A lot of non-profits do produce new plays but you are right that they are spending more and more time with putting up old favorites because those generate more ticket sales.
Indeed. I don't want to minimize that, there are non-profits making, or at least hosting, new plays. I'm a tech volunteer at a non-profit community theatre, and in my time there I've done tech for two original plays written by members. They were not groundbreaking stuff, being versions of, respectively, 'Frankenstein' and 'A Christmas Carol', but I've seen some nearby productions of original stuff that was fairly fresh.
But the idea that some non-profit theatre would have a guy come forward and say 'I'm a playwright, and I'd like to put on a play at your theatre about the government debt', and the non-profit would look around and say 'Oh, the NEA might not like that!' and refuse for _that_ reason is just so completely completely absurd there's no way anyone involved in any sort of theatre could think that.
It is much, _much_ more likely that plays, both new and old, would be rejected at community theatres (Which are the only theatres that really _get_ grants) for exactly the _opposition_ reason: That they are too 'edgy' for that theatre, that the community itself will stop funding them, and even actively oppose them.
But, the right is usually obessing about themes, whereas the left is usually obessing about blatant lies.
There's a difference between saying 'Nobody wants to make TV shows about how everyone should be Christian'(1) and saying 'The Koch brothers are secretly funding lying attack ads and fake grassroots organizations'.
Not all complaints are created equal. One of those really is a valid political point to make, you are not allowed to associate with liars in the political realm. The other is...just stupid.
OTOH, you're right in that a lot of times people making both those complaints are basically making the argument 'People are easily led buffoons and we have to protect them from specific ideas'.
1) I actually find it rather hard to figure out what, exactly, the right's complaints here. It appears they actually just don't like certain specific existing TV shows, but 'Hollywood keeps producing some shows we don't like' is not a very good soundbite, so they have to pretend there are no shows that present a conservative message, when of course there are plenty of them.
Erm, the Caleb Winebrenner is rather patently dishonest. It attempts to link the fact that there are very little shows about skyrocketing government debt because the government subsidies the arts.
The problem, of course, is that the government _does not_ subsidies commercial theatre. At all. Oh, there might be an occasional grant to fix a historic building or something...which all historical buildings can apply for.
But there are very few grants just for 'theatre', and even less grants that have anything to do with specific shows. Hell, half the grant for 'theatre' the NEA gives out are actually for just making a theatre look nice, or to convert a space _into_ a theatre.
And, more importantly, theatre grants go to small random community theatres, almost exclusively non-profits. New shows originate at commercial Broadway theatres that are much too big for grants, and also sometimes by random playwrights breaking into the business who have no association with theatres.
tl;dr: The people getting, and eligible for grants, in the theatre universe, are exactly the people who are _not_ writing the plays. The people getting the grants are those who want to replace the broken sound system in their community theatre so they can put on a new production of Oklahoma.(1)
It's like Winebrenner is talking about the government subsides public access TV, and that's why HBO won't runs hows critical of the government, because of all that free money going to 'TV'. Uh, what?
Hell, does Winebrenner not understand that plays critical of the government _do_ exist? Les Miserables, for an example. However, artists usually have _actual_ societal ills they are pointing out, instead of imaginary ones like 'skyrocketing government debt'. And, unlike what libertarians like to think, the government is not the cause of most social ills, at least not because the government merely exists.
Of course, there is a slight social bias here, in that theatres have to operate in cities, and cites are more liberal. So the theatre _market_ is perhaps slightly skewed to the left. This is not, it must be pointed out, the fault of liberals.(2)
I call this 'patently dishonest' instead of just misinformed because Winebrenner _works in theatre_ and thus knows all this.
1) Which incidentally may well _indeed_ prove the point that government funding waters down the arts. Although blaming this on Federal grants is nonsense...I'm willing to suspect there are a lot more local community theatres that end up too scared to do 'risque' shows like Chicago because of _local conservativism_ causing a risk to their local funding, than any sort of imaginary 'we must not be too conservative or the NEA won't like us!' nonsense.
2) OTOH, certain opinions that a lot of conservatives seem to hold will also not get them very far in theatre. Hating on gays, for example, or attacking unions. I guess this _is_ the fault of liberals, and conservatives should go and build their own theatres without gays or unions.
Reposted in the right place. I hate this idiotic forum software:
The GP shortage vs. specialists is mostly due to stupid insurance stuff causing vastly different income levels, from what I understand.
However, I’m going to ask this carefully because I have absolutely no idea how the rules are actually set:
Are you asserting that the Federal government is actually _setting residency requirements_ without the input of the medical community? That the medical community is saying ‘We don’t want residency requirements?’ and the government is refusing to change them?
The medical community invented residencies. The medical community started requiring them, and that got coded into law. Hell, they’re the ones who invented medical licenses in the first place and got _that_ into the law. The medical community is the one who has basically put up _every_ barrier of entry into practicing medicine, by asking the government to install it.
And now, somehow, it’s not their fault that no one can get in. It’s that horrible government…which does _exactly_ what the medical community wants on medical licensing, on deciding who a doctor is.
Now, yes, the government doesn’t like paying for residencies…and that’s because they are a con to start with. They are a way to rip off the government. But the medical community doesn’t get to invent a nonsensical method of training, aka, free labor, at the Federal government’s expense, demand the Federal government require it by law, and then whine when the Federal government is reluctant to fund it.
The GP shortage vs. specialists is mostly due to stupid insurance stuff causing vastly different income levels, from what I understand.
However, I'm going to ask this carefully because I have absolutely no idea how the rules are actually set:
Are you asserting that the Federal government is actually _setting residency requirements_ without the input of the medical community? That the medical community is saying 'We don't want residency requirements?' and the government is refusing to change them?
The medical community invented residencies. The medical community started requiring them, and that got coded into law. Hell, they're the ones who invented medical licenses in the first place and got _that_ into the law. The medical community is the one who has basically put up _every_ barrier of entry into practicing medicine, by asking the government to install it.
And now, somehow, it's not their fault that no one can get in. It's that horrible government...which does _exactly_ what the medical community wants on medical licensing, on deciding who a doctor is.
Now, yes, the government doesn't like paying for residencies...and that's because they are a con to start with. They are a way to rip off the government. But the medical community doesn't get to invent a nonsensical method of training, aka, free labor, at the Federal government's expense, demand the Federal government require it by law, and then whine when the Federal government is reluctant to fund it.
We were talking about non-medical people doing that. Like a receptionist or something.
I'm not really sure if that's needed or not, but I suggested it, and Dave said it was already happening.
Of course, we really should just have enough nurses to do that anyway, then we wouldn't have to worry. (The nurse shortage is something else entirely from the doctor shortage.)
