A New American Bill Of Rights : A Liberal Opinion
I recently wrote an article concerning principles that I believed went beyond religion and was inclusive of all mankind. I was pleasantly surprised that the great majority of responses to this article were positive. I had finally found a topic that was beyond argument.
No such luck today. I'm back to my old political self. I am not naïve and know that this nation has undergone a political schism that is almost as profound as the one that precipitated the War Between the States. Our disagreements are different. We no longer have slave states and non-slave states. We no longer have economies that are uniquely tied to either agriculture and farming while others are relying exclusively on the coming and prescient industrial revolution. Our divisions however may be as deep and as insurmountable as they were in 1861.
Given the schisms and the ways that we each think, I think that for those of us on the liberal side of the balance beam, a new set of rights have to be enumerated. What I am going to do is list 14 rights that I personally believe apply to everyone in America. Some may be accepted by all, some may be distasteful to many. In this piece I will list those rights and give a sentence or two describing that right in my opinion. If the article creates a good deal of interest, I will take the rights that get the most discussion and expand on them in future articles.
Here Goes: All Americans should have
1: the right to free choice. This right includes the right to choose {e.g. Roe v. Wade}, the right to individual choice of religion, the right to where their children are educated, the right to decide where to live, etc.
2: the right to racial, religious, and gender equity. This includes the treatment of all people equally in all aspects of American life. This right indicates that any discrimination against any individual because of their race, religion, sexual preference, or gender preference will be treated as a felony crime.
3: the right to earn a living wage. This right includes the payment of a living salary for all manner of work. It indicates that all work is valuable and deserves to be compensated at a living wage.
4: the right to an education. Every student should be given the right to a free and appropriate public education at the government cost. Though every parent has the right to have their child educated in a non-public facility, the cost of that education falls exclusively on the parent/guardian. Every young adult should be allowed to attend a local publicly funded community college at taxpayer expense if that training prepares the student to be a productive, tax-paying citizen.
5: the right of an individual over that of the corporation. There should be a recognition that no company or corporation can be treated in the law in the same way that individuals are treated. This right should most strongly be enforced in the political arena.
6: the right to privacy. The individual should have an absolute right to maintain his/her associations or private communications to remain private. Corporations should not have the right to mine citizen data without express {not hidden} consent.
7: the right to healthcare. Healthcare for all is a right, not a privilege. There must be a guarantee that every person in this country has the right to appropriate and immediate health care through an organized system of health management.
8: the right to be free of terrorism or mass violence. While this may not be totally possible, American laws should be set up to keep their citizens as safe as possible. This includes the government placing appropriate on certain types of firearms when there is ample proof that certain weapons are almost always used in certain crimes.
9: the right to environmental custodianship. We have a right to maintain environmental stewardship over our country and our planet. As a nation, we have a right to provide stewardship over the climate and all that it implies.
10: the right to freedom of expression. There should never be an attempt to stifle free speech at any level. Whether individual, mainstream media, alternative media, or even conspiracy media, the light of day is the best disinfectant for showing the truth.
11: the right to fair immigration. We are a nation of immigrants and should maintain a policy of welcoming immigrants to our country. This immigration should not be on a quota or on a limiting basis, but should follow an open policy with exceptions for those from countries that are war ravaged or are in imminent danger. Exclusions on the basis of race or religion should not be allowed.
12: the right to religion and governmental secularism. We all have the absolute right to worship or not to worship as we please. How, where, and why we worship is an individual decision outside of the purview of government. In this same spirit the government should stay absolutely neutral and disassociated with any religious group. Our government is to remain totally secular.
13: the right to military and police protection. It is the primary role of government to provide protection for their citizens. That protection has to be equally applied to every person. No individual should have a fear of those whose role is to protect them. No individual should be killed while unarmed, or shot in the back. The right to this protection must override race, religion, or national origin.
14: the right to honest elections. Americans have the right to be certain that every vote counts and that every vote is counted in the manner it was cast. There is no right to having elections meddled with by foreign or domestic enemies. There is a basic right that the government has the obligation to get every American citizen registered to vote. The government's obligation is to assist every American exercise that right not restrict it.
