Freedom is not safe

Let's see if I can clarify and explain what I think anyone who lived through the period or studied it would know was a reality. (1) companies, left to their own devices, prefer a free hand in making hiring decisions. When a position becomes open, especially an executive one, the easiest thing to do, as a line of first resort is turn to the Old Boy Network and call their friends in another company and ask if they know of any good person who might be available to fill it. More often than not, that would be a white male like themselves. All the foll de roll of affirmatiive action searches takes time. (2) companies are run by humans who often share the biases and stereotypes of their culture. Why take a chance on the unfamiliar? If it's a choice between hiring a white male and hiring a black or a woman, the tendency is to go white male. Cuz blacks had a reputation of being lazy, unintelligent, and untrustworthy; and women had a reputation of being emotional, less analytical then men, and too concerned about their families, and of course might get pregnant at any time. And if a woman was married, the employer could pay her less cuz her husband had a better wage or salary. We know that banks and realtors, operating on similar assumptions in making loans to minorities, would engage in redlining in which minorities would be ineligible for mortgages or charged higher rates; (3) companies are ordinarily concerned about their customers, so if they perceive their customers as being racist, then they would try not to hire racial minorities, or make sure they were assigned to jobs not readily visible to customers. Realtors would make sure not to show homes to minorites, cuz if the public got wind of it, there goes business. Today, of course, now that the Civil Rights movements and the women's movement have created classes of consumers who make choices based on social concerns, some major corporations bend over backwards in the other direction to show how progressive they are; (4) sometimes the companies were headed by outright bigots. like Ollie McClung who ran a business called Oliie's Barbecue in Birmingham, Ala. and refused to serve blacks, even after the end of Jim Crow in the sixties. He even passed out axe handles to his customers so that they could beat the blacks with them if they showed up. But eventually the feds got him for violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Seems like natural logic to me.

 

...in no particular order, the envious who want to disincentive people to work hard to be rich, the guilt-ridden "woke" who want to oppress morals and practices known to produce a prosperous society (such as working hard, being on time, raising a family with mom and dad, etc), those who want to erase history because it hurts people's feelings, the replacement of religion with allegiance to government, pushing political agendas as "science", wishing to force people into medical procedures (such as vaccines), wanting to ban firearms from the general population, wanting to tell people how much energy they're allowed to use (even though they're paying for it), wanting to put people out of work unless they can contribute a certain value or more, wanting to decide by race who can do what, letting men use the ladies room because they "identify" as such... That's just what comes to mind in five minutes.

 

What difference does it make? Black, white, male, female -- who cares? Does a company's bottom line care???

 

Easy street.

 

Make it potatoes if that makes more sense to you.

Why would I work harder to grow more potatoes than I need if I can't trade them for something?

 

Post #310 Yes, it can. If it's pofitable to discriminate. I gave illustrations of how that could be, and indeed was back in the day, before the Civil Rights Act. Do you believe blacks and women were hired as readily or paid equally with whites? If you do, you're living in an alternate reality. .

 

EVERYTHING RIGHT WING IS HORRIBLE. Ever since Rush Lameass got a job in Radio all the Right has done is badmouth The Left, The Libs, and The Dems. The Right hasn't offered anything which could fix America's social and economic problems in a responsible way.

 

I worked for several Trucking Companies who gave the best "runs" to their favorite whites guys, gave the best trucks to their favorite white guys, gave more money to their favorite white guys, and promoted these favorite white guys into management and dispatcher positions even when these dumb asses couldn't spell for shit.

 

But these people built on what was already established due to public ‘government’ money

Computers came out of public spending, often military or university government spending.

Internet military spending

World Wide Web from government spending on CERN.

Cars and trucks in general are only commercially viable because of public spending on roads, bridges and other publicly funded infrastructure (Also the laws governing road use and vehicle safety overseen by publicly funded bodies). You can buy something online but you need it delivered.

Rocketry again developed due to military spending, governments put the first people in space (Soviet Russia was the first) satellites were developed by governments and many current GPS devises use military satellites.

Many medical innovations come about in publically funded in universities, many universities around the world were in the forefront of Covid research and finding a vaccine.

It does when it is properly managed regulated and distributed to benefit us all – otherwise it mainly benefits a few

The political history of the 20th century (in the industrialised nations) has been to one degree or another about the curtailment of the adverse effects of 19th century exploitative capitalism (some call classical liberalism) that only favour few in society.

People in many nations fought for voting rights, social benefits, safer working conditions, progressive taxation, and decent living wages. The result of that movement was that the economic benefits of production were much more distributed. Many people saw their wages grow and in the period between the end of WWII and 1970 many in Europe and the US gain middle class status.

From the 1970’s wealth has been trying to bamboozle people into voting against their interests to as it were ‘turn back the clock’ to a neoliberal system that would only favour a few.

