Fox news... i just don't get it
For a while now my opinion has been that Fox news exists to make people angry, and the CNN's and MSNBC's of the world are there to make people disappointed.
Anyway, after reading an article suggesting we should get rid of the National Weather Service in favor of the free market alternatives we apparently all can afford and pay strict attention to (you know like the Weather Channel), I found another interesting link, and well...
i got to the point where they equate not supporting child labor with supporting child starvation and prostitution, and my faith in humanity suddenly diminished. Maybe john stossel will get his wish and someone will blackmail him for one of his organs so it can be sold on the open market to pay for hanna montana tickets and a t shirt made by some kid in genericistan who doesn't have to whore himself today. but that's an exaggeration of his intent, which i'm hoping is just an exaggeration of proposed ideas about what is culturally acceptable.
Surely he understands that the ideas in his piece are there to protect human dignity, life, and in the case of scalpers their wallets.
Why is the only alternative to child labor prostitution? wouldn't it make more sense to put into effect a greater coordinated plan beyond just education for the children? is it because they are poor that we would rather write it off as okay for them to work than to help ease the burden that forces them to work as KIDS in the first place?
Sure you could also make the argument that Ticket Scalpers should be legal, that they are saving you time in line... but as it happens now a lot of events are sold out within minutes, online and off, and there really isn't any time that would have been wasted. for instance Blizzcon last year sold out in about 10 seconds, and many of us had been waiting for hours for that window and simply missed out. Scalpers were selling the tickets at roughly 8 times the original price. Supply and Demand suggests they would sell them only at the price which people valued the tickets at. But the whole point of the tickets being what they were was that the Company decided that the ticket value would both be fair and profitable at that point. The argument seems to be that fair as a principle has far less value than what you can get away with. which is fine if you are rich, or have that thing in your head that says exploiting your fellow man just because you can is culturally or ethically acceptable... which leads to the next argument
Selling your organs should be legal. Right, in a perfect world... well in a perfect world your fellow man would help out another ailing man, so let's just forget about that. In this world, i'd like to think we don't allow the sale of organs because it then creates a market for said organs. People aren't nice, they will work to exploit each other for financial gain. If that argument is invalid then so there would be no point in Stossel addressing any of these issues. Why would i sell my organs when it would be much more cost/life effective to sell other people's organs, sort of like a scalper. I got to the organs first. Sure there would be some people who are one check away from helping their fellow man out, but again this feels like another argument that feeds on plight of poor people. Not to mention the opposite side, if a poor person needed an organ instead of fairly waiting in line they would continuously be sidelined while the rich could simply buy the next one that comes their way. ugh, 3 AM logic, i'm sure there are holes in mine, but gosh how can you not feel some sort of sadness/pity for the logic being pushed from this article alone?
Blackmail, great if you can pay off people to keep quiet. Horrible if you can't. Well the argument he posed was that if blackmail were legal, people would behave better. Humans will be human, and if we make it too easy to leverage and exploit another one, a human will. Pay me $10k or i'll tell the cops you touched my child. That would NEVER happen (obviously i don't have all the facts this was literally a 5 second search on google.. oh and by the way Blackmailing is illegal, can you imagine if they could get away with it?)
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I'm not rich, i'd love to be rich, but it probably will never happen. I don't have the connections and we all know that hard work alone can only get you so far, and to a certain extent i like it this way. I still have a memory to what it is like to be poor, maybe that will always mean i have sympathy for the people out there that work very hard to try and live comfortably. Not everyone who is poor is the evil social leech the right side media wants you to think they are. Some people genuinely just need a little help. Maybe their company doesn't pay enough and no other companies around them are hiring, they can't afford to go back to school, and they certainly don't have the free time to sit at home and innovate. Every day i become more enraged at the ideas being pushed by the right to take away that buffer, that help, the guidance the lower rungs of American society need just to get by. The company will always pay the lowest it can and still retain the worker. If they weren't forced to pay minimum wage, they would pay less. How do i know? look at the unregulated sectors, the illegal worker force, look at what happened to the meat packing industry after the destruction of their unions. Undocumented workers are making far less in these markets simply because it is still more than they can make where they are from. I absolutely hate the argument "if you don't like it then you can just get out".
Do i support illegal immigration, no. I figure there is a method to become a legal citizen. If it seriously is not meeting the demands of the citizens we can expand or rewrite the rules. Do I support Unions, i support the idea of Unions, but i also find that they too are exploiting the system they should be using to simply protect the valuable workers within them. Do i think the governments role should be about what it is now? yes, protect the citizens, support them in their endeavors, and employ our power across the globe in support of humanitarian missions so that the World can grow together.
As for my 3AM rant, i think it's done... you've probably already labeled me a commie hippie liberal atheist, i wear the label with pride when i'm sitting on Alert in the field as part of the military. That's right, I do the job most "and i proudly stand up, next to you and defend her still today" singing hypocrites won't, and i prefer it that way, because when push comes to shove, i'd rather have me being the guy behind the gun than someone who would exploit the poor. (see it's not so nice to have someone give two alternatives that clearly don't make sense)
-Jeff
(obviously everything here is MY opinion and does not reflect the views of anyone else on the planet, i'm weird like that, and it definitely does not reflect the thoughts, opinions, policies, et cetera of the people i work for, their families, their imaginary friends, their real friends, their local restaurant owners, or anyone named Steve... specifically that last part. In no way is what I write to be thought of as Steve's opinion. If YOU have a pet Kangaroo that voices opinions similar to mine, i suggest you youtube that kangaroo and profit, and then refer people to me because i pointed out your kangaroo's talent. By the way, kangaroos should not be owned as pets, even highly intelligent ones, i'm fairly sure it's illegal too, for your safety, not Kangaroo Steve's)
Anyway, after reading an article suggesting we should get rid of the National Weather Service in favor of the free market alternatives we apparently all can afford and pay strict attention to (you know like the Weather Channel), I found another interesting link, and well...
i got to the point where they equate not supporting child labor with supporting child starvation and prostitution, and my faith in humanity suddenly diminished. Maybe john stossel will get his wish and someone will blackmail him for one of his organs so it can be sold on the open market to pay for hanna montana tickets and a t shirt made by some kid in genericistan who doesn't have to whore himself today. but that's an exaggeration of his intent, which i'm hoping is just an exaggeration of proposed ideas about what is culturally acceptable.