Alright, there are my fourteen rights every American is minimally entitled to. I am coming from a liberal point of view, but there is not a singular point in this list that I would not be willing to run on if I were 20 years younger. Go at it and give me your views both pro and con. Just one rule......try to play nice and make lucid points.
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One of the fundamental problems of modern leftism is the endorsement of positive rights. America's founders (classic liberals) believed in negative rights and they wrote a Bill of Rights that restricted the government's ability to interfere with those rights. Negative rights don't impact other people. They don't require things of other people.
By contrast, the positive rights promoted by modern leftists make slaves of other people. So called "rights" like a living wage, healthcare, education, and police protection require other people to do things for them. That's not liberty. That's oppression.
would you really want to live in a nation that does not guarantee positive rights? no guarantee of education for your children? no police? no minimum living standards? You are talking about nations that are in anarchy.....the Sudan, Somalia, etc. This is exactly why these countries are a breeding ground for terrorism...... what kind of country do you want to live in?
Conservatives do not think of themselves as part of a society. They are only concerned with themselves and ignore how they fit into the interconnected system of society. They want the benefits of living in that advanced society but they don't want to be a member of it or pay for those benefits. It is a classic example of not seeing the forest for the trees.
This is why libertarian(classical liberal nonsense) is so beloved by conservatives. If classical liberal economic thought worked in the 20th or 21st century it would still be used but it doesn't work, despite the fact that it is beloved by Ayn Rand conservatives. Ayn Dand 's ideas would have never funded the internet but her supporters don't see the hypocrisy of benefittig from that government-funded research and planning to complain about the government and taxes.
It is amusing that many of these people also claim to be Christians, despite the fact that these ideas go against what Jesus taught in the gospels.
Yes. I know that shocks you, but I'm a big fan of the founders. They were smart people.
The left "guarantees" things all the time, but can't deliver. Oh you can tax the heck out of people, build schools, and force children to attend, but let's be honest: the quality of education varies widely and usually serves to make everyone about equally educated to some mediocre level. Believe me, I think kids should go to school, but a lot of government schools are garbage and the families have few or no options. Kids go to school for 12 years, but they aren't 12 years smarter at the end of it. It's also not freedom. I would much rather have a society that creates an environment were educators can flourish and everyone has the right to go to school if they choose and attend the school of their choice.
Who said no police? If you want police you can get together with your community and hire cops. (That's actually how it works) You can also have a volunteer service. That's pretty common in places without a lot of money. But the fact is you don't have a right to police. This is actually a holding of the Supreme Court. Police are under no duty to risk their lives to protect you. Good thing we have a 2nd Amendment so we can protect ourselves.
Absolutely not! Talk about a moving target! Who decides what "minimum" is? Will the people paying for that minimum have any say in the matter? Do you really want to be responsible for my living standards? What if it comes out of your living standard? Still seem like a good idea?
Not at all! When was the United States of America a country of anarchy? Never! Classic liberalism doesn't reject all government. It just believes in a limited government that functions to preserve national security and protect the rights of its citizens. My rights to free speech, worship, association, right to bear arms, to be secure from government troops in my home, free from unreasonable searches, to property rights, equality before the law, and so on, serve to secure my liberty but don't actually require anything of other citizens.
The modern left thinks anything it wants is some kind of right that should be supplied by government or even other citizens. Modern leftism promotes unlimited government that steals individual freedom with every new step it takes.
Government should be protecting us from invaders and criminals (and each other when we are bad actors). But it doesn't owe me a livin.
A country that respects liberty. America used to be a country like that.
I want to keep our constitution as written though there are a couple of recent court re interpretations that I’d like to see reversed, abortion and gay marriage in particular . The thing I like about our constitution the most is what obama hated it for. It has negative rights telling government what it can’t do to us, not rights it has to do for us at our considerable expense.
the left aka federalists have been against the bill of right since the day they were written.
seems they do not like our "tools against tyranny"
if the left had their way we never would have had a bill of rights to begin with. because, you can always trust govt.
Cheers
Since when are those people not paid for their work? Those occupations are paid for by taxes.
A living wage puts more money into circulation which boosts other wages when it is spent.
Libertarian thought appeals to people who don't think as part of a society.
