Why does the United States not have mandated paid maternity

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Bataar
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06 Apr 2021, 12:23 pm

I just believe that the government shouldn't have the authority to tell a private business how much paternal/maternal time they need to give. It's none of the government's business.



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06 Apr 2021, 2:16 pm

Bataar wrote:
I just believe that the government shouldn't have the authority to tell a private business how much paternal/maternal time they need to give. It's none of the government's business.
Actually, it is.  The federal government regulates all aspects of interstate commerce; so if one could even potentially do business across state lines (e.g., eCommerce through an Internet website), then the federal government can legally step in and mandate how that business treats its employees.

The hard part is getting the legislation past the elected officials who (a) are receiving campaign funds from Big Business, and/or (b) firmly entrenched in the religious belief that a woman's place is in the home, raising children, and tending to her husbands desires.


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06 Apr 2021, 3:23 pm

Fnord wrote:
IsabellaLinton wrote:
Because they believe it's OK to have people lose their homes or go bankrupt for medical expenses.  I guess it's in the Constitution or something.  It's probably considered a human right to starve to death or die on the street if you can't pay a doctor.  I've never understood the lack of dignity afforded to Americans.
It is not in the Constitution, but neither is it prohibited by the Constitution.

While the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is guaranteed by the Constitution, the acquisition of these things is not -- it is like having a driver's license and not being guaranteed to own a car.

Then there is also the admonition delivered by the apostle Paul to the Thessalonians (1st Thess. 3:10): "If a man will not work, he shall not eat."  This has become fundamental (there's that word again) to the underlying beliefs of conservative Americans who also believe that poverty is a personal choice, rather than a societal imposition.  Nations that have become more secular seem to have largely abandoned this belief.


Yeah, can't forget the religious nonsense that drives the U.S. to spit on its workers.


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06 Apr 2021, 3:28 pm

Fnord wrote:
As I said, there is push-back from Big Business, which sees mandated neo-natal leave with pay as cutting into their profits.  Arguing that mandatory paid maternity / paternity leave is bad for business proves this point.

Implying that a pregnant woman is inherently incompetent hints at the same sexist ideology that is a pillar of religious fundamentalist and conservative cultures.

Some women are incompetent, same as men, and whether someone is pregnant or not doesn't change that. I've made clear that parents tend to be stable and desirable employees, so there are benefits to any business on encouraging employees to grow their families.

But I also have a big problem with a business being unable to dislodge an incompetent worker because of some stupid government mandate that says you can't fire an incompetent worker while that worker happens to be pregnant or has just had a baby. Businesses should have the right to hire and fire for whatever reason or for no reason at all. Period. Even if the reason is stupid, they have the right to be stupid if they want. What they can't do is force people to work there or buy their goods and services. Stupid companies go under every time almost without exception. If a company doesn't want to do the right thing by giving paid leave to keep good workers who've just had a baby, they don't deserve the talent and dedication a new mother would bring. And if you want a cake for a gay wedding, no one is forcing you to buy your cake from a homophobic baker. It's all the same thing. You don't like how things are at one place, you have the freedom to look elsewhere. It's not the government's rightful place to tell you who you can/can't hire/fire for whatever reason/no reason. It's not about sexism or Evangelicalism.



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06 Apr 2021, 3:40 pm

AngelRho wrote:
Fnord wrote:
As I said, there is push-back from Big Business, which sees mandated neo-natal leave with pay as cutting into their profits.  Arguing that mandatory paid maternity / paternity leave is bad for business proves this point.

Implying that a pregnant woman is inherently incompetent hints at the same sexist ideology that is a pillar of religious fundamentalist and conservative cultures.

Some women are incompetent, same as men, and whether someone is pregnant or not doesn't change that. I've made clear that parents tend to be stable and desirable employees, so there are benefits to any business on encouraging employees to grow their families.