...and none of that has anything to do with what I just said, which was that saying 'People are doing X because they think Y' cannot possibly be a slippery slope argument. Slippery slope arguments are hypotheticals describing the future, saying 'If we allow X then soon we will allow Y'. They are not a presumption of motives for current things.
So I have to question if you actually read my comment, or just wanted somewhere to discuss abortion for some reason, which, you will note, I did not mention at all.
In fact, I have to question if you read the _original_ article Whether or not a priest would agree that 'wives should respect their husband’s authority' doesn't appear to have anything to do with what _Marcotte_ said, in at least _two_ ways:
1) She didn't say anything about 'husbands authority' in the first place, she was talking about assuming _gender roles_ and attempting to frame women who chose to be outside them as 'sluts'. Those are not the same things. They're not even close to the same thing. This might be an _honest_ misunderstanding on your part except...
2) She didn't bring religion into it _at all_. There is not a single mention of religion in that article, in any form.
Art Deco, I _literally_ have no idea of what your complaint is.
Are you complaining that I have given the far-right the benefit of the doubt, and have asserted that surely there _is_ some philosophical base there?
Are you upset I don't know what that is offhand, and so said 'Someone on the right probably knows their roots better than I do, ask them.'? Are you upset that while I know the respected moderate-ish conservative thinkers, I don't know the ones once you get far enough off to that side?
Or are you upset I have pointed out the absurd non-intellectualism of the _current_ right? Do you take issue with the idea the base and politicians are currently sprouting complete gibberish that has no philosophical underpinnings or consistency _at all_? (I.e., mandates are fine one year, the very next year they are the most horrible unconstitutional thing ever. George W. Bush and Republican congress are evil for passing light bulb efficiency, etc, etc.)
I have no idea if you're asserting I was too harsh on the right, or not harsh enough, or if you think I'm completely wrong about their behavior!
The right isn't actually listening to their Chomskys and flirting with their Marxes, they're listening to that drugged out hippy guy who hangs out by the dry cleaners who is always talking about how people should give up all their material possession and accept their inner beauty, and he can score you some killer weed if you've got a few dollars. And they're flirting with joining that group with the big farm outside of town with the oddly charismatic guy who keeps talking about how society doesn't understand people and everyone needs a family they can belong too, and how his farm welcomes everyone, and don't bother bringing too many clothes.
Can you please explain who’s arguments are schematically similar to Noam Chomsky’s or Karl Marx?
Do you mean the actual _intelligent_ thinkers who as as far-right as they are far-left? I could give names, but I am nowhere near well-versed enough in that field? Uh...Lysander Spooner? (The far-right ends up looking a lot like the far-left if you go far enough. I can't actually explain why I place Spooner on the far-right and Chomsky on the far-left.)
I honestly am just giving the far-right the benefit of the doubt here. I'm sure there are intelligent philosophers with mostly well-thought-out and principled writings for the far-right. Please note that doesn't mean they're _correct_, anymore than Marx was correct, but you can be smart and yet wrong. I don't really know enough to list them, and I'm sure my list would be wrong. Ask someone actually on the right for a list.
Although, as I said, the right is not listening to coherent far-right thinkers, but instead wack-a-loons like birthers and nativists and people randomly asserting the right to overthrow the government because of _cheap health care_.(1) The _closest_ thing to any sort of coherent thinker being listened to is Grover Norquist...and he's not one, he's just pretending to be.
1) I can actually think of half a dozen reasonable good philosophical grounds to overthrow the government on. Start with unlawful detention of people, or the war crime of possessing nuclear weapons, or the war crime of sheltering torturers, or a blatantly broken justice system, or constantly violating the civil rights of certain classes of people, etc, etc. 'The government requires me to pay some extra money each month for health insurance if I don't already have some' is not a good reason unless you're an anarchist, but then you have to explain why you're okay with all the _other_ taxes.
On display are not only leftist principles, but a “worldview,” and an implied slippery slope argument that curtailing abortion “rights” leads to “a rigid, submissive gender role” for women.
First, this is very poor reading of the article. She did not say that curtailing abortion rights _leads_ to that. She's saying that the right want to curtail about rights _because they believe that_.
She presented an apparent belief of Republicans, which is documented in the article. Feel free to argue with it, but there is no 'slope' here at all, slippery or otherwise. She is _ascribing motives_ to people, and explaining what she things is the worldview behind them. As she is not predicting outcomes, she can't _possibly_ be describing a slippery slope. (In fact, the only hypothetical in the _entire article_ appears to be ' Even if the abortion issue disappeared tomorrow, women would still lean more left than men as a group...'.)
Second, the idea that the left does not have principles or a worldview, and is instead mindlessly following Obama, is a right-wing attack, and this apparently has gotten so confused in your head that you have managed to score a 'victory' by demonstrating the right is full of crap.
For your followup post, I request you prove that the ACA does _not_ have death panels. Everyone knows the left have been promising death panels for years. But the left is _lying_! LYING!
The problem with the Republican Party is that their Marcotte’s have managed to take over.
If plotted outward from the center, their equivalent of Marcotte would be someone like Bill O'Reilly. (In 'distance from center', that is. Marcotte isn't a liar out solely for personal and political gain, as far as I know.)
The problem with the Republican Party is that they wandered right past their Marcottes, past their Michael Moores, and are currently listening to their Chomskys and flirting with their Karl Marxes. (Again, only in 'distance from center'...say what you want about Marx and Chomsky, they were at least _coherent_. The far-right does have coherent thinkers...but that's not who the right is listening to.)
Part of the problem with abortion regulation is that Roe v. Wade _has_ backed the right into a corner, and so they've ended up doing things that very few people support.
For example, constantly passing trap laws to shut down _all_ abortion providers. There are plenty of people out there that would like abortion stopped in the second trimester but see a problem with that.
Secondly, they keep falling for their own confusion. Republicans have managed to make abortion such a dirty word that there are a lot of people out there asserting they are pro-life...who aren't. A _majority_ of pro-life people do not actually wish to punish women and/or doctors for abortions, and hence do not actually seem to understand how 'outlawing' things works.
Yes, I know saying a _majority_ of 'pro-life' people think that seems extreme, but I am being entirely serious. A majority of pro-life people do not seem to want to outlaw abortion. Or they want to magically outlaw it with, somehow, no one getting punished for it and it being allowed if the woman really really wants it and isn't one of those 'bad women'. (And they often want laws making it 'harder' to get an abortion...that are actually less than the laws that already exist.)
The right is _extremely_ good at attacking labels. 'Liberal', 'Obamacare', 'abortion', it is very talented at making boogie-man of such things.
This does not appear to actually change the _laws_ that people want.
There's a movement on the left to call 'pro-life' people 'forced-birthers'. This is a deliberately offensive sounding name, but you'd be amazed at the pushback it gets, not because it is deliberately incendiary, but because a 'pro-life' person asserts it is inaccurate, because that 'pro-life' person does not want to require women to carry babies to term.
