Fast Food Worker Strikes!

[laklak]

Work? Why in the world would I do that? I made my money and got the fuck out of the rat race, when I start sucking the gummint tit in another 3 years it will be beer and dog track money, and maybe a tank of gas for the boat. No, this boy is done with that work-a-day shit, ain't kissing no client ass, no more no time no how. I don't need their fucking money, they can dump SS tomorrow and it won't affect me in the slightest, only difference is the kids will get a bit less when I move on to the Great Pub In The Sky. The only thing that will fuck us over is a complete collapse of the system, then we'll have to move to the mountain property and raise our own hogs, maybe dig up some of the silver. Personally I'd rather not do that because I like my creature comforts and I've discovered a real lazy streak in myself, but at least I won't be stuck in a city eating rats on a stick.

Like I said earlier, I don't have a dog in this fight, I don't care what they do with the minimum wage. Raise it to $50 an hour, won't make any goddamned difference. Instead of charging $900 a month for half a 2 bedroom duplex I'll just raise it to $4000. Some minimum wage slacker will pay it because they don't have any other choice, they're too lazy or stupid or a combination of the two to buy their own property, start a business or pull themselves out of the MickyD rut. They'll still be living paycheck to paycheck, just like they do now, because they have no self-control or ambition and they think the world owes them a living. There are people who are successful and people who aren't, and no amount of government regulation is going to change that.

[piscator]

Work? Why in the world would I do that? I made my money and got the fuck out of the rat race, when I start sucking the gummint tit in another 3 years it will be beer and dog track money, and maybe a tank of gas for the boat. No, this boy is done with that work-a-day shit, ain't kissing no client ass, no more no time no how. I don't need their fucking money, they can dump SS tomorrow and it won't affect me in the slightest, only difference is the kids will get a bit less when I move on to the Great Pub In The Sky. The only thing that will fuck us over is a complete collapse of the system, then we'll have to move to the mountain property and raise our own hogs, maybe dig up some of the silver. Personally I'd rather not do that because I like my creature comforts and I've discovered a real lazy streak in myself, but at least I won't be stuck in a city eating rats on a stick.

Like I said earlier, I don't have a dog in this fight, I don't care what they do with the minimum wage. Raise it to $50 an hour, won't make any goddamned difference. Instead of charging $900 a month for half a 2 bedroom duplex I'll just raise it to $4000. Some minimum wage slacker will pay it because they don't have any other choice, they're too lazy or stupid or a combination of the two to buy their own property, start a business or pull themselves out of the MickyD rut. They'll still be living paycheck to paycheck, just like they do now, because they have no self-control or ambition and they think the world owes them a living. There are people who are successful and people who aren't, and no amount of government regulation is going to change that.

I think we got started on this sidetrack when you asked about your Social Security,..

If they double the minimum wage that means they're going to double my social security payments, right?

...as if Social Security didn't get annual Cost of Living adjustments...and as if a Social Security check were the same sort of beast as a wage or salary, which it's not.




The "Starve in a ditch" thing is a Seth quote from a recent post. "You can starve in a ditch if you don't want to work."
I thought it a colorful aphorism with a salty Libertarian self reliant flavor, so I decided to garnish a few posts with it. Don't take it personally, I'd rather not see you like that, self-proclaimed Libertarian or no.

[laklak]

Lol, no personal affront taken, it's all just internet bullshit. I should never be taken seriously, even when I'm being serious.

[Coito ergo sum]

...as if Social Security didn't get annual Cost of Living adjustments...and as if a Social Security check were the same sort of beast as a wage or salary, which it's not.




The "Starve in a ditch" thing is a Seth quote from a recent post. "You can starve in a ditch if you don't want to work."
I thought it a colorful aphorism with a salty Libertarian self reliant flavor, so I decided to garnish a few posts with it. Don't take it personally, I'd rather not see you like that, self-proclaimed Libertarian or no.

Correct. Social security is not a wage. It was a program that wage earners pay into out of their wages to put away for retirement.

This whole negative libertarian thing, referring to people starving in a ditch and "good riddance" is not really an accurate portrayal of traditional libertarianism. A better version of libertarianism is enunciated by Henry David Thoreau. http://www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/libhe/libhe002.pdf and http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/libertarianism.html#C3

I find it interesting that if someone identifies himself as a left wing "anarchist" that person is not inundated with "who will build the roads?" and "you just want people to die in ditches?" accusations. Yet, let someone announce himself as libertarian and he's accused of being a heartless monster. And, who are the ones throwing bombs and blowing up buildings, as between libertarians and anarchists? Anarchists.

[Seth]

The "Starve in a ditch" thing is a Seth quote from a recent post. "You can starve in a ditch if you don't want to work."
I thought it a colorful aphorism with a salty Libertarian self reliant flavor, so I decided to garnish a few posts with it. Don't take it personally, I'd rather not see you like that, self-proclaimed Libertarian or no.