A strawman is defined by exagerated redefinations in order to win an argument, so please point out the strawman that I created.
That is also a major driving force of the economy... The more people make, the more they spend, the better the economy does. The problem is that republicans literally keep pushing the poor down further and further, then complain that they have to collect welfare to survive. Makes no sense at all. It's almost as stupid as saying that coal jobs will come back....oh wait.
Exactly correct.
People who make less than a living wage often make up that difference with the social safety net that we pay for. Why should taxpayers subsidize their employee's wages so the corporation can make more profit? That extra profit doesn't benefit anyone but the corporation's owners.
Those jobs aren't coming back, mostly because they don't exist now.
The manual labor jobs that didn't need post-secondary education have disappeared because of mechanization and they aren't coming back, even if politicians pay the industries to onshore them from China, Vietnam or Mexico. Immigrants t didn't take their jobs. Robots and computers did.
If immigrants who don't speak the language and have almost no job skills can take your jobs it isn't their fault, it is your fault because you haven't keep up with technology that the market demands. The days that a high school education is enough for life are gone. We need up update out job skills multiple times in our careers so we need the politicians to make sure that education is paid for, because if we have to pay for that education on the market many people will not be able to afford it and paying for it will take money out of the economy that would otherwise be in the economy.
I am well aware of what I previously posted and what the definition of a strawman is.
The problem is that you offer no solutions. Until thoughts replace empty vessels, I suggest you do your ad hominem attacks on another post.
What does this reply contribute to the discussion, or than an ad hominem fallacy?
So does printing money. That doesn't make it a good idea. Don't get me wrong: I think employers - on moral grounds and smart business grounds where applicable - should strive to pay their employees a proper living wage. But I think having government mandate it is not the answer. In places where they are mandating radical changes in the minimum wage, businesses are closing or hiring has frozen. Some businesses can handle it, but others can't. Closing businesses and hiring freezes don't help the economy.
I don't really think of myself as Libertarian. I think Libertarianism exists on the spectrum of liberalism, but I don't think I run from the idea of government intervention to the degree that a Rand Paul would. Also, I think you are tending - as many critics of classic liberalism or libertarianism do - to conflate "government" with "society." I can champion individual liberty and still endorse the idea of people coming together for the common good. In fact, I would hope you would see that as a superior solution to just sitting at home and waiting for someone in Washington to improve your life.
there has never been a nation that has succeeded when espousing "classic liberalism" or "libertarianism". We live in a quasi-socialist society whether you like it or not. Public schools are the great American equalizer. You can go any other route you want, but you then pay your own way. We've socialized the police, fire protection, utilities, medicare, social security, community colleges, etc. It is what makes America great. Sorry you don't like it. I'm also sorry you weren't born in 1750. You probably would feel much more comfortable among our founders. I, for one, prefer the 21st century.
Except for free healthcare we have the others.
I would never agree on the immigration.
I see our immigration system as a total mess. It changes on a year to year, decade to decade basis. We encourage refugees; we ban refugees; we encourage people who are oppressed; we turn those who are oppressed away.
I look at immigration very simply. Our policy should be based on the immortal words of Emma Lazurus, inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty in her classic poem, " The New Colossus". The last stanza is reprinted here.
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
This should be American immigration policy as the moral and humanitarian leader of the world.
Legal immigration based on quotas.
There is no such thing as free healthcare. We are merely changing how it is paid for and guaranteeing effective care to all people.
Medicare and Medicaid are not free. Those people paid into the program when they worked.
Where is the current guarantee of a living wage or many of the other ideas?
Alright, there are my fourteen rights every American is minimally entitled to. I am coming from a liberal point of view,
Well, that's one of the things progressives like to do - expand "rights". I don't know where to begin, all of it is so tempting.
I'll pick out my top 5 to focus on:
1: the right to free choice. This right includes the right to choose {e.g. Roe v. Wade}, the right to individual choice of religion, the right to where their children are educated, the right to decide where to live, etc.
What am I missing here, dosen't this right already exist?
2: the right to racial, religious, and gender equity. This includes the treatment of all people equally in all aspects of American life. This right indicates that any discrimination against any individual because of their race, religion, sexual preference, or gender preference will be treated as a felony crime.