This is what most physician practices I deal with do already and have been doing for a number of years.
Really? The nurse can turn away patients without even having a doctor look at them?
I mean, that's great if that's how it works, but I've never heard of it.
('When you need to see a doctor' is one of those basic life skills we really need to teach in high school. In both directions, because people often don't bother a doctor for stuff that doesn't bother them but is actually an indication of a serious medical problem.)
A labor shortage does not mean said labor shortage is caused by a conspiracy.
*sounds the 'Person does not believe in the free market' alarm*
Yes, long-term shortages just exist by _magic_. Magic I say! Markets can just randomly fail to provide things in this country that somehow exist in other countries.
It's not like there are a lot of people who want to be doctors who can't manage the insane rules the medical community has set up, like being required to work for several years for almost free.
And the medical industry has absolutely no bearing on how much medical school costs. It's not like medical colleges employ medical doctors, or are associated with medical establishments. Educational prices are a magical thing the medical community can do nothing about.
I don’t think this would fly given licensing and insurance requirements. That’s a medical malpractice suit waiting to happen.
Doctors are not required to see every patient that walks up. They're not even technically required to even see patients in life-threatening danger unless it's at an ER.
It might be a malpractice suit if the non-medical professional said 'You do not need to see a doctor', So it probably needs to be worded as 'Dr. Smith will not see you because you meet the checklist of having just a common cold and nothing else, and Dr. Smith does not treat the common cold. Dr. Smith will see you only if these other symptoms develop. If you wish to see a doctor before that, you will have to find a different one.'.
See, you stand there and explain exactly what the problem is...and failed to notice the people _requiring_ those residencies are, in fact, the medical community. Requirements for doctors were not handed down by God.
The entire residency system is completely insane.
We're talking about the free market elsewhere. Ask yourself _exactly_ how we can be maintaining multi-decade long shortages in something that takes ten years to produce?
It is because the industry has enacted barriers to entry.
And this is about the point where the medical community starts talking about 'quality', but the simple fact is that the medical community is often _horrifically bad_ at maintaining quality, so I'm not entirely sure the idea that making people work horrible hours, shitty pay, and often poorly supervised for a supposed training position increases 'quality' is one we should put much weight in.
It really just looks they want free labor, combined with a system that ends up filtering out a huge percentage of competent people that either cannot afford it, or literally can't find somewhere to do a residency.
Deliberate barriers to entry. The medical community can try to spin it however they want, but there it is.
No matter what happens, people will be pissed off. There is a reason that we don’t talk about these things. Even in contexts where there aren’t employers forbidding it. Employer with these policies are formalizing what we already do to go-along-get-along with one another.
I also agree there is a reason we don't talk about these things. However, I assert that reason is that _we have been carefully trained by employers_. Just because we appear to not want to do something doesn't mean doing that thing would not being in our best interests.
I don't actually understand the logic here. People seem to have no problem with people learning other people were _promoted_. Obviously, promotion comes with a salary increase, and yet somehow workplaces don't dissolve into catfights when people are promoted.
The only reason that exposing salaries would tear a workplace apart is if _salaries were completely insane_ to start with.
And, in fact, this is true. If tomorrow, salaries were made public, something like 20% of women would not bother to come into work tomorrow, for example, when they realized how much more their male counterparts make.
But saying we shouldn't know the truth because it would...annoy us? I don't really follow this. Sure, workers might grumble...but they also grumble about unearned promotions, and yet somehow society keeps functioning.
Oh, and before people take issue with my calling the labor market 'completely broken' (What 'broken market' means was apparently the subject of some discussion the other day.) let me clarify:
I mean a market where bullshit externalizes like gender, race, attractiveness, personality, idiotic and uninformed concepts of job worth (instead of actual job worth) including over-valuing of upper-management, and sheer random chance have completely swamped the normal supply and demand curve.
Employees are supposed to be paid based on how much value they bring vs. how replaceable they are. It's basic supply and demand. They...are not paid that. At all. Their pay is almost _completely_ unrelated to that.
I'm not some sort of market fascist saying 'The market must only consider these things', but when every single bit of the labor market puts vastly more consideration on nonsensical bullshit over actual supply and demand, I have to suggest something is screwed up, and that part of what's screwed up, or at least allowing it to continue to be screwed up, is the complete lack of transparency.
I’d argue that it would decrease, rather than increase, labor solidarity. The mercenary marketeer in me wouldn’t mind it. But it would advantage comparatively few – those for whom being pissed off actually matters to the employer. The others, well, let’em be pissed off. It’ll just be the new normal. Or more normal than it is now!
The problem is that the most labor solidarity there is are in places where everyone _does_ know everyone else's wages. Specifically, union shops with clearly defined wage scales.
The reason that 'knowing everyone else's wage' would _appear_ to cause problems is that current wages are completely and utterly random and have no relationship to the value provided. And everyone knows this.
This fact, I feel I must point out, rather clearly demonstrates the labor market _is_ completely broken. In fact, that is the most obvious way to prove a market is completely broken, showing that none of the prices paid for anything appear to have any sort of logical relationship to where they should be. (Not that prices are supposed to be entirely 'logical', but they should at least have some sort of logical relationship to _each other_. I.e., if large pizzas cost less than medium pizzas, the market is behaving weirdly.)
Exposing the market as broken is, indeed, going to annoy a lot of people, both ones who benefit from the brokenness and those who have unknowingly suffered under it, but that's not a good reason to not fix it. (Not that transparency magically fixed broken markets, but un-transparent ones are nearly completely _un_-fixable.)
#2 is actually the reverse- as if the stores (seller) were prevented from knowing what other stores were getting for their product.
Actually, my analogy was indeed wrong, but I also think yours is wrong. If the store is equivalent of the labor seller, and the customer is the equivalent of the labor buyer:
The customers come in, waste hours of the stores time, demand that the stores _not_ post prices (And is offended if they do), and then, after spending everyone's time, state the price they're willing to pay. At which point the store, because it badly needs money, usually just accept that price.
It's hard to see how this is any sort of working market. Working markets have _at least_ one side state the acceptable price, and often both sides. You can't have any sort of transparency if _no one_ knows the price of things except the sole thing they themselves bought.
Stating prices in the labor market? Why, that's crazy talk.
I just realized this is a classic psychological bias called the 'sunk cost fallacy'. Get people to invest in a 'purchase' for days, spend hours of time competing to get it, and then there's no way in hell they'll pass it by even if it's not quite what they were expecting.
