birch Society as "Republicans to the right of Arne Carlson, the only Republican governor the DFL ever halfway liked."  And he grew up reading JBS literature, huh?  Funny how he can't distinguish from viewpoints to the right of William F. Buckley, and the viewpoints of the Tea Party, which is as far right as the S-T could (theoretically) go.  Or does my opponent think the Star Tribune should look a little bit more like the Worker's World Daily?

The MN Republican party is now bankrupt having elected leadership that talked hard right but governed as kleptocrats and borrowed what they could not raise. They couldn't beat Al Franken (seriously, how hard was that?) because they couldn't do better than to run a former Democrat who had his suits paid for by an Iranian businessman.
The thing is that Norm Coleman did beat Al Franken.  On election night.  It wasn't until the recount produced a statistically unlikely reversal under the supervision of SoS Mark Ritchie, a politician whom was supported in his run by ACORN, an organization that "accidentally" ran afoul of various laws, including those pertaining to voter registration, more than once.  And I'll point out that Coleman was an incumbent U.S. Senator running for re-election against Franken.  Coleman had won in 2002 after populist Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash five days before the election, and the DFL scrambled to put Walter Mondale in his place.  The polls showed Wellstone in the lead, and voter sympathy should've made it a landslide for Mondale.  But then there was that memorial-turned-political-rally that so disgusted voters that they voted for Coleman out of spite.  Coleman's bad fortune in 2008 was the wave of anti-Bush sentiment among voters.
But I will vouch for REDACTED. He sounds exactly like a MN Republican: unwilling to let facts get in the way of his beliefs. Sadly, MN will keep reelecting people like Al Franken until such time as MN Republicans start trying to win instead of insisting on ideology first and foremost.

Seems to be the first rule of debate if you're losing as badly as this guy:  Attack your opponent!  For the record, asshole:  Yes, I did live (past-tense) in Minnesota.  Yes, I tended to vote Republican.  No, unlike you, I'm not only open to new facts and information, but I'll actually cite them when making my argument.  The only "beliefs" I hold are related to my faith.

And pardon me, but stuff your unsolicited advice:  What is it with leftists and their need to advise their opponents on "how to win"?  Evidence to date shows running Republicans as Democrat-lite is a consistently-doomed approach.  In 2010, we saw what happens when the GOP runs on its principles (not ideology, moron:  Ideology implies the gulf between Republicans and Democrats as akin to Capitalists and Marxists).


Posted by at No comments:

05 July 2014

The thing about rights...

... is that they're not absolute.  Your rights only extend so far as they do not interfere with my rights.

It's amazing how the entitlement mentality in today's United States has overridden the ability to show some critical thinking on this topic.

Let's say you're a Sandra Fluke-type woman who can't afford to pay for your own birth control.  Like a self-entitled slutty little brat that you are, you demand your employer pays for it.  Worse yet, you demand the government make your employer pay for it.

First off, I'd like to thank Ted Kennedy for the 40-year-old notion of HMOs that, like so many well-intentioned liberal ideas, had the opposite effect in reality.  Once upon a time, if you got sick, you went to the doctor, the doctor treated you, and you paid the doctor.

But about poor people?  What about expensive medical treatment?  Enter the HMO.

Now, when you visit the doctor, there's a bean counter between you and your doctor.  Medical procedures must follow the Golden Rule:  The HMO has the gold, so it makes the rules about what procedures will be paid for.

Now, your doctor can tell the HMO to beat it, that he/she won't treat patients represented by accountants.  Problem is, the HMO has sold the snake oil of collective bargaining, as pertains to medical costs, to not just you, but everybody in town.  The doctor has no choice:  He/she must treat patients belonging to the HMO or close up shop.

Now the idea of a collective bargaining unit makes some sense if your doctor was charging you an arm and a leg to treat your arm or leg.  But here's the deal:  Medical procedures sometimes do cost a lot of money.  It cost the doctor a lot of money to go through med school.  It cost a lot of money for the company making the IVs, syringes, and gauze to make sure it's all sterile and high quality.  Guess what?  The HMO nickle-and-dimes the doctor?  The doctor will try to recoup the cost of the procedures the HMO won't pay for by increasing the cost of the procedures they will pay for.

Secondly, somewhere along the time, someone with the same good intentions decided it would be smarter if employers, instead of paying you money that you could use to purchase health insurance, that your employer, with its vast resources, took some of the money from payroll and purchased a group health insurance plan.  Along the lines, a law was passed that a for-profit company with more than 50 employees was required to purchase group health insurance.  So now, the government has put a bean counter and your boss in the room with you and your doctor when you're making health care decisions.  The bean counter has some input on what the HMO's money will be spent on.  The employer, with its financial clout, can at least contractually negotiate with the HMO as to what the employer will pay the HMO to cover.  You?  You have the option to pick one of 2-3 group health care plans your employer has funded, or you can keep the money that would be deducted from your paycheck and purchase your own insurance.  Or if you are a healthy person with an occupation that doesn't raise your risk of injury, you can roll the dice and forgo health insurance, opting to pay as you go.

Now as the entity with the money, the employer will make financial decisions based on a variety of things, including economics and morality.  The Supreme Court has ruled that, just because a Christian man or woman starts a business does not mean he/she has forfeited their right to free expression of their religious beliefs.  You come along and tell your employer that you want the company to subsidize your sex life.  Specifically, you want them to subsidize it so you engage in consequence-free behavior, especially when your birth control fails (or you neglect to use it properly) and you need the chemical or surgical equivalent of absolving you of your responsibility.

Your employer, if run by someone who places more value on the quality of life than you have shown, are well within his/her rights to tell you to pound sand and pay for chemical/surgical responsibility-absolution yourself.  When you think about it, does your employer necessarily want to encourage abdication of personal responsibility in its employees?  Wouldn't the next step be abdication of professional responsibility?  Couldn't that potentially cost your employer his or her business in the event of a lawsuit?

The thing about rights:  Your employer, being owned and run by people with the same rights as you, has a right to free expression of their religion just the same as you.  It's in the Bill of Rights, which means its constitutional law.  It's further supported by federal law, specifically the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.  The ACA mandate on employers being required to cover birth control, including abortifacents, was a mandate enacted by the Department of Health & Human Services, at least one step removed from being passed into law by Congress (the ACA was passed by Congress, affording power to HHS that I do not agree is constitutional, but that's a topic for another discussion).  Guess what?  When an executive-branch mandate conflicts with federal law at best, the Constitution at worst, the mandate loses.



Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)