This whole negative libertarian thing, referring to people starving in a ditch and "good riddance" is not really an accurate portrayal of traditional libertarianism.

Quite right. Being provocative like that is my response to the idiotic socialist notion that there is an enforceable duty on the part of the individual to labor and sacrifice on behalf of those he does not know and has not voluntarily accepted responsibility for. It's a poke at the inherent attitude on the part of socialists that it's morally and ethically acceptable to bind others into involuntary servitude against their will for the benefit of other members of the collective who choose to leech off of the socialist system and the labor of others rather than suffer the natural consequences of their own decisions and actions and accept responsibility for their own lives.

I have often said (into the howling intellectual wilderness it seems) that Libertarianism depends for its success upon the idea that the ordinary and natural instincts of charity, altruism, compassion and rational self-interest, which are present in most well-formed adult personalities, are a better method of achieving "social justice" and caring for the truly needy of the nation. As I've said there is a difference between those who physically cannot work and care for themselves or through no fault of their own temporarily cannot find productive work that pays their way and those who, by reason of ill-formed and immature personalities that are disordered and pathological, WILL NOT work and prefer to demand largess from the public purse to provide for their needs, claiming such support as their "human right."

The former can, should and in my opinion will be cared for by their communities because most people are sane, rational, compassionate, caring, altruistic, charitable people who do not, for many reasons, want to see people starving to death in a ditch.

The latter are predators and scavengers who enslave others and steal from them simply because the bureaucracy allows them to do so. THEY can starve in a ditch. The reason I say this is that they are a) undeserving of any charity or compassion; and b) starvation is a great motivator to individual industriousness; and c) because hunger and privation are the just rewards for arrogant, idle anti-social behavior. They are an appropriate consequence for the unwillingness to work and provide for one's own needs.

The claim that Libertarians are selfish and cruel is a classic Alinsky canard from the left, who aren't interested in a rational discussion of Libertarianism. All they are interested in is denigrating anything that's not Marxism because that's the Marxist dialectic: Never, ever, ever discuss the benefits of any non-Marxist system and never, ever, ever, EVER discuss the faults and failings of Marxism.

And it's not as if the proletarian Marxist dupes are eschewing rational argument, it's that they are intellectually incapable of engaging in a rational debate because they are so massively indoctrinated and propagandized in the lies of Marxism that, like Mao's chanting masses waving his Little Red Book in mindless and unreasoning obedience, they are entirely unequipped and unable to pry their intellects out of the tiny crevices that they like to think of as their minds.

I find it interesting that if someone identifies himself as a left wing "anarchist" that person is not inundated with "who will build the roads?" and "you just want people to die in ditches?" accusations. Yet, let someone announce himself as libertarian and he's accused of being a heartless monster. And, who are the ones throwing bombs and blowing up buildings, as between libertarians and anarchists? Anarchists.

Indeed. Well put.

[piscator]

The "Starve in a ditch" thing is a Seth quote from a recent post. "You can starve in a ditch if you don't want to work."
I thought it a colorful aphorism with a salty Libertarian self reliant flavor, so I decided to garnish a few posts with it. Don't take it personally, I'd rather not see you like that, self-proclaimed Libertarian or no.

This whole negative libertarian thing, referring to people starving in a ditch and "good riddance" is not really an accurate portrayal of traditional libertarianism.

Quite right. Being provocative like that is my response to the idiotic socialist notion that there is an enforceable duty on the part of the individual to labor and sacrifice on behalf of those he does not know and has not voluntarily accepted responsibility for.

This ^^^ is the base rejection of reality that makes Libertarianism so appealing to the narrow-minded. We're all sharing one planet. You were born benefiting from the labors of others and suffering the effects of their fuckups, and you'll die that way too. There's no getting around it, "You're gonna have to serve somebody." - pure individualism is self refuting

You also misuse the word "Voluntary". You could "agree" with more taxes and you wouldn't feel they were "involuntary". Disagree with another for whatever vague aesthetic reason you pull out of your ass, and it suddenly becomes "Involuntary servitude!".
The whole thing seems to hinge on whatever silly conception an individual chooses to have of the concept of "Voluntary" in a particular moment.
Other people already defined that before you were born, and used it to set up a country and support you. If you don't like it, you can move.

Or maybe you can simply form a collective to overpower those who disagree?

[Seth]

The "Starve in a ditch" thing is a Seth quote from a recent post. "You can starve in a ditch if you don't want to work."
I thought it a colorful aphorism with a salty Libertarian self reliant flavor, so I decided to garnish a few posts with it. Don't take it personally, I'd rather not see you like that, self-proclaimed Libertarian or no.

