Today, at work...
Posted by desimarie23 9 years, 10 months ago to Government
The office manager took the group of us out to lunch. Normally the topics of conversation at such lunches are mindless. Today...because of the SOTU crap last night, the office manager decided to throw her two-cents about government out on the table for discussion. Of course I cringed because both she and her husband (my boss) are Liberal and obviously very pro-BO. Mind you- my boss is a VERY successful attorney and very, very wealthy.
So she says "Did you hear that 'they're' talking about making two years of community college free??" and while I attempted to restrain myself...I replied "and who is paying for that 'free' education? Nothing is ever free." "Oh the top 1% that hold all of the wealth of the country..." I asked her why she thinks that it's ok to take money from one person to give it to someone else. Her exact words are "that's the way it goes...they don't need all of that money anyway."
I left. I got up, got into my car and drove back to work. Had I not done that, I would've lost my job for telling her what a fool she is. I just needed to share this. We've discussed the "free education" in the Gulch before. So no need to beat a dead horse but there are truly people that think it is 100% okay to redistribute wealth to the undeserving. This woman also thinks that the present economy is the best it's ever been in our country....and "wouldn't it be great if BO could always be president."
Just shoot me.
So she says "Did you hear that 'they're' talking about making two years of community college free??" and while I attempted to restrain myself...I replied "and who is paying for that 'free' education? Nothing is ever free." "Oh the top 1% that hold all of the wealth of the country..." I asked her why she thinks that it's ok to take money from one person to give it to someone else. Her exact words are "that's the way it goes...they don't need all of that money anyway."
I left. I got up, got into my car and drove back to work. Had I not done that, I would've lost my job for telling her what a fool she is. I just needed to share this. We've discussed the "free education" in the Gulch before. So no need to beat a dead horse but there are truly people that think it is 100% okay to redistribute wealth to the undeserving. This woman also thinks that the present economy is the best it's ever been in our country....and "wouldn't it be great if BO could always be president."
Just shoot me.
If she asks where you're going, imply that a new club just started... :) ... and she can wait for an invitation... arriving right after hell freezes over...
Worrying about spies will drive you crazy. While some person wonders what your ideology is and a brownnoser spies, just create value and solve problems. I really don't understand how they can get anything done while spending time worrying about each other's personal beliefs. If you focus on being excellent at solving customer problems, you'll get better that. The conspiracy people will get better at politics.
In a situation where an authority imposes its political views and others are forming a "new club" in opposition, an obvious conflict arises. Any individual can be tempted to choose sides and trade loyalty to the group for benefits from the authority, by betraying the group. I do not see any conspiracy in that situation. Common sense, it seems to me, counsels recognition of the risk and prudence.
As I tried to say in my first comment, the whole situation is a poison to a healthy work environment. I have been there in my life. I chose to quit and found a way into "solving customer problems", practicing development engineering. What we developed is still the best in the world, 40 years hence.
While I was very interested in your views at lunch regarding the top 1% not needing the money anyhow. I am taking the time to forward you the greatest opportunity for you to "put YOUR money where your mouth is."
Since you are part of that top 1% here is a web link where you can freely take all that money you don't need and sent it in to the government so they can pay for that free education that you yourself said you as part of the 1% should pay for.
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/resou...
The link to just empty your "unneeded money using your debit/credit card.
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/resou...
Please let me know how much you sent in so I can use you as a great example of this particular viewpoint.
"I was thinking about what you said, so I did some research, and guess what? There's a real process already available for anyone who wants to help support social programs by contributing extra money to them! ... here's the link... ..... Thanks again for encouraging me to do that bit of research. Forward the link to anyone you think would like to contribute their extra cash!"
And then smile and click "send."
:)
And the evil rich people never part with their money willingly, so it must be wrenched from them.
One more name I've added to my list of people that can kiss my arse.