Like I said, the entire system is set up so we think that is somehow 'normal' behavior in a labor market, despite the fact we'd regard the same behavior as utterly and completely insane in any other market. (You're...not going to tell me how much you're willing to pay for my sofa until I haul it to your house? I understand you want to determine the condition, but you won't even give a _range_ of possible prices you might hypothetically be willing to pay?)
Even if it is 'crazy', it's not actively working to deny people their rights like Card was.
The idea we'd boycott someone because they suggested that some political activity rises to Hilterism and we disagree that it is quite that bad is, uh, silly.
Although I personally think he's entirely right. Russia is acting like Germany in the 1930s, and has been for some time. And, frankly, it's for exactly the same reason...it's a non-working state that sorta collapsed about two decades ago and has been flopping along like a fish out of water since then.
It's not that hard to imagine them slipping into some sort of pogroms against gays and, replacing the Jews this time, Muslims.
It's getting a little worrying. Especially since they are still a nuclear power, _and_ feel comfortable with asserting all sorts of claims over their neighbors.
Bush himself did suggest, after Katrina, that posse comitatus be altered so that he could send active duty troops into disaster zones, but I don’t recall anyone criticizing him for not sending active duty troops,
_I_ criticize him for that. But not how people think.
Posse comitatus applies to _law enforcement_. It doesn't apply to, for an example of something that would have been really really fucking useful, airlifting people from the Superdome to that offshore aircraft carrier. Or to anywhere else.
It is perfectly legal, anywhere in the entire country, for the US military to show up and say 'Hey, do you want a ride from here to over there? Hop on this helicopter and we'll take you there.'. It is not any sort of violation of any sort of law.
Likewise, it is not a violation of the law for the US military to operate rescue operations, to drive around in boats looking for people. Or to put up sandbags.
The rule is no _law enforcement_. That's it. That's the entire rule. The US military cannot _force_ people to do things without the consent of Congress...and, you know what? During Katrina, very few victims needed to be 'forced' to do anything.
The National Guard thing was something else entirely, (They _were- law enforcement) and the US military could not have replaced them, but they sure as fuck could have been useful if Bush had bothered to give them _any_ orders.
Likewise, it's worth mentioning that all it takes to use the military for law enforcement under posse comitatus is a goddamn congressional vote. Congress managed to pass disaster relief funds in a special session on Sept 1, but somehow couldn't vote to override posse comitatus at that time?
If you’re paying any attention, you know that what Obama’s been accused of regarding Benghazi is blaming the wrong set of Muslims.
Hey, now. It's entirely possible to be paying attention and have no fucking idea what the Republicans think Benghazi is about.
Last I checked, the Republicans were blaming Benghazi on ACORN? I'm not entirely sure.
Remember, this isn’t Card being a fiction writer. This is where his speculations start from.
Of course Obama would just let Israel be nuked. He's a _Democrat_. Us Democrats, because we (Along with the Israelis, who probably would also let Israel get nuked) sometimes disagree with the behavior of Israel, want it nuked.
It's much the same way we'd have no problem with Mexico invading Texas.
Seriously, the maxim 'You can take any false premise to the logical conclusion and have a reasonable approximation of insanity' is more and more obviously true every day.
If you want me to tolerate you, then you need to afford me the same courtesy and respect.
No, it's not even that. I mean, that is true, but it's not the problem here.
People being 'intolerant' of homophobes are...publicly criticizing homophobes.
People being 'intolerant' of gay people are...working to deny gay people their rights.
I would point out that those are not the same thing, but that much is obvious. So instead I will point out that those are not even the same _class_ of things. One of those is an actual constitutional right, the other of those is the _opposite_ of a constitutional right.
It's an absurd strawman. The right invents what _they_ think the left has been saying 'tolerance' is, and pretends the left is violating it.
I can assure people, no one on the left has even wandered around saying 'You should be tolerance of other people, include ones that hurt people'. No one. Ever.
It's just so blatantly dishonest it...well, anyone who thinks it, even for a second, is a complete and utter moron who has had their brain carefully shaped by Rush Limbaugh.
Incidentally, before anyone asks: Yes, Card has worked to deny gay people their rights. He's on the board of the National Organization for Marriage. Or, at least, he _was_...and I'm not actually willing to give someone a pass because they quietly stopped trying to restrict people's right a mere month ago. For all we know, he's just dropped off the board so his movie doesn't tank, and will join right back on afterward.
Now, toleration is indeed a two-way street, and I argue I have the right to be 'intolerant' towards a person who constantly insults friends of mine. So, yes, what you are saying is correct, we don't have to tolerate assholes...but that only takes effect after _the actual harm is stopped_. Anyone who stands there and 'tolerates' injustice to others is a moron. ('Tolerates' in the imaginary right-wing version of giving out flowers to the oppressor or whatever the hell they think it means. I'm not saying everyone has to leap forward and stop all injustice in every circumstance. They are required, however, to not stand there and encourage it.)
Businesses should know how much a position is worth, generally speaking. They are, after all, hiring someone to fill it, so they're going to have to decide on salary _anyway_. But instead they've decided to ask you. When, in fact, they should be telling you the number they've already decided on. Before the interview. And what the normal salary increases are.
It's amazing how many insidious memes have worked their ways into our brains about the 'proper' interaction between employers and employees, and compare them to an actual working market:
1) Employers do not have to state what the job pays upfront. You know, like when you go refrigerator shopping and they don't tell you how much each one costs until you've hauled it up to the register. (It was hard to actually think of an analogy of buying something that required as much work as getting a job.) And even then, it's considered uncouth to just _ask_ about it.
2) Employees are severely discouraged, and it often is against the rules, to discuss wages. You know, like people are forbidden from discussing what store has cheaper prices.
3) Employers feel that all aspects of their employees life is their business. Employers have even decided, recently, that it is their business how their employees use the health insurance they are paid. You know, like we as customers can decide how a store we buy things from uses 'our' money.
There's a reason it has been deliberately policy of the right, and even the pro-business left, to not worry about unemployment. (At least until it got absurd, when the left finally appears to care...and will go right on caring until it gets back to 'normal' unemployment, and it stops.)
It's so we internalize this _bullshit_, this idea that the labor _market_ is a place where unemployed people wander around _begging_ people to hire them. That this is the way it is _suppose_ to work.
This country will be a lot better off, in _every_ aspect (Except the super-rich would not get super-richer), if instead of the unemployment rate, we talked about the job vacancy rate, where there were 4% of the jobs floating around out there without people to fill them.
And it is not the least bit hard to create a structure where such a thing happens. We have rather deliberately not done so.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “The Paradox of Bashing Institutions for Cultural Elitism”
Things are somewhat different in America than in… wherever this sentence happens to be true.
I will continue to insist that is true, despite all evidence, and luckily the media will 'report both sides'.
"
A lot of non-profits do produce new plays but you are right that they are spending more and more time with putting up old favorites because those generate more ticket sales.
