Here's another great idea from starlet crackpot presidential candidate Michele Bachmann: Let's do away with the federally-mandated minimum wage. And why not? Anyone should be able to "live" on $2 a day, as they do in much of the world anyway.
What is wrong with a country in which a large number of people promote/are swayed by this kind of supposedly pro-employment drivel? What is wrong with a country where we cannot agree that dignity and work should go hand-in-hand, and where the minimum wage is less than half of what is needed just to make ends meet (i.e. to live with dignity, not in the lap of luxury)?
When a presidential candidate's solution for the dire straits in which the middle-class navigates life in the USA these days is to remove even the paltry protection from complete exploitation that the minimum wage offers, instead of rising against corporations that pay no U.S. taxes in spite of reaping epochal profits; when you live in a country where a presidential candidate can answer, without a shade of shame, "that's uniquely American" to a woman who had just told him that she had to pick up three jobs just to make ends meet, and people re-elect him for another four years of making fools of us all; when Republican leaders hold the middle-class hostage and the ransom is extended tax cuts for corporation and Uncle Scrooges and cuts for social programs: that is the sign you live in a country that has fucked-up priorities. In that, at least, we still seem to be number one.
2 comments:
Hey Sirfab!
I don't know how closely you follow Doug Groothuis' blog, but he has recently come out in support of Bachmann in her bid for the Presidency. No big surprise there, I suppose, considering his total embrace of the syncretistic melding of some elements of orthodox Calvinist Christianity with what is essentially a Randian political, social, and economic sensibility. Of course this somewhat bizzare (in light of what Jesus actually taught) union of philosohies is Randian at it's heart with a large side order of Christian supernaturalism and the promise of a blissful afterlife for those lucky recipients of God's Grace whose Holy Spirit has so generously led them to the undoubtledly Biblically sound perspectives that they hold so confidently to be "The Truth".
But look on the bright side, amigo. At least we aren't dealing with their Afghani counterparts, the Taliban. Know what I mean?
An interesting bit of historical information about Doug is that his father was a leader in the Laborer's Union in Alaska who died in a plane crash while investigating labor issues in a remote part of Alaska when Doug was about eleven years old. Presumably Doug has been the recipient of social security benefits in his youth, probably including his college years. I know that he finacially benfitted from income earned through very good paying jobs he secured through the Alaska Laborer's Union during his college years. In light of what I do know about Doug's background I find it particularly dismaying that he has given his wholehearted support to Bachmann, who would gladly dispense with such a fundamental, albeit meager, economic protection as the minimum wage.
Oh My!!! These Madhouse Christo-Randians and their crazed desire to return, not only themselves but the whole of society, to their version of a virtual utopia that apparently would be feudal, prescientific, and entirely theocratic in nature, True Conservatism, I say!
I suppose sometimes the best we can do is try to laugh until it stops hurting. But sometimes that doesn't work either...
Peace Out,
SteveO
I didn't think DG could top (negatively) his enthusiasm for Sarah Palin in 2008. Well, he did.
I might be wrong, but when DG endorses candidates like Palin and Bachmann he actually does a huge disservice to his cause, whatever his cause is, politically speaking. And in hurting his political credibility, I suspect he also hurts his philosophical one in the process.
I am not sure how many philosophers take a conniving witch like Bachmann seriously. Well, there's one at least.
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