I've got whole branches of my family whose buttons I can press that way, who also try to provoke me into arguments because our views are so diametrically opposed.
The fun thing for me is to choose, on the spot, whether to rise to the bait and join the fray at any given time.
Enjoy the chemistry!
Never-the-less, if someone wants to talk about Barry or anyone else in his socialist, criminal administration, I'll be happy to voice my opinion if wanted. She can sit in my lap so she can better listen in.
Wait!! Let me rethink that.
I wonder had Potus said blatantly he was going to provide 2 years of college education, and do so by a tax on everyone - how many of these greedy self-centerec libs would have sung its praises...
Sorry... but I couldn't, in good conscience, work for someone like that. I did, years ago, and left when I had the chance... and never looked back!
If you're like me, you never looked back and said, "I wish I could get that somewhat crappy I-guess-I-can-put-up-with-this job back." Every time I've taken a decision like this that I felt somewhat nervous about, I have *always* wondered why I didn't act sooner.
I hope that you have in mind what you will have to have to do, for how long, how you'll reach the desired point, and how you know you're there. Implementing a plan which includes performing disagreeable or distasteful actions is STILL implementing a plan on how you're going to get out of there - making progress.
Best of luck.
New and unfamiliar problems are a good thing, IMHO.
If you confronted the owners about it, you _might_ find they actually enjoy the discussion. They might just shut up about because they don't want turnover. You might even (although probably not) change their minds about something.
I strongly agree with rockymountainpirate that if they're that annoying, it's best to move on. There are too many interesting people, projects, and situations to work on to spend any time with people who carry on about politics or do anything too annoying.
She is supporting her employer with her labor and her mind, but the capitalist system is two-way. He is compensating her for her value, which may have nothing to do with progressive politics.
Lastly, there are myriad reasons not to just pick up and leave. We all make decisions based on our own personal hierarchy of values.
Everything they say is used to justify theft (social justice, economic justice, for the children, the planet, the underprivileged, reparations, fair-share, the rich don't need all that money, etc.)
To the "that's the way it goes...they don't need all of that money anyway" my response is, "So, then you believe you should be making choices for them about their money? By what stretch of the imagination do you have that power to make choices for them without their consent? Is it a 'right' you have or is it just theft?"
Wealth is created by Land, improvements to land, natural resources, and value added through manufacturing (labor). That is the classic "Funk and Wagnels" definition. In the early 20th century copyrights and intellectual property were added to that. Since most of us don't sit atop an oil well or gold mine, and we aren't likely to write a hit song or screen play, labor becomes the most portable and universal method to build wealth.
In the heyday of the US (1900-1965) we used our resources, our ideas, our labor, and our salesforce to create products desired and sold around the world. In 1972 I remember reading "Future Shock", which promoted the idea of the coming service economy and America's turning away from manufacturing and blue collar. For about 50 years the progressives have moved us toward that service economy.
Let's look at wealth potential and services. When you get a haircut, which feels good and looks good and deserves the payment of the barber, what is the intrinsic value of that haircut? In a few weeks it's worth nothing and has to be done all over again. Same for tax preparation. It's a valuable service that most people need these days, but what is the future value of that stack of papers on April 16th?
On the other hand, if you bought land, improved it with a house or commercial building, is it not worth more. In most cases there is synergy and it's worth more than the sum of the two.
Progressives don't see it that way. Wealth is created by the government and distributed as government allows. One of my favorite motivational speakers used to say if you philosophy won't hold water, then you are all wet.
It is an injustice that some progressives have acquired enough wealth to force or coerce reasonable people to do their bidding. The fact is they would not trade places with the people that need education.
If you listen to Rush, he would say it takes no effort to be a liberal, just a kind or warm thought. If you do something with a good feeling, then results don't matter. For the rest of us, result do matter.