Indeed. I don't want to minimize that, there are non-profits making, or at least hosting, new plays. I'm a tech volunteer at a non-profit community theatre, and in my time there I've done tech for two original plays written by members. They were not groundbreaking stuff, being versions of, respectively, 'Frankenstein' and 'A Christmas Carol', but I've seen some nearby productions of original stuff that was fairly fresh.
But the idea that some non-profit theatre would have a guy come forward and say 'I'm a playwright, and I'd like to put on a play at your theatre about the government debt', and the non-profit would look around and say 'Oh, the NEA might not like that!' and refuse for _that_ reason is just so completely completely absurd there's no way anyone involved in any sort of theatre could think that.
It is much, _much_ more likely that plays, both new and old, would be rejected at community theatres (Which are the only theatres that really _get_ grants) for exactly the _opposition_ reason: That they are too 'edgy' for that theatre, that the community itself will stop funding them, and even actively oppose them.
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But, the right is usually obessing about themes, whereas the left is usually obessing about blatant lies.
There's a difference between saying 'Nobody wants to make TV shows about how everyone should be Christian'(1) and saying 'The Koch brothers are secretly funding lying attack ads and fake grassroots organizations'.
Not all complaints are created equal. One of those really is a valid political point to make, you are not allowed to associate with liars in the political realm. The other is...just stupid.
OTOH, you're right in that a lot of times people making both those complaints are basically making the argument 'People are easily led buffoons and we have to protect them from specific ideas'.
1) I actually find it rather hard to figure out what, exactly, the right's complaints here. It appears they actually just don't like certain specific existing TV shows, but 'Hollywood keeps producing some shows we don't like' is not a very good soundbite, so they have to pretend there are no shows that present a conservative message, when of course there are plenty of them.
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Erm, the Caleb Winebrenner is rather patently dishonest. It attempts to link the fact that there are very little shows about skyrocketing government debt because the government subsidies the arts.
The problem, of course, is that the government _does not_ subsidies commercial theatre. At all. Oh, there might be an occasional grant to fix a historic building or something...which all historical buildings can apply for.
But there are very few grants just for 'theatre', and even less grants that have anything to do with specific shows. Hell, half the grant for 'theatre' the NEA gives out are actually for just making a theatre look nice, or to convert a space _into_ a theatre.
And, more importantly, theatre grants go to small random community theatres, almost exclusively non-profits. New shows originate at commercial Broadway theatres that are much too big for grants, and also sometimes by random playwrights breaking into the business who have no association with theatres.
tl;dr: The people getting, and eligible for grants, in the theatre universe, are exactly the people who are _not_ writing the plays. The people getting the grants are those who want to replace the broken sound system in their community theatre so they can put on a new production of Oklahoma.(1)
It's like Winebrenner is talking about the government subsides public access TV, and that's why HBO won't runs hows critical of the government, because of all that free money going to 'TV'. Uh, what?
Hell, does Winebrenner not understand that plays critical of the government _do_ exist? Les Miserables, for an example. However, artists usually have _actual_ societal ills they are pointing out, instead of imaginary ones like 'skyrocketing government debt'. And, unlike what libertarians like to think, the government is not the cause of most social ills, at least not because the government merely exists.
Of course, there is a slight social bias here, in that theatres have to operate in cities, and cites are more liberal. So the theatre _market_ is perhaps slightly skewed to the left. This is not, it must be pointed out, the fault of liberals.(2)
I call this 'patently dishonest' instead of just misinformed because Winebrenner _works in theatre_ and thus knows all this.
1) Which incidentally may well _indeed_ prove the point that government funding waters down the arts. Although blaming this on Federal grants is nonsense...I'm willing to suspect there are a lot more local community theatres that end up too scared to do 'risque' shows like Chicago because of _local conservativism_ causing a risk to their local funding, than any sort of imaginary 'we must not be too conservative or the NEA won't like us!' nonsense.
2) OTOH, certain opinions that a lot of conservatives seem to hold will also not get them very far in theatre. Hating on gays, for example, or attacking unions. I guess this _is_ the fault of liberals, and conservatives should go and build their own theatres without gays or unions.
On “Clinics Here, Clinics There”
Reposted in the right place. I hate this idiotic forum software:
The GP shortage vs. specialists is mostly due to stupid insurance stuff causing vastly different income levels, from what I understand.
However, I’m going to ask this carefully because I have absolutely no idea how the rules are actually set:
Are you asserting that the Federal government is actually _setting residency requirements_ without the input of the medical community? That the medical community is saying ‘We don’t want residency requirements?’ and the government is refusing to change them?
The medical community invented residencies. The medical community started requiring them, and that got coded into law. Hell, they’re the ones who invented medical licenses in the first place and got _that_ into the law. The medical community is the one who has basically put up _every_ barrier of entry into practicing medicine, by asking the government to install it.
And now, somehow, it’s not their fault that no one can get in. It’s that horrible government…which does _exactly_ what the medical community wants on medical licensing, on deciding who a doctor is.
Now, yes, the government doesn’t like paying for residencies…and that’s because they are a con to start with. They are a way to rip off the government. But the medical community doesn’t get to invent a nonsensical method of training, aka, free labor, at the Federal government’s expense, demand the Federal government require it by law, and then whine when the Federal government is reluctant to fund it.
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The GP shortage vs. specialists is mostly due to stupid insurance stuff causing vastly different income levels, from what I understand.
However, I'm going to ask this carefully because I have absolutely no idea how the rules are actually set:
Are you asserting that the Federal government is actually _setting residency requirements_ without the input of the medical community? That the medical community is saying 'We don't want residency requirements?' and the government is refusing to change them?
The medical community invented residencies. The medical community started requiring them, and that got coded into law. Hell, they're the ones who invented medical licenses in the first place and got _that_ into the law. The medical community is the one who has basically put up _every_ barrier of entry into practicing medicine, by asking the government to install it.
And now, somehow, it's not their fault that no one can get in. It's that horrible government...which does _exactly_ what the medical community wants on medical licensing, on deciding who a doctor is.
Now, yes, the government doesn't like paying for residencies...and that's because they are a con to start with. They are a way to rip off the government. But the medical community doesn't get to invent a nonsensical method of training, aka, free labor, at the Federal government's expense, demand the Federal government require it by law, and then whine when the Federal government is reluctant to fund it.
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No, Kim, I know that. Nurses can do that.
We were talking about non-medical people doing that. Like a receptionist or something.
I'm not really sure if that's needed or not, but I suggested it, and Dave said it was already happening.
Of course, we really should just have enough nurses to do that anyway, then we wouldn't have to worry. (The nurse shortage is something else entirely from the doctor shortage.)