We already have this one too, except for your little addendum about discrimination being a felony crime. That would require a clear definition of what discrimination was....Does it mean the obvious form of discrimination where something is actually done to another or will it include using racial slurs or will it include disagreeing with Elijah Cummings?
3: the right to earn a living wage. This right includes the payment of a living salary for all manner of work. It indicates that all work is valuable and deserves to be compensated at a living wage.
That ought to make America the leader in two categories: Automation & the outsourcing of jobs
6: the right to privacy. The individual should have an absolute right to maintain his/her associations or private communications to remain private. Corporations should not have the right to mine citizen data without express {not hidden} consent.
Agreed. Not only shouldn't Corporations have a right to mine citizen data, but social media organizations shouldn't be able to give it away to candidates they love.
It would also be nice to see the word "privacy" in the Constitution for the first time.
10: the right to freedom of expression. There should never be an attempt to stifle free speech at any level. Whether individual, mainstream media, alternative media, or even conspiracy media, the light of day is the best disinfectant for showing the truth.
Oh, do I agree on that one, although we already have it, your'e quite right, we are in real danger of losing it.
As I say, I could go through every one of those, but I just don't have the time tonight.
I didn't write this as a polemic for rights that we don't yet have. In fact, much of what I wrote here is already in place or nearly in place. I tried to place them into a coherent listing of rights that the liberal voter might be interested in. I don't think that everyone will or should agree with every one of them but they should give us a starting point for discussion and a place where even liberals and conservatives might agree on at least a few points.
Two things, the title implied otherwise and some of your listed rights are not exactly "rights we have" - the US government gets to set limits on immigration.
I don't think that everyone will or should agree with every one of them but they should give us a starting point for discussion and a place where even liberals and conservatives might agree on at least a few points.
Your'e very welcome
Actually, all fourteen points are pretty much what I always thought being an American in America was supposed to be anyway.
With that being said, the only contentions to every one of those fourteen points are coming from the illegitimate wing of legitimate conservatism. Which I may add is dead and gone. Murdered by Reagan and Supply Side Economics.
I realize you mean well. A few points/observations/questions....
Item 2: Discrimination can be a very subtle and nuanced issue. What one person considers discrimination, another may see as fairness, and vice versa. Various examples: While I personally see things like bathroom laws as "a solution looking for a problem", I wonder how women will feel when their college basketball spots start going to 6'7" power forwards with chest hair who conveniently "identify" as women when $300k scholarships are on the line. Or how about Matt Smith making more than Claire Foy for their performances in The Crown? Many people see this as discriminatory, despite the fact Matt is the much more famous actor and bigger draw. Statistically, FBI data indicates that black men are almost exactly as likely to be killed during an arrest as white men. They are just arrested much more frequently, so somehow we now care about the national anthem. Also, is there any chance this provision will apply to straight white men? For example, when my son applies to medical school, will it be a felony to give admission preference to a black woman with lesser credentials? Will it be illegal to have scholarships, grants or government contracts that favor women or minorities? We're treating all people "equally", right?
Item 3: All work has always had value. Even slave labor has value. The question is simply "what value" and "to whom". How will you guarantee this "livable wage" for the self-employed starving artist? Or the musician that nobody is willing to pay to listen to? Or the salesperson who's just shite at their job?
Item 4: We have that already. Community college is already free almost everywhere in the US, provided you know how to fill out Pell grant form or AOTC forms. Any student who can't file a couple of forms definitely need to rethink whether or not college is for them. I do hope you and I will come to agreement on the idea that we do not need new laws simply because some people don't realize existing laws already do what they want.
Item 6: That ship has sailed. Privacy has been an illusion since the invention of social media, and probably before that.
Item 7: Health care is not a right. You do not have the right to compel another person to treat you. The very idea that people somehow have the right to make others do their bidding and then make still other people pay for it is among the most preposterous lines of prevailing leftist ideology. I imagine myself walking into the coffee shop tomorrow declaring "Don...I demand you grow my food...and Steve....I demand you pay for it. I need it to survive, therefore it is my "right" to make you do stuff." Good grief. Just because people are afraid they won't be able to afford something does not make it a "right". I never cease to be amazed at the rationalizations people will make when they are afraid, but that's a tangent for another day.