This whole negative libertarian thing, referring to people starving in a ditch and "good riddance" is not really an accurate portrayal of traditional libertarianism.

Quite right. Being provocative like that is my response to the idiotic socialist notion that there is an enforceable duty on the part of the individual to labor and sacrifice on behalf of those he does not know and has not voluntarily accepted responsibility for.

This ^^^ is the base rejection of reality that makes Libertarianism so appealing to the narrow-minded. We're all sharing one planet. You were born benefiting from the labors of others and suffering the effects of their fuckups, and you'll die that way too. There's no getting around it, "You're gonna have to serve somebody." - pure individualism is self refuting

No one but you is arguing "pure individualism." This is a typical liberal straw man used when dismissing Libertarianism.

Now, I was born benefiting from the labor of others, that is true. But how, exactly, does that impose upon me a duty of some sort to the others in the society who were LIKEWISE born benefiting from the labor of others? Did those others labor with it in mind that succeeding generations would owe them something? Or did they do what they did as an act of altruism and charity to make the world a better place for succeeding generations?

I say it's the latter. If there was some debt being accrued between the time that I was born and when I became a productive adult, that debt was fully paid BY MY PARENTS, who worked hard to pay for the consumption of public goods I did as a child, just as their parents before them ad infinitium worked to make the world a better place for their children...WITHOUT an expectation of recompense and WITHOUT burdening my generation with the debts of their generation, something that government today does with impunity and malice aforethought.

No, sorry, I was not born in debt to society. I do not owe a debt of service to society. I only owe for what I use by way of public resources and absolutely nothing else! If I choose to altruistically contribute to society in excess of what I consume, in order to make life better for others and for succeeding generations, that is an act of charity on my part performed without any expectation of compensation by the beneficiaries. It's a gift I give them, just like my estate is. I pass what I have earned and built along to future generations to make their lives better and more free, I absolutely do NOT pass the fruits of my labor on as a burden, obligation and enslavement of future generations to my own labor. That's unconscionable and evil beyond comprehension.

When I was born neither I nor my parents signed a contract or bond that doomed me to a period of servitude as compensation for being born into the society I happened to be born into, and your idiotic notion that every person is born bound to the service of those who came before is cruel and evil and the attitude of one who thinks that he's entitled to command the labor and property of others as if it were a right.

It's not.

I was born free, and my debt to society is tallied according to that which I consume by way of public goods and NOTHING else. Any other debts I owe are the product of voluntary contract with others and nothing else. I repudiate and reject your assertion that any child is born owing the collective a debt.

You also misuse the word "Voluntary". You could "agree" with more taxes and you wouldn't feel they were "involuntary". Disagree with another for whatever vague aesthetic reason you pull out of your ass, and it suddenly becomes "Involuntary servitude!".

Er, if I don't agree to perform the labor necessary to pay the tax freely and of my own choosing, then it's "involuntary" by definition. Now I may create a debt or duty of labor that may be "involuntary" in that I might prefer not to have to labor and sacrifice to pay some debt I've incurred by my voluntary use and enjoyment of public resources, but it's not "servitude" because I freely took on the debt by using the public resource and therefore to avoid defrauding the rest of society I may be compelled to acknowledge and repay that voluntary debt.

As I said, however, my just debts to society are comprise of, and ONLY of those amenities, services and benefits of society that I actually make use of, or may make use of without individual charge, like a roadway.

But I have not, and do not accept any responsibility for any debt run up by anyone else unless I have specifically and explicitly taken responsibility for that debt by voluntary written instrument or agreement. Therefore I have no obligation to pay the government money towards the maintenance or support of those who are dependent on government largess for their survival.

I may CHOOSE to contribute to that need and I may donate my labor or property towards that end out of charitable, altruistic or rational self-interest motives, but no one can claim my labor or property as by right, because that would be slavery and involuntary servitude.

The whole thing seems to hinge on whatever silly conception an individual chooses to have of the concept of "Voluntary" in a particular moment.

Wrong. It's exceedingly simple: If I don't freely choose, without coercion or threat of punishment by the government, to do this or that, then that activity is "involuntary." If I'm forced to labor and give over my property against my free will for the benefit of others for whom I have not freely accepted financial responsibility, that is "servitude."

In this context whether a particular debt of servitude is moral and ethical or immoral and unethical depends entirely upon the nature of the purported obligation by which others claim title to my labor and property. ONLY if I have voluntarily contracted to assume that debt, which may be a contract formed by the actual use and enjoyment of, in this case, public goods and amenities, can any debt be imposed upon me and enforced against me.

If I drive on a public road, I owe a share of the costs of building and maintaining that road, and I may justly be held to that debt simply because I voluntarily made use of the public amenity or resource. Refusing to pay that debt may result in my being placed in involuntary servitude, but it is done so as the just consequence for voluntarily incurring a debt and refusing to pay that debt.