One of the lies wealth promotes is that only the private can invent and innovate which just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

To me and many others the biggest drive to invention and innovation is excellent widespread public education promoting rational thought and critical thinking – the problem with that is such a population is not so easily bamboozled and manipulated.

 

The other lie that those wealthy people that promote these ideas is that if they actually believed in them they would also argue for very high inheritance taxes

I mean what happens after the innovation has been incentivised – if the wealth can be passed on what is to incentivise the inheritor?

Let us take the DuPont family ($16 billion) as an example, the descendants of French nobility, the family moved to America and the DuPont Company was established there in 1802, they were well off and then made a huge fortune in the American Civil War and they are still one of the richest families in the US, (surviving the conviction of one heir for murder and another for child rape).

The Rockefellers ($10 billion) are probably the most famous, but there are obscurer ones like the Mellon’s rich since the 1840’s ($12 billion) the last heir being Richard Mellon Scaife one of the biggest contributors to right wing causes (like the Cato Institute) and founder of the Heritage Foundation where he was vice-chairman.

One of the things highlighted by Thomas Piketty’s in Capital in the 21st century is how wealth once acquired can be held and accumulated and he warns of the rise of a system of “patrimonial capitalism”, dominated by inherited wealth.

You see as a group these families are most likely to try and bring influence to bare in their interests - it’s not just the obvious ones like the Koch ($100 billion) and Walton family ($247 Billion) who pay for influence. For example take the lobbying around inheritance tax, while some like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are roughly supportive of such a tax many rich families are deeply opposed -

"A 2006 report by Public Citizen and United for a Fair Economy -- both nonprofits opposed to concentrated wealth -- identified 18 families financing a coordinated campaign to repeal the estate tax altogether. Among the leading names behind that push: the Gallos (E&J Gallo Winery), the Kochs (Koch Industries), the Mars' (Mars Inc.), the Waltons and the Wegmans (Wegmans Food Markets). At the time, the report estimated the families' collected net worth to be at least $185 billion” http://money.cnn.com..._lobby.fortune/

Gallos ($10 billion) Mars ($95 Billion) Wegmans ($3 billion)

*

The thing is that once wealth becomes established it has a tendency to try and hold on to its position and I don’t think many American realise that they are growing their own inherited wealth ‘nobility’. With incredibly wealthy families who’s riches come from passed on assets.

These are not innovators they are just their pushing a political agenda that favours the wealthy.

 

You would think that libertarian would recognize such as personal liberty AND responsibility are/should be the tenets of same, anything that takes away one for promoting the other does nothing for either

 

While I think I understand the point you are making, equating getting sued FOR ANYTHING really does not mean anything, people like to blame (right or wrong) and look at lawsuits as an easy ticket to $$$

 

I would say altruism does NOT exist

Altruism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

POINT: True altruism doesn’t exist | Opinion | dailynebraskan.com
"By definition, then, true altruism cannot exist . People can still do kind, selfless things for other people without expecting a benefit or anything in return. Selflessness still exists. When you donate money to a homeless person, you don't expect them to mow your lawn down the line."

Does True Altruism Exist? | Psychology Today

 

Wrat

The problem with this is that tort is the basis of a lot right wing libertarian thinking for getting away with regulation – the idea that suing entities, corporations, companies etc as a means of correcting behaviour rather than needing regulation and the state prosecuting for not complying with regulation – (it doesn’t stand up due to the power discrepancy between someone suing a corporation and the corporation - the state been harder to ignore)

Arguing as you seem to be that suing is illegitimate only undermines right wing thinking even more.

Your altruism argument doesn’t really stand up (one link I could get into and the other was an exercise in splitting hairs) the argument seeming to be that – to do things to make a better world for everyone would also make a better world for you so your motives are selfish.

The problem I’d have with that is that a lot of right wing thought is based on selfishness (self-interest been the motivator) – so why are they not seeking a better world for everyone rather than for just a few?

I mean I vote for political parties that would wish to raise my taxes and I’m happy about that because I like what they would do with those taxes but many right wing libertarians are opposed to taxation because they want the money for themselves and don’t want to give it to help society as a whole.

 

as per usual you misinterpret OR misunderstand my post, A supposition was made that suing an entity proved a point, I assert that it DOES NOT for the simple reason in this country anyone can sue anything for any reason the amount of frivolous lawsuits filed is staggering...THAT is the ONLY point I was making , it was not a pro for or con against the thread JUST A POINT

 

And as per usual you misunderstand or misinterpret my post
your arguing with the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy so they are wrong and you are right?
same with Psychology today
and an opinion post from the dailynebraskan.com
I am citing well known verified references to back up my single statement but MY argument does not hold up that's a ridiculous statement

I would also say that EVERYTHING comes down to semantics and splitting hairs,