Item 8: No. It's not possible. And banning AR-15s isn't going to get us appreciably closer. There are some intelligent things we could do to make schools safer (that do NOT involve arming teachers...seriously....WTF is wrong with people?), but let's be honest, liberals don't really give a shit about gun violence. If they did, they'd confront the problem where it's most dire in places like Chicago or Detroit or New Orleans. This is about their feelings, which are all in a knot because somebody actually shot people who look like them. It's their feelings that demand we abstain from taking timely action against violent psychopaths...sorry..."troubled youth".....like Nicholas Cruz, and then when he kills 17 people their feelings cause them to blame the gun. The only thing that will make the "feel" better is banning the gun....and marching in the street shouting about the gun....so that's what we have.
Item 10: If we're serious about free speech, that means Milo or Coulter get to talk at UC Berkeley, and the people who try to prevent it are imprisoned. It means protesters who block interstate highways to keep people from going to a Trump rally go to jail for a long time. It means that saying mean things about me on Twitter or Facebook does NOT mean you are responsible for my suicide. It means that when I show up without a permit to shut down a bunch of racists chanting around a statue, the police arrest me, not them.
Item 11: We could definitely use better immigration laws. But I believe one of the major problems among Democrats & liberals is their apparent lack of brakes. This causes sensible Democrats & liberals who think we should look at things a little differently to let things go entirely too far off the deep end. In doing so, they become indistinguishable from Sanders style raving leftists/socialists who seem to operate on pure emotion and have no consideration of the real world or the consequences it contains. Then before you know it we're all saying crazy things like "President Trump" and wondering how in the hell this could have happened. This is one of those times. Better immigration laws....sure. Open borders....that's a whole new level of bleeding-heart impractical.
Item 12: In theory, this is great. In practice, liberalism has become its own religion for an increasing number of its followers. They decide what they believe based on whether liberals or conservatives endorse it. They judge the moral character of other people based on their adherence to liberal ideology. They view any challenge to prevailing liberal doctrine as heretical, and are determined to keep heresy from being uttered. They view non-liberals as infidels who must be either converted or defeated. It is remarkable how similar their behavior is to the evangelical Christians they despise. The point here being....just because a religion doesn't have an established meeting hall does not make it any less a religion. This complicates the whole "secularism" idea.
Item 13: You cannot legislate fear or lack thereof. People choose to be afraid, or not to be afraid. You also cannot legislate what people do in foreign countries. Further, how will you define "meddling"? There is a wave of idiotic outrage at Cambridge Analytica, claiming that they somehow "weaponized" data. The data in question was the very public data we all choose to "share". The "weapon" in question....advertisements. Specifically non-liberal advertisements, which is what makes them a problem (see item 12 on heresy). So if a Canadian company wants a Democrat to win and posts a lot of targeted Facebook advertising to help their campaign, what would we do?
I appreciate your observations and hope that my reactions are as a well thought out as yours.
I certainly understand how different people may have a somewhat different perception of individual rights. My view is fairly simple. We are all human beings and should be treated equally. I know that the issue of gender identity is highly controversial (especially among boomers). It becomes a non-issue once the individual has gender reassignment surgery. The question is what rights does that person have prior to surgery? The answer might actually be the same for us all. When we see a public restroom, we don't think about our equipment when making the choice. We think.....I am a man, therefore I go to the men's room. The decision is psychological. We should be applying that equal right to all.
The issue of equal rights under the law is much more complex. As a psychologist who has interviewed many police and many families of color, I firmly believe that both groups suffer from the same problem. They are afraid and distrustful of one another. This leads to a negative loop where police are more aggressive against people of color. People of color distrust the police and we read about negative incident after negative incident. We can't have equality under the law until we deal with this problem
We like to say that all work has value and then deny the validity of the statement. As a hypothetical, if we were to rate the 5 jobs that had the most value to society, we would probably get teacher, trash collector,police officer/fireman, farmer, and health professional. When we look at the number jobs that have the least value to society we would probably see entertainer, sports star, lawyer, the fund manager , and some ceos. Think about their respective salaries versus their value.