On “The Democrats Have a “Principled” Contingent, Too”
...and none of that has anything to do with what I just said, which was that saying 'People are doing X because they think Y' cannot possibly be a slippery slope argument. Slippery slope arguments are hypotheticals describing the future, saying 'If we allow X then soon we will allow Y'. They are not a presumption of motives for current things.
So I have to question if you actually read my comment, or just wanted somewhere to discuss abortion for some reason, which, you will note, I did not mention at all.
In fact, I have to question if you read the _original_ article Whether or not a priest would agree that 'wives should respect their husband’s authority' doesn't appear to have anything to do with what _Marcotte_ said, in at least _two_ ways:
1) She didn't say anything about 'husbands authority' in the first place, she was talking about assuming _gender roles_ and attempting to frame women who chose to be outside them as 'sluts'. Those are not the same things. They're not even close to the same thing. This might be an _honest_ misunderstanding on your part except...
2) She didn't bring religion into it _at all_. There is not a single mention of religion in that article, in any form.
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Art Deco, I _literally_ have no idea of what your complaint is.
Are you complaining that I have given the far-right the benefit of the doubt, and have asserted that surely there _is_ some philosophical base there?
Are you upset I don't know what that is offhand, and so said 'Someone on the right probably knows their roots better than I do, ask them.'? Are you upset that while I know the respected moderate-ish conservative thinkers, I don't know the ones once you get far enough off to that side?
Or are you upset I have pointed out the absurd non-intellectualism of the _current_ right? Do you take issue with the idea the base and politicians are currently sprouting complete gibberish that has no philosophical underpinnings or consistency _at all_? (I.e., mandates are fine one year, the very next year they are the most horrible unconstitutional thing ever. George W. Bush and Republican congress are evil for passing light bulb efficiency, etc, etc.)
I have no idea if you're asserting I was too harsh on the right, or not harsh enough, or if you think I'm completely wrong about their behavior!
If you have an actual complaint, please state it.
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Or, to put it another way:
The right isn't actually listening to their Chomskys and flirting with their Marxes, they're listening to that drugged out hippy guy who hangs out by the dry cleaners who is always talking about how people should give up all their material possession and accept their inner beauty, and he can score you some killer weed if you've got a few dollars. And they're flirting with joining that group with the big farm outside of town with the oddly charismatic guy who keeps talking about how society doesn't understand people and everyone needs a family they can belong too, and how his farm welcomes everyone, and don't bother bringing too many clothes.
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Can you please explain who’s arguments are schematically similar to Noam Chomsky’s or Karl Marx?
Do you mean the actual _intelligent_ thinkers who as as far-right as they are far-left? I could give names, but I am nowhere near well-versed enough in that field? Uh...Lysander Spooner? (The far-right ends up looking a lot like the far-left if you go far enough. I can't actually explain why I place Spooner on the far-right and Chomsky on the far-left.)
I honestly am just giving the far-right the benefit of the doubt here. I'm sure there are intelligent philosophers with mostly well-thought-out and principled writings for the far-right. Please note that doesn't mean they're _correct_, anymore than Marx was correct, but you can be smart and yet wrong. I don't really know enough to list them, and I'm sure my list would be wrong. Ask someone actually on the right for a list.
Although, as I said, the right is not listening to coherent far-right thinkers, but instead wack-a-loons like birthers and nativists and people randomly asserting the right to overthrow the government because of _cheap health care_.(1) The _closest_ thing to any sort of coherent thinker being listened to is Grover Norquist...and he's not one, he's just pretending to be.
1) I can actually think of half a dozen reasonable good philosophical grounds to overthrow the government on. Start with unlawful detention of people, or the war crime of possessing nuclear weapons, or the war crime of sheltering torturers, or a blatantly broken justice system, or constantly violating the civil rights of certain classes of people, etc, etc. 'The government requires me to pay some extra money each month for health insurance if I don't already have some' is not a good reason unless you're an anarchist, but then you have to explain why you're okay with all the _other_ taxes.
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On display are not only leftist principles, but a “worldview,” and an implied slippery slope argument that curtailing abortion “rights” leads to “a rigid, submissive gender role” for women.
First, this is very poor reading of the article. She did not say that curtailing abortion rights _leads_ to that. She's saying that the right want to curtail about rights _because they believe that_.
She presented an apparent belief of Republicans, which is documented in the article. Feel free to argue with it, but there is no 'slope' here at all, slippery or otherwise. She is _ascribing motives_ to people, and explaining what she things is the worldview behind them. As she is not predicting outcomes, she can't _possibly_ be describing a slippery slope. (In fact, the only hypothetical in the _entire article_ appears to be ' Even if the abortion issue disappeared tomorrow, women would still lean more left than men as a group...'.)
Second, the idea that the left does not have principles or a worldview, and is instead mindlessly following Obama, is a right-wing attack, and this apparently has gotten so confused in your head that you have managed to score a 'victory' by demonstrating the right is full of crap.
For your followup post, I request you prove that the ACA does _not_ have death panels. Everyone knows the left have been promising death panels for years. But the left is _lying_! LYING!
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The problem with the Republican Party is that their Marcotte’s have managed to take over.
If plotted outward from the center, their equivalent of Marcotte would be someone like Bill O'Reilly. (In 'distance from center', that is. Marcotte isn't a liar out solely for personal and political gain, as far as I know.)
The problem with the Republican Party is that they wandered right past their Marcottes, past their Michael Moores, and are currently listening to their Chomskys and flirting with their Karl Marxes. (Again, only in 'distance from center'...say what you want about Marx and Chomsky, they were at least _coherent_. The far-right does have coherent thinkers...but that's not who the right is listening to.)
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Part of the problem with abortion regulation is that Roe v. Wade _has_ backed the right into a corner, and so they've ended up doing things that very few people support.
For example, constantly passing trap laws to shut down _all_ abortion providers. There are plenty of people out there that would like abortion stopped in the second trimester but see a problem with that.
Secondly, they keep falling for their own confusion. Republicans have managed to make abortion such a dirty word that there are a lot of people out there asserting they are pro-life...who aren't. A _majority_ of pro-life people do not actually wish to punish women and/or doctors for abortions, and hence do not actually seem to understand how 'outlawing' things works.
Yes, I know saying a _majority_ of 'pro-life' people think that seems extreme, but I am being entirely serious. A majority of pro-life people do not seem to want to outlaw abortion. Or they want to magically outlaw it with, somehow, no one getting punished for it and it being allowed if the woman really really wants it and isn't one of those 'bad women'. (And they often want laws making it 'harder' to get an abortion...that are actually less than the laws that already exist.)
The right is _extremely_ good at attacking labels. 'Liberal', 'Obamacare', 'abortion', it is very talented at making boogie-man of such things.
This does not appear to actually change the _laws_ that people want.