If I take water from a public water system and dispose of waste in a public sewer system, then I have ratified a contract to pay my share of the costs of building, maintaining and providing the service. But I may avoid that debt simply by not using the infrastructure, in which case I have no obligation to pay anything.

But when some individual chooses NOT to labor on his own behalf and pay for his own just debts incurred by the use and enjoyment of public resources, this does not and cannot impose upon ME any liability whatsoever for that person's use and enjoyment of those resources. That is HIS debt to pay, not mine, and I reject and repudiate any liberal socialist attempt to burden me or anyone else with the debts of those who choose to be idle and dependent.

Other people already defined that before you were born, and used it to set up a country and support you.

Really? Care to cite the provision of the Constitution that imposes a debt of servitude or property on every child ever born in the US?

If you don't like it, you can move.

Or I can refuse to be enslaved.

Or maybe you can simply form a collective to overpower those who disagree?

Overpowering thieves is a right and a duty of every free citizen. Just because some thug thinks I owe him a living doesn't mean I do, and I'm more than happy to dispute that claim with him personally, at long range or short range, any time the thug thinks he can enforce his greedy and gluttonous demands upon me. And I don't give a fuck if he happens to be a bureaucrat with the imprimis of government. A thief is a thief, and all thieves are to be treated the same way: with extreme prejudice as an example to other thieves.

[piscator]

No, sorry, I was not born in debt to society. I do not owe a debt of service to society. I only owe for what I use by way of public resources and absolutely nothing else!

What gives you the idea you're paying for absolutely anything else?

[Seth]

No, sorry, I was not born in debt to society. I do not owe a debt of service to society. I only owe for what I use by way of public resources and absolutely nothing else!

What gives you the idea you're paying for absolutely anything else?

The existence of our welfare program for one thing, among many other things.

[piscator]

No, sorry, I was not born in debt to society. I do not owe a debt of service to society. I only owe for what I use by way of public resources and absolutely nothing else!

What gives you the idea you're paying for absolutely anything else?

The existence of our welfare program for one thing, among many other things.

The one that supports McDonald's with beef subsidies and depressed minimum wage structures?

[Seth]

No, sorry, I was not born in debt to society. I do not owe a debt of service to society. I only owe for what I use by way of public resources and absolutely nothing else!

What gives you the idea you're paying for absolutely anything else?

The existence of our welfare program for one thing, among many other things.

The one that supports McDonald's with beef subsidies and depressed minimum wage structures?

Which one is that?

[pErvinalia]

Corporate welfare is ok, piscator. Corporations good! Workers bad.

[Coito ergo sum]

No, sorry, I was not born in debt to society. I do not owe a debt of service to society. I only owe for what I use by way of public resources and absolutely nothing else!

What gives you the idea you're paying for absolutely anything else?

The existence of our welfare program for one thing, among many other things.

The one that supports McDonald's with beef subsidies and depressed minimum wage structures?

There are no direct subsidies to the beef industry in the US. Most of the US agricultural subsidies go to crops like cotton and corn.

But, yes, all subsidies ought to be looked at very closely, as they distort the market. Mainly, they are implemented, though, not as welfare programs but under economic theories to keep prices stable and low, etc.

And, of course, nobody here appears to have said corporate welfare is "good."

[piscator]

No, sorry, I was not born in debt to society. I do not owe a debt of service to society. I only owe for what I use by way of public resources and absolutely nothing else!

What gives you the idea you're paying for absolutely anything else?

The existence of our welfare program for one thing, among many other things.

The one that supports McDonald's with beef subsidies and depressed minimum wage structures?

There are no direct subsidies to the beef industry in the US. Most of the US agricultural subsidies go to crops like cotton and corn.

Sixty three percent of the U.S. government food subsidies go directly or indirectly to subsidize the meat and dairy industries. Less than 1 percent goes to fruit and vegetable cultivation. Less than 2 percent goes to nut and legume cultivation.

And taxpayer subsidies artificially lower the production costs of feedlots.

The single most subsidized crop in the United States is corn. From 1995-2006, corn subsidies in United States totaled a staggering $56.2 billion. Almost every bushel of corn produced in the United States is subsidized, and those subsidies have driven the growth of feedlot beef and other feedlot livestock.

Moreover, a very large segment of cattle production in the American west is on on public lands. The BLM is the world's largest manager of grazing land for cattle production.

Over the western states, ~ 73% of the publicly owned land is grazed. The combined acreage of public land that is grazed across western states is about 270 million acres, which is equal to the total acreage of OR, WA, CA, and ID.

[MrJonno]

Agriculture in the 1st world is about as 'free market' based as the defence industry is