I agree with you on #4. Because we have it doesn't mean it shouldn't be included .
We actually are coming from totally opposite perspectives. Of all the rights I've enumerated this may be one of the most important. We are the only first world country that doesn't guarantee healthcare . We spend more in this area than any other country and see poorer results. Our life expectancies are declining and more bankruptcies occur based on healthcare debt is the highest in the world.
Gotta check with the docs....wife in surgery.....get back to you later
back on line....
#8.... You may well be right that we can never get to a position of having a true right to safety. It should be, however, a right that we can strive for. My feelings on this topic are somewhat complex. I am a firm believer in the second amendment, but not as an absolute right. There should be some restrictions as determined by local officials. For some, this may include banning certain firearms or other weaponry. For others, it may be limitations on the number of guns an individual may own {although I'm somewhat ambivalent on this one}. For others, it may be the original registration of every gun and the ability to trace the route a gun has taken. We definitely have a problem with too many guns in this nation. We also have a problem with accidental deaths by firearms. We have too many legal guns turn into illegal guns. You're right, there are better solutions. They do not include arming teachers, they do include getting guns out of the hands of children and adolescents in gangs. They include education of the adults, programs for the kids, buy back programs, etc. It is a complex solution to a complex problem. What I do feel is necessary is real background checking for any gun purchase, store or private......a three day wait period while the check is done {police records, school discipline records, mental health records, military records, etc.}. I believe that all guns owners should be required to pass a safe usage test. I further believe that gun owners who don't report stolen or lost guns bear some of the responsibility for crimes committed with that gun. Yes.....it is a complex problem.
I agree that free speech must be free for people I agree with and for people I disagree with. I believe that people like Richard Spencer {with his vile ideas} has just as much right to free speech as Bernie Sanders or George Will. The only exception to the right to free speech is when the speech is so incendiary that it commands the listener or follower to commit violence.
#11 I'm not a proponent of totally open borders. We cannot allow everyone who wants to come to America to enter. We would be a country of 3 billion. Given that, our immigration system is a mess. It has lost it's humanity and has become increasingly politicized and racist. Whether we allow 30,000 or 30,000.000 people into the country each year, we must be color and religion blind. We have to stop lying about the visa lottery and tell people that these individuals are thoroughly vetted. We have to stop doing stupid things like "building the wall" and concentrate on figuring out a system of granting temporary work visas that allow the flow of workers to jobs that Americans won't take and are going unfilled. Smart immigration, both permanent and temporary is a vital national security issue.
#12 I can only talk from a personal viewpoint. Whether our government is liberal or conservative or middle of the road from a political pov, it makes no difference as long as the separation of church and state remains absolute. This is an area that we have blurred. The blurring has occurred on both sides. The conservatives have allied with the Evangelical right and the liberals have associated with the Black churches throughout the nation. Both threaten our separation of church and state. It's almost funny, but having a conservative government is much less annoying to me than having a government conservative or liberal that caters to specific religious interests.
#13 I actually answered this a bit when I wrote above about fear amongst both police and victim groups. Police function best when they work in an environment that respects and assists them. To get there we have a long way to go in reestablishing trust between the police and the citizen in many neighborhoods. I do firmly believe that every person should have the right to feel comfortable with those who are duty bound to protect them.
Again, thank you for your thoughtful comments. I hope our back and forth triggers the thought process in other readers.
I agree completely.
While I appreciate the openness such an arrangement would provide, I think it's immensely imprudent to ignore the opportunity for abuse. I think one of the reasons many people get more conservative as they age is because they've been around long enough to see more sh*t go wrong. In this particular case, I'm thinking about someone like my son's lifelong best friend, who is an 18 year old frat boy with the emotional maturity of an 8th grader. People like him will view open bathrooms and locker rooms with all the puerile glee you might expect....or should expect. I believe there is some level of balance that can be achieved, but the arguments I hear from folks on the left seem to utterly disregard the rights of women or the possibility that things will not go 100% according to plan.
Again, I agree completely. But then I read the manifesto of BLM and realize no solution is remotely likely. Alas.
We like to say that all work has value and then deny the validity of the statement.