There's a movement on the left to call 'pro-life' people 'forced-birthers'. This is a deliberately offensive sounding name, but you'd be amazed at the pushback it gets, not because it is deliberately incendiary, but because a 'pro-life' person asserts it is inaccurate, because that 'pro-life' person does not want to require women to carry babies to term.
On “Clinics Here, Clinics There”
This is what most physician practices I deal with do already and have been doing for a number of years.
Really? The nurse can turn away patients without even having a doctor look at them?
I mean, that's great if that's how it works, but I've never heard of it.
('When you need to see a doctor' is one of those basic life skills we really need to teach in high school. In both directions, because people often don't bother a doctor for stuff that doesn't bother them but is actually an indication of a serious medical problem.)
A labor shortage does not mean said labor shortage is caused by a conspiracy.
*sounds the 'Person does not believe in the free market' alarm*
Yes, long-term shortages just exist by _magic_. Magic I say! Markets can just randomly fail to provide things in this country that somehow exist in other countries.
It's not like there are a lot of people who want to be doctors who can't manage the insane rules the medical community has set up, like being required to work for several years for almost free.
And the medical industry has absolutely no bearing on how much medical school costs. It's not like medical colleges employ medical doctors, or are associated with medical establishments. Educational prices are a magical thing the medical community can do nothing about.
I don’t think this would fly given licensing and insurance requirements. That’s a medical malpractice suit waiting to happen.
Doctors are not required to see every patient that walks up. They're not even technically required to even see patients in life-threatening danger unless it's at an ER.
It might be a malpractice suit if the non-medical professional said 'You do not need to see a doctor', So it probably needs to be worded as 'Dr. Smith will not see you because you meet the checklist of having just a common cold and nothing else, and Dr. Smith does not treat the common cold. Dr. Smith will see you only if these other symptoms develop. If you wish to see a doctor before that, you will have to find a different one.'.
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See, you stand there and explain exactly what the problem is...and failed to notice the people _requiring_ those residencies are, in fact, the medical community. Requirements for doctors were not handed down by God.
The entire residency system is completely insane.
We're talking about the free market elsewhere. Ask yourself _exactly_ how we can be maintaining multi-decade long shortages in something that takes ten years to produce?
It is because the industry has enacted barriers to entry.
And this is about the point where the medical community starts talking about 'quality', but the simple fact is that the medical community is often _horrifically bad_ at maintaining quality, so I'm not entirely sure the idea that making people work horrible hours, shitty pay, and often poorly supervised for a supposed training position increases 'quality' is one we should put much weight in.
It really just looks they want free labor, combined with a system that ends up filtering out a huge percentage of competent people that either cannot afford it, or literally can't find somewhere to do a residency.
Deliberate barriers to entry. The medical community can try to spin it however they want, but there it is.
On “Employer Entitlement (Know Your Place)”
No matter what happens, people will be pissed off. There is a reason that we don’t talk about these things. Even in contexts where there aren’t employers forbidding it. Employer with these policies are formalizing what we already do to go-along-get-along with one another.
I also agree there is a reason we don't talk about these things. However, I assert that reason is that _we have been carefully trained by employers_. Just because we appear to not want to do something doesn't mean doing that thing would not being in our best interests.
I don't actually understand the logic here. People seem to have no problem with people learning other people were _promoted_. Obviously, promotion comes with a salary increase, and yet somehow workplaces don't dissolve into catfights when people are promoted.
The only reason that exposing salaries would tear a workplace apart is if _salaries were completely insane_ to start with.
And, in fact, this is true. If tomorrow, salaries were made public, something like 20% of women would not bother to come into work tomorrow, for example, when they realized how much more their male counterparts make.
But saying we shouldn't know the truth because it would...annoy us? I don't really follow this. Sure, workers might grumble...but they also grumble about unearned promotions, and yet somehow society keeps functioning.
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Oh, and before people take issue with my calling the labor market 'completely broken' (What 'broken market' means was apparently the subject of some discussion the other day.) let me clarify:
I mean a market where bullshit externalizes like gender, race, attractiveness, personality, idiotic and uninformed concepts of job worth (instead of actual job worth) including over-valuing of upper-management, and sheer random chance have completely swamped the normal supply and demand curve.
Employees are supposed to be paid based on how much value they bring vs. how replaceable they are. It's basic supply and demand. They...are not paid that. At all. Their pay is almost _completely_ unrelated to that.
I'm not some sort of market fascist saying 'The market must only consider these things', but when every single bit of the labor market puts vastly more consideration on nonsensical bullshit over actual supply and demand, I have to suggest something is screwed up, and that part of what's screwed up, or at least allowing it to continue to be screwed up, is the complete lack of transparency.
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I’d argue that it would decrease, rather than increase, labor solidarity. The mercenary marketeer in me wouldn’t mind it. But it would advantage comparatively few – those for whom being pissed off actually matters to the employer. The others, well, let’em be pissed off. It’ll just be the new normal. Or more normal than it is now!
The problem is that the most labor solidarity there is are in places where everyone _does_ know everyone else's wages. Specifically, union shops with clearly defined wage scales.
The reason that 'knowing everyone else's wage' would _appear_ to cause problems is that current wages are completely and utterly random and have no relationship to the value provided. And everyone knows this.
This fact, I feel I must point out, rather clearly demonstrates the labor market _is_ completely broken. In fact, that is the most obvious way to prove a market is completely broken, showing that none of the prices paid for anything appear to have any sort of logical relationship to where they should be. (Not that prices are supposed to be entirely 'logical', but they should at least have some sort of logical relationship to _each other_. I.e., if large pizzas cost less than medium pizzas, the market is behaving weirdly.)
Exposing the market as broken is, indeed, going to annoy a lot of people, both ones who benefit from the brokenness and those who have unknowingly suffered under it, but that's not a good reason to not fix it. (Not that transparency magically fixed broken markets, but un-transparent ones are nearly completely _un_-fixable.)
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#2 is actually the reverse- as if the stores (seller) were prevented from knowing what other stores were getting for their product.
Actually, my analogy was indeed wrong, but I also think yours is wrong. If the store is equivalent of the labor seller, and the customer is the equivalent of the labor buyer:
The customers come in, waste hours of the stores time, demand that the stores _not_ post prices (And is offended if they do), and then, after spending everyone's time, state the price they're willing to pay. At which point the store, because it badly needs money, usually just accept that price.
It's hard to see how this is any sort of working market. Working markets have _at least_ one side state the acceptable price, and often both sides. You can't have any sort of transparency if _no one_ knows the price of things except the sole thing they themselves bought.
Stating prices in the labor market? Why, that's crazy talk.
I just realized this is a classic psychological bias called the 'sunk cost fallacy'. Get people to invest in a 'purchase' for days, spend hours of time competing to get it, and then there's no way in hell they'll pass it by even if it's not quite what they were expecting.