Surely he understands that the ideas in his piece are there to protect human dignity, life, and in the case of scalpers their wallets.
Why is the only alternative to child labor prostitution? wouldn't it make more sense to put into effect a greater coordinated plan beyond just education for the children? is it because they are poor that we would rather write it off as okay for them to work than to help ease the burden that forces them to work as KIDS in the first place?
Sure you could also make the argument that Ticket Scalpers should be legal, that they are saving you time in line... but as it happens now a lot of events are sold out within minutes, online and off, and there really isn't any time that would have been wasted. for instance Blizzcon last year sold out in about 10 seconds, and many of us had been waiting for hours for that window and simply missed out. Scalpers were selling the tickets at roughly 8 times the original price. Supply and Demand suggests they would sell them only at the price which people valued the tickets at. But the whole point of the tickets being what they were was that the Company decided that the ticket value would both be fair and profitable at that point. The argument seems to be that fair as a principle has far less value than what you can get away with. which is fine if you are rich, or have that thing in your head that says exploiting your fellow man just because you can is culturally or ethically acceptable... which leads to the next argument
Selling your organs should be legal. Right, in a perfect world... well in a perfect world your fellow man would help out another ailing man, so let's just forget about that. In this world, i'd like to think we don't allow the sale of organs because it then creates a market for said organs. People aren't nice, they will work to exploit each other for financial gain. If that argument is invalid then so there would be no point in Stossel addressing any of these issues. Why would i sell my organs when it would be much more cost/life effective to sell other people's organs, sort of like a scalper. I got to the organs first. Sure there would be some people who are one check away from helping their fellow man out, but again this feels like another argument that feeds on plight of poor people. Not to mention the opposite side, if a poor person needed an organ instead of fairly waiting in line they would continuously be sidelined while the rich could simply buy the next one that comes their way. ugh, 3 AM logic, i'm sure there are holes in mine, but gosh how can you not feel some sort of sadness/pity for the logic being pushed from this article alone?
Blackmail, great if you can pay off people to keep quiet. Horrible if you can't. Well the argument he posed was that if blackmail were legal, people would behave better. Humans will be human, and if we make it too easy to leverage and exploit another one, a human will. Pay me $10k or i'll tell the cops you touched my child. That would NEVER happen (obviously i don't have all the facts this was literally a 5 second search on google.. oh and by the way Blackmailing is illegal, can you imagine if they could get away with it?)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm not rich, i'd love to be rich, but it probably will never happen. I don't have the connections and we all know that hard work alone can only get you so far, and to a certain extent i like it this way. I still have a memory to what it is like to be poor, maybe that will always mean i have sympathy for the people out there that work very hard to try and live comfortably. Not everyone who is poor is the evil social leech the right side media wants you to think they are. Some people genuinely just need a little help. Maybe their company doesn't pay enough and no other companies around them are hiring, they can't afford to go back to school, and they certainly don't have the free time to sit at home and innovate. Every day i become more enraged at the ideas being pushed by the right to take away that buffer, that help, the guidance the lower rungs of American society need just to get by. The company will always pay the lowest it can and still retain the worker. If they weren't forced to pay minimum wage, they would pay less. How do i know? look at the unregulated sectors, the illegal worker force, look at what happened to the meat packing industry after the destruction of their unions. Undocumented workers are making far less in these markets simply because it is still more than they can make where they are from. I absolutely hate the argument "if you don't like it then you can just get out".
Do i support illegal immigration, no. I figure there is a method to become a legal citizen. If it seriously is not meeting the demands of the citizens we can expand or rewrite the rules. Do I support Unions, i support the idea of Unions, but i also find that they too are exploiting the system they should be using to simply protect the valuable workers within them. Do i think the governments role should be about what it is now? yes, protect the citizens, support them in their endeavors, and employ our power across the globe in support of humanitarian missions so that the World can grow together.
As for my 3AM rant, i think it's done... you've probably already labeled me a commie hippie liberal atheist, i wear the label with pride when i'm sitting on Alert in the field as part of the military. That's right, I do the job most "and i proudly stand up, next to you and defend her still today" singing hypocrites won't, and i prefer it that way, because when push comes to shove, i'd rather have me being the guy behind the gun than someone who would exploit the poor. (see it's not so nice to have someone give two alternatives that clearly don't make sense)
-Jeff
(obviously everything here is MY opinion and does not reflect the views of anyone else on the planet, i'm weird like that, and it definitely does not reflect the thoughts, opinions, policies, et cetera of the people i work for, their families, their imaginary friends, their real friends, their local restaurant owners, or anyone named Steve... specifically that last part. In no way is what I write to be thought of as Steve's opinion. If YOU have a pet Kangaroo that voices opinions similar to mine, i suggest you youtube that kangaroo and profit, and then refer people to me because i pointed out your kangaroo's talent. By the way, kangaroos should not be owned as pets, even highly intelligent ones, i'm fairly sure it's illegal too, for your safety, not Kangaroo Steve's)
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