I think we may be using the phrase differently. When I say "all work has value", I'm referring strictly to the mathematical/economic fact. All work is worth something to somebody. I get the feeling you use the phrase more ideologically. You seem to imply that work only has value if those doing it are compensated above a certain pay level, but please correct me if I misunderstand. In any case, it is important to understand and remember that the value of anything is decided by what someone is willing to pay for it. It's also important to remember that half of Americans work for small businesses, and 90% of all employers have 20 employees or less. In my experience, the folks who most fervently announce ideology like "all work has value" and demand things like $30k minimum wage tend to associate employers with giant faceless corporations or miserly billionaires who are easy to vilify. The truth is that very, very often the guy writing the paycheck doesn't make all that much money himself, and meeting these ideological demands comes directly out of his family's pocket.
You may believe that we as a society should provide healthcare to everyone. That doesn't make it a right. It also doesn't make it plausible, nor does it mean the results would not be catastrophic.
This is actually a lie, based on laughably biased "research" by the Physicians for a National Health Plan.
I do hope she's OK. Best wishes.
I certainly understand the concerns that many people have with pre-surgery transgendered individuals. I am 71 and most of my friends are either truly conflicted or totally against pre-surgery transgendered individuals using rest rooms of the identity choice. Interestingly enough, there doesn't appear to be the same conflict among 18 to 30 year olds in my experiences. I think the issue will eventually become moot, but there has to be a fair compromise found until the public opinion meets the medical reality.
You're right when you note that we look at the issue of value of work somewhat differently. My ideological belief is that if someone works full time on a job and does a satisfactory or above job, that person should earn enough money to feed, clothe, and house his/her family. I do agree with you that many small business owners cannot always do this {although my experience is that most of them are much more attuned to the financial needs of employees than large corporations are}. This doesn't change the basic fact that honest work should be rewarded with a living wage. Perhaps the difference between what the individual earns and the minimum wage to maintain a basic standard of living for that area can be handled through government subsidy. This would certainly be cheaper than welfare and could be set up in a way to make work more attractive than welfare, much as we did with supplemental social security.
Again, we can agree to disagree, but I do believe that healthcare should be a right. I have traveled the world and have had to use the systems in Spain, England, and Sweden. The care was excellent and never was I charged one cent for the services. The systems work in 31 of 32 highly industrialized countries. I feel it would work here.
BTW.....wife did fine.....resting comfortably
Well "there's the rub", as Shakespeare says. That certainly won't be easy. As these 18-30 year olds get a little more life experience, they'll start to see more nuances and more possibilities.
As far as wages go, I'm much more interested in getting people out of minimum wage jobs on to something better rather than making that job artificially attractive.
Glad your wife is doing well. Best wishes.
Please cite a recorded instance of this supposed "abuse."
Where do you think transgender folks pottied before your red state tried to pass a potty bill?
I've always understood that if you decide to pay the McDonald's employees $15 per hour, then EMTs are going to demand a higher wage (which they already deseve) among others like them becuase they have gone through schooling and certification training to get where they are. When they get that raise, the next level will demand their own and so on. Prices will increase because it cost more to do everything-and eventually that $15 per hour (which looks really good when you're in an election cycle-it buys votes) turns into the same value as the old minimum wage.
While I was stationed in Turkey, the government tried to introduce an artifivial inlationary measure to the economy-they doubled the price of oil products overnight. This killed the consumers becuase everything else followed, except their wages. It ended up devaluing their currency by 2/3 (the Turkish Lira went from 9500 to the U.S. Dollar to 32,000 tot he dolalr in a matetr on months).
Bottom line, these things don't really work-they are eye wash.
might all sound good on paper. but in the real world your advocating for the creation of a socialist shit hole.
motion denied.
Cheers
One of the biggest talking points of socialism is the government having a hand in private business. You know, like trying to stop jobs from going from THIS country, to another... Have you ever heard Of Carrier? The company that trump swore he would save? Looks like trumpy is a socialist.. oops.
trump has erased thousands upon thousands of those govt regulations on business across this land and is not even done yet.
a president actually has very little control over the inner workings and decisions of private business - and that is as it should be.
trump can remove govt regulations all day long and if a company still wants to lay people off? there is nothing anyone can do about that. (forcing a company to do otherwise would be the govt interference to which you refer. )
try again...