Like I said, the entire system is set up so we think that is somehow 'normal' behavior in a labor market, despite the fact we'd regard the same behavior as utterly and completely insane in any other market. (You're...not going to tell me how much you're willing to pay for my sofa until I haul it to your house? I understand you want to determine the condition, but you won't even give a _range_ of possible prices you might hypothetically be willing to pay?)
On “Is it okay to shun Orson Scott Card now?”
Even if it is 'crazy', it's not actively working to deny people their rights like Card was.
The idea we'd boycott someone because they suggested that some political activity rises to Hilterism and we disagree that it is quite that bad is, uh, silly.
Although I personally think he's entirely right. Russia is acting like Germany in the 1930s, and has been for some time. And, frankly, it's for exactly the same reason...it's a non-working state that sorta collapsed about two decades ago and has been flopping along like a fish out of water since then.
It's not that hard to imagine them slipping into some sort of pogroms against gays and, replacing the Jews this time, Muslims.
It's getting a little worrying. Especially since they are still a nuclear power, _and_ feel comfortable with asserting all sorts of claims over their neighbors.
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Bush himself did suggest, after Katrina, that posse comitatus be altered so that he could send active duty troops into disaster zones, but I don’t recall anyone criticizing him for not sending active duty troops,
_I_ criticize him for that. But not how people think.
Posse comitatus applies to _law enforcement_. It doesn't apply to, for an example of something that would have been really really fucking useful, airlifting people from the Superdome to that offshore aircraft carrier. Or to anywhere else.
It is perfectly legal, anywhere in the entire country, for the US military to show up and say 'Hey, do you want a ride from here to over there? Hop on this helicopter and we'll take you there.'. It is not any sort of violation of any sort of law.
Likewise, it is not a violation of the law for the US military to operate rescue operations, to drive around in boats looking for people. Or to put up sandbags.
The rule is no _law enforcement_. That's it. That's the entire rule. The US military cannot _force_ people to do things without the consent of Congress...and, you know what? During Katrina, very few victims needed to be 'forced' to do anything.
The National Guard thing was something else entirely, (They _were- law enforcement) and the US military could not have replaced them, but they sure as fuck could have been useful if Bush had bothered to give them _any_ orders.
Likewise, it's worth mentioning that all it takes to use the military for law enforcement under posse comitatus is a goddamn congressional vote. Congress managed to pass disaster relief funds in a special session on Sept 1, but somehow couldn't vote to override posse comitatus at that time?
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If you’re paying any attention, you know that what Obama’s been accused of regarding Benghazi is blaming the wrong set of Muslims.
Hey, now. It's entirely possible to be paying attention and have no fucking idea what the Republicans think Benghazi is about.
Last I checked, the Republicans were blaming Benghazi on ACORN? I'm not entirely sure.
Remember, this isn’t Card being a fiction writer. This is where his speculations start from.
Of course Obama would just let Israel be nuked. He's a _Democrat_. Us Democrats, because we (Along with the Israelis, who probably would also let Israel get nuked) sometimes disagree with the behavior of Israel, want it nuked.
It's much the same way we'd have no problem with Mexico invading Texas.
Seriously, the maxim 'You can take any false premise to the logical conclusion and have a reasonable approximation of insanity' is more and more obviously true every day.
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If you want me to tolerate you, then you need to afford me the same courtesy and respect.
No, it's not even that. I mean, that is true, but it's not the problem here.
People being 'intolerant' of homophobes are...publicly criticizing homophobes.
People being 'intolerant' of gay people are...working to deny gay people their rights.
I would point out that those are not the same thing, but that much is obvious. So instead I will point out that those are not even the same _class_ of things. One of those is an actual constitutional right, the other of those is the _opposite_ of a constitutional right.
It's an absurd strawman. The right invents what _they_ think the left has been saying 'tolerance' is, and pretends the left is violating it.
I can assure people, no one on the left has even wandered around saying 'You should be tolerance of other people, include ones that hurt people'. No one. Ever.
It's just so blatantly dishonest it...well, anyone who thinks it, even for a second, is a complete and utter moron who has had their brain carefully shaped by Rush Limbaugh.
Incidentally, before anyone asks: Yes, Card has worked to deny gay people their rights. He's on the board of the National Organization for Marriage. Or, at least, he _was_...and I'm not actually willing to give someone a pass because they quietly stopped trying to restrict people's right a mere month ago. For all we know, he's just dropped off the board so his movie doesn't tank, and will join right back on afterward.
Now, toleration is indeed a two-way street, and I argue I have the right to be 'intolerant' towards a person who constantly insults friends of mine. So, yes, what you are saying is correct, we don't have to tolerate assholes...but that only takes effect after _the actual harm is stopped_. Anyone who stands there and 'tolerates' injustice to others is a moron. ('Tolerates' in the imaginary right-wing version of giving out flowers to the oppressor or whatever the hell they think it means. I'm not saying everyone has to leap forward and stop all injustice in every circumstance. They are required, however, to not stand there and encourage it.)
On “Employer Entitlement (Know Your Place)”
Businesses should know how much a position is worth, generally speaking. They are, after all, hiring someone to fill it, so they're going to have to decide on salary _anyway_. But instead they've decided to ask you. When, in fact, they should be telling you the number they've already decided on. Before the interview. And what the normal salary increases are.
It's amazing how many insidious memes have worked their ways into our brains about the 'proper' interaction between employers and employees, and compare them to an actual working market:
1) Employers do not have to state what the job pays upfront. You know, like when you go refrigerator shopping and they don't tell you how much each one costs until you've hauled it up to the register. (It was hard to actually think of an analogy of buying something that required as much work as getting a job.) And even then, it's considered uncouth to just _ask_ about it.
2) Employees are severely discouraged, and it often is against the rules, to discuss wages. You know, like people are forbidden from discussing what store has cheaper prices.
3) Employers feel that all aspects of their employees life is their business. Employers have even decided, recently, that it is their business how their employees use the health insurance they are paid. You know, like we as customers can decide how a store we buy things from uses 'our' money.
There's a reason it has been deliberately policy of the right, and even the pro-business left, to not worry about unemployment. (At least until it got absurd, when the left finally appears to care...and will go right on caring until it gets back to 'normal' unemployment, and it stops.)
It's so we internalize this _bullshit_, this idea that the labor _market_ is a place where unemployed people wander around _begging_ people to hire them. That this is the way it is _suppose_ to work.
This country will be a lot better off, in _every_ aspect (Except the super-rich would not get super-richer), if instead of the unemployment rate, we talked about the job vacancy rate, where there were 4% of the jobs floating around out there without people to fill them.
And it is not the least bit hard to create a structure where such a thing happens. We have rather deliberately not done so.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.