The answer you evade, the monstrous answer is: No, the takers are not evil, provided they did not earn the value you gave them. It is not immoral for them to accept it, provided they are unable to produce it, unable to deserve it, unable to give you any value in return. It is not immoral for them to enjoy it, provided they do not obtain it by right.
Such is the secret core of your creed, the other half of your double standard: it is immoral to live by your own effort, but moral to live by the effort of others—it is immoral to consume your own product, but moral to consume the products of others—it is immoral to earn, but moral to mooch—it is the parasites who are the moral justification for the existence of the producers, but the existence of the parasites is an end in itself—it is evil to profit by achievement, but good to profit by sacrifice—it is evil to create your own happiness, but good to enjoy it at the price of the blood of others." AS (Galt's speech) - AR
Thank's for the bounty you always bring!
It has always been an adage to not discuss religion or politics in the work place. Even in my relatively conservative profession of gold mining and with some of the biggie corporate producers, there were some idiots that actually voted for Obama knowing that his administration is dead set against public land resource extraction.
It has been wise to be careful in the workplace, but I found a technique that is effective. Carry the discussion as though you were the moderator of a debate. Acknowledge that there are those that are in this camp, and there are others in the opposite camp, there are differing views and ultimately the proof is in the pudding. Pose the question of how do you taste the pudding and watch the gears of thought process slowly begin to unjam and turn.
Demonstrate that opposing premises can be evaluated, that which is A can be recognized as A, and the faulty premises leading to apparent contradiction can be ejected.
I was quite shocked to learn that the staff on this particular paper was expected to be anti-Reagan. I'm like--what, I'm in Mississippi?
I quickly came to realize that that there pervaded a notion that anyone in the media was SUPPOSED to be anti-Reagan.
To make a too long story short, by 1982 I was employed by the Alabama Department of Corrections. Talk about a radical career change.
I was paid a bit better, a lot better after step raises, while I also paid into a retirement I enjoy now.
No, don't work for any prison system unless you are a crazy dino. A radical career change may be worth considering though.
Good luck, desimarie23, I know how you feel.
now do you have the guts to tell her why you left if asked?
I would ask, which is more selfish, to wish to enjoy the fruits of one's labor, or to demand the fruits of another?
Sometimes...
"Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone." Ayn Rand
Yes propaganda is a powerful tool. Once embedded one must also fight confirmation bias.
"The trouble with our Liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so." - Ronald Reagan
Also the propagandists have subverted and absconded the word Liberal... Traditionally it held such a different meaning...
The battle rages on,
Respectfully,
O.A.
If you are able, I would suggest you obtain a concealed carry permit. Then, next time you have one of these lunches, bring it up as a kind of celebration!
You may find that you are no longer welcome at these lunches, which will give you the freedom to chose with whom you wish to eat, from then on.
The "they don't need all of that money anyway" attitude is everywhere. People that seem reasonable otherwise will spout the most ridiculous things when it comes to (non-existent) rights. People have a "right" to a home, food, high-paying job with benefits, healthcare, etc. I had such an experience and there was no exit, metaphorically.
I was in FL last winter recuperating from a heart problem and she invited a woman and her husband over for dinner. I'd met the woman before and she's exceedingly nice, generous and a talented artist. Her husband, who I hadn't met, was a successful lawyer who had retired, only to start a new practice helping the poor with an array of legal services, including litigation, pro bono. That's very admirable, of course. Because I am a hardcore libertarian and objectivist my mom reminded me that they are extremely liberal and asked me not to bring up politics (or religion, they're also fake, staunch Catholics).
A very pleasant dinner ensued; they are both intelligent, well informed and well traveled. (Can someone believe in collectivism and all it's evils and still be intelligent?) And then the unthinkable happened, they brought up politics, Obamacare, the whole shebang. They adored Obama; he was the savior of mankind and civilization. It's very hard to stay calm in these conversations but I was mostly successful. They were mostly successful, too.