Cheers
Just can't help yourself, huh? This is not a discussion of Trump.
For a full discussion of rights, I would think we would need to go back at least to Locke and move forward, but I know that is a lot thinking and discussion for this sight.
So let me start with Locke and his natural rights, which were the following: Life, liberty and property.
Jefferson restated this as Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
I rather like Jefferson's restatement. Beyond those three, I don't see the need to list any more rights as I believe others naturally fall under these three.
Locke and Jefferson lived in a simpler time. They were right. These three rights should be enough for everyone. The problem is that in an extremely complex society, the simple becomes extremely complex and divisive. Depending on political viewpoints, you might get an extremely different definition of the right of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness".
Is society really that complex, or do we just want to think it is? The more complex a thing is, the more likely it is to fail.
Society for me is lived at the street level, the personal interactions of everyday life. Treat everyone you meet like a human, and you get the same back.
And if, as you say, society is becoming too complex, at some point, that society is going to break down into smaller, more workable pieces, because that is what humans do and want. This is exactly why national laws eventually become useless.
This isn't to say that various groups can't live in harmony, they can, but it won't be through the enforcement of a national agenda, it will be through street level, human interactions and desires to be treated as a person of equal standing.
I would have agreed with you when I was young. We were a nation of neighborhoods and the world seemed very large to everyone. When something of importance happened, we found out about it in a day or if it was in a remote part of the world a week.
I grew up in a family in which every generation lived within five miles of one another. There was no thought about moving away {In fact, when my wife and I moved 150 miles away from the family for graduate school, I thought we were to be disowned by both sides of the family}. We knew everyone in our neighborhood.....the grocer, the butcher, the tailor, the banker, etc. Everyone looked out for everyone else. If the neighbor across the street saw me do something wrong and let me know it, I felt it was just like my mother catching me in the same action. Our concept of neighborhood was that strong.
Then came the little gadget that we're communicating on now. The world is one neighborhood. I can communicate with you just like I could with my next door neighbor. The world is now my neighbor and what goes on in Mexico, or Iran, or Israel, or North Korea, or any place else on this planet is now part of my immediate constellation. That is complex. The easy answers of "do unto others" don't seem to work on that worldwide basis. The divisions of north and south, coasts and heartland are not remote anymore. They are like stakes being driven through our collective hearts. I would love to retreat to a simpler, less complex time, but that is unrealistic. The world will keep getting smaller.....the problems will keep getting bigger......and the solutions will keep getting more difficult. Before we can deal with the international shrinking of this globe, we have to figure out ways to make our internal national disputes be at least somewhat resolved.
Reality is that complex, particularly when you consider that the red states and confederate states think the whims of the majority should trump the rights of minorities.
Instant communication doesn't make the issues more complicated, it simply makes the communication of issues faster. There have always been the issues of other nations and other states, the communication between the parties was simply slower, but the thought process one needs to go through to solve those issues is no more complicated now than it was in 1850.
The issues of the 1960's are the same issues we face today. Why? Because we wouldn't face them then and put off any solutions to the future.
"Do unto others" has never worked on more than an individual level, and that is where nations reside, in the individuals. If the individuals within a 'nation' decide they don't want that nation, it will cease to exist. Now there may be some individuals who will try to force the others to be a part of the 'nation', but in the end, they will have to either kill the other individuals, or move them out. Either way, the 'nation' will be much less than it was before.
Any Bill of Rights is only good as long as the government actually honors it. The only way to keep the government honest enough to maintain any Bill of Rights is to keep an armed populace. History has time and time again shown that to be true and factual. A government's natural tendency is to become completely authoritarian as shown in the Democracy of Athens, Communist governments, etc. The ONLY reason the United States has not become so is due to the 2nd Amendment, which is there because of the Authoritarian government that was the British Colonial rule in the late 1700s. If you conduct the research, you will find that British troops were housed in colonists homes without asking for permission, taxes were raised without any representation from the colonies, and a whole list of other unbearable burdens placed on the colonies by the British as laid out in the Declaration of Independence.