I'll sound a bit like a douche for a second, but I'm fairly smart </douche-off>, extremely logical, absolutely consistent (hence objectivism and libertarianism) and have been a libertarian long enough to present the philosophy pretty well. But I was talking with two smart and hyper-dedicated progressives, so I knew it was going to be a challenge requiring me to argue competently.
Before I had read AS I wouldn't have supported the statement that collectivists hate mankind, that they believe that humans as a species are despicable. Ayn Rand explained so clearly why that statement is true, so early on I determined to try something that I now attempt in every one of these types of conversation. I wanted them to state, clearly and in their own words, how much they detested, or at least didn't trust, mankind. Because of course progressives claim to be the only ones who want civilization to prosper because they love people so much. I call this conversational goal "tricking them into telling us how they really feel."
The gory details of the discussion are irrelevant, which is lucky because I can't remember them anyway. The topic was: is healthcare/food/home a right or not. My position was, predictably, that capitalism was the best system, that government had absolutely no right to confiscate my property and give it to another, that people should earn things that they receive, there is no such thing as "deserve", that private enterprise and even outright voluntary charity would reduce poverty, suffering and oppression much more effectively than government thuggery. Their argument was precisely the opposite.
We went back and forth about confiscation vs cooperation, was it possible to "take care" of so many poor, uneducated without government redistributing wealth and I of course pointed out that it certainly could work especially since under a non-confiscatory economic system there would be a fraction of the poor and uneducated than there are now. My triumph came at last when the lawyer spat out, in one of the very few times he lost his cool, "WE WANT TO FORCE YOU TO PAY, IT HAS TO BE DONE BY FORCE, THERE'S NO WAY PEOPLE WOULD GIVE VOLUNTARILY!" He really showed in his tone of voice, the angry look on his face and more importantly with his own words, how little he thought of mankind.
Oh, I just dreamed up a sound bite that I quite love. "Objectivists despise individuals but love mankind, Collectivists love individuals but despise mankind." Maybe it needs some tweaking.
P.S. As a part of the conversation that we did not pursue as a separate topic was their own inherent racism and the smugness of progressives. At one point they asserted how wonderful they were because they had adopted something like 11 kids in addition to their two biological ones. The kicker was the emphasis was that not one of them was white. She was so proud of that little tidbit, you could hear it in the way she said it and see it on her face. My *brain* quickly blurted out [you racist! why does that matter? is it morally superior to adopt a disadvantaged black kid over a disadvantaged white kid?] My mouth never said the words because the main topic was still in full swing and I didn't want to get sidetracked. A bit later she admitted, confusingly without any regret or guilt and possibly with some pride, that only ONE of their enormous brood was able to survive in the world on his/her own. All the rest were on the public dole for their survival.
My mom is a lovely person without a mean bone in her body, but she's either 1) not that bright, or 2) so unable to reconcile her conflicting beliefs that she compartmentalizes them and stubbornly believes both. We call that cognitive dissonance, right? I know and believe in the truth of two things that are mutually exclusive.
My most recent success was talking with a friend with whom I've recently re-acquainted? Reconciled isn't the right word because we never had a fight cause us to drift, it just sort of happened when he became very depressed about a number of things and withdrew.
Again the topic was Obamacare, which he emphatically mis-pronounced as the Affordable Care Act. He's absolutely convinced that medical care is a basic human right. Blah, blah many elements of the conversation were similar to the one at the aforetodescribed dinner. My triumph came when he said, with exasperation, that nobody could be trusted to take care of the less fortunate. He more than implied that he and I were the only two decent humans on the planet. This friend is also pretty smart, not as smart as the lawyer, but just as misguided, philosophically, and just as disdainful of man.
The most frustrating elements of that conversation were when he'd ask for a concrete example or a further explanation of my position. I'd start out, "OK, for the sake of this example let's agree that XXX." and then I'd begin stepping him through my reasoning. It never failed that he'd interject, "Yeah, but wait, (not XXX)." How many times did I have to say that you can't change the parameters of a discussion in the middle! You agreed to XXX! "Yeah, but (not XXX)!" Grrrrrrr!
Two weekends later we're together and out of the blue he makes a statement like, "Don't you believe that a person should be able to use his property (land, acreage) any way he likes?" "Why yes, of course." He agreed and went on to discuss some current event where a person was being forced to do or not do something with his property. I was dumbfounded but I kept that to myself!
I was having another talk with a woman in her 30's that I'm quite fond of, the girlfriend of a friend of mine (fondness is platonic! besides, I'm gay!) It was a very calm discussion, somewhat short, of whether or not healthcare was a basic human right. She was tentatively in favor but interested in hearing my view. The next time we were together she brought it up again, asking why I didn't believe that healthcare was a basic human right.
It might have been then that I thought up this statement and subsequent line of reasoning: "Nobody can have a right if they have to rely on others to exercise it." She looked thoughtful so I continued, "A basic right is something you're born with, by definition, correct? You have it just because you're a human being."
"Ok, that makes perfect sense, I agree with you."
"So if you have it the moment you're born, solely because you're human, can it rely on another person to exercise it? To make it real?"
Thoughtful pause, then, "No, you'd have to posses it on your own."
"Great, then we agree. Can you get medical care on your own or does a doctor have to provide it to you?"
Brief pause, "A doctor has to provide it."
"So does it follow then, that since another person has to provide the medical care that it can be a basic human right?"
Luckily, she's honest and answered, "No."
A lot of people, the ones who can't think, would say something like, "That doesn't matter, people need healthcare so it's a basic human right."
If, by some miracle, your head doesn't explode right then and there, you can continue...
"Let's try something different. Do people need food, clothes and shelter to survive?"
They will answer, "Yes, of course."
"Then are food, clothes and shelter basic human rights?"
It's almost a 100% chance that you'll get, "Yes, of course, you'd die without them they're definitely a right!"
"Fine, let's imagine a man wakes up totally alone in a pasture and he has no clothes, no food and no house. He has an absolute right to those things, rights that cannot be taken away. Where will he get them?"
"Um um um um, the other people would have to give them to him!"
"Uh uh, there isn't anyone else there, just the naked, hungry homeless guy. Where does he get the food, clothes and shelter that he has a right to?"
"But that's stupid, there are other people! Society, the rich people have to take care of him." (not XXX, you knew that was going to come up, right?)
"I thought you agreed that a person is born with rights, that he has them just because he's human and it can't be reliant on another person to exercise them. Did you agree with that?"
"No, yes but ..."
"If the naked hungry guy in the pasture can't have his food and clothes without taking them from another person then how can they be basic human rights?"
"They just are! They must be, he needs them!"
"Think of every item in the Bill of Rights. Speech, religion, defense, assembly, non-self incrimination, security of your possessions... All of those are possible without anyone else around."
I don't know what will happen next. Agreement (unlikely), shouting irrelevancies (mighty possible), accusations that you're a heartless bastard (oh no, not again!). That person will probably hate you, shutter different parts of his brain from each other, stick his fingers in his ears and say "lalalalala."
Then you can just shake your head with yet another affirmation that we're probably doomed.
1) Liberals lie.
2) Democrats are the party of lawyers.
#1 is plainly apparent, especially with BO. Hammer it home, and then all you have to say is "you're lying", and if it's ingrained in people's minds, it's like them hearing liberal's line of "you're the party of the rich", people just believe that BS because they've repeated it enough. Fine, now they'll immediately believe us when we say "you're lying". Because, almost always, if a liberals' mouth is moving, they're lying.
#2 is because EVERYONE hates lawyers.
This is just something to combat them on their slogans
Just tell them they're kafkatrapping ( http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2122 ) and turn your back.
Kafkatrapping! Fantastic.
Thanks for the new word and link.
O.A.
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