But I also have a big problem with a business being unable to dislodge an incompetent worker because of some stupid government mandate that says you can't fire an incompetent worker while that worker happens to be pregnant or has just had a baby. Businesses should have the right to hire and fire for whatever reason or for no reason at all. Period. Even if the reason is stupid, they have the right to be stupid if they want. What they can't do is force people to work there or buy their goods and services. Stupid companies go under every time almost without exception. If a company doesn't want to do the right thing by giving paid leave to keep good workers who've just had a baby, they don't deserve the talent and dedication a new mother would bring. And if you want a cake for a gay wedding, no one is forcing you to buy your cake from a homophobic baker. It's all the same thing. You don't like how things are at one place, you have the freedom to look elsewhere. It's not the government's rightful place to tell you who you can/can't hire/fire for whatever reason/no reason. It's not about sexism or Evangelicalism.


This is literally what businesses used to do before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the result was Jim Crow, segregation and the worst discrimination ever seen in the world. I'm glad that America evolved beyond such stupidity and put these measures in place. I wonder why on earth you are possibly against measures that were made in response to one of the worst systems of discrimination in the world? Are you not concerned that revoking these measures could lead to regressing to the pre-Civil Rights Act America which was such a dystopia for minorities that it necessitated these measures being placed in the 1st place?


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06 Apr 2021, 4:56 pm

XFilesGeek wrote:
Fnord wrote:
IsabellaLinton wrote:
Because they believe it's OK to have people lose their homes or go bankrupt for medical expenses.  I guess it's in the Constitution or something.  It's probably considered a human right to starve to death or die on the street if you can't pay a doctor.  I've never understood the lack of dignity afforded to Americans.
It is not in the Constitution, but neither is it prohibited by the Constitution.

While the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is guaranteed by the Constitution, the acquisition of these things is not -- it is like having a driver's license and not being guaranteed to own a car.

Then there is also the admonition delivered by the apostle Paul to the Thessalonians (1st Thess. 3:10): "If a man will not work, he shall not eat."  This has become fundamental (there's that word again) to the underlying beliefs of conservative Americans who also believe that poverty is a personal choice, rather than a societal imposition.  Nations that have become more secular seem to have largely abandoned this belief.
Yeah, can't forget the religious nonsense that drives the U.S. to spit on its workers.
That religious nonsense inspires many religious people to believe that it is their fundamental (that word keeps popping up, doesn't it?) right and privilege to treat others as lesser beings just for being somehow different.


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06 Apr 2021, 5:21 pm

The US is way behind the times when it comes to the rights of workers.

Employers should have the right to fire someone for incompetence...but they shouldn’t have the right to fire someone for, say, wearing blue socks.



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07 Apr 2021, 1:21 am

kraftiekortie wrote:
The US is way behind the times when it comes to the rights of workers.

Employers should have the right to fire someone for incompetence...but they shouldn’t have the right to fire someone for, say, wearing blue socks.

Sometimes dress codes are justified - but in such cases, they should be clearily included in the contract.
A worse case is, you get pregnant with problems, need to take days off, and you end up fired just before having your baby.
In Europe, the official policy is you can't get fired in such situations, but for the lowest-paid jobs, a whole system of crappy contracts circumvents the legislation :/


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07 Apr 2021, 4:35 am

The blue socks might have nothing to do with lessening the formality of the outfit.

It’s just a ruse to fire someone because you don’t like them all of a sudden. Like when the boss gets up on the wrong side of the bed.



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08 Apr 2021, 12:09 pm

salad wrote:
AngelRho wrote:
Fnord wrote:
As I said, there is push-back from Big Business, which sees mandated neo-natal leave with pay as cutting into their profits.  Arguing that mandatory paid maternity / paternity leave is bad for business proves this point.

Implying that a pregnant woman is inherently incompetent hints at the same sexist ideology that is a pillar of religious fundamentalist and conservative cultures.

Some women are incompetent, same as men, and whether someone is pregnant or not doesn't change that. I've made clear that parents tend to be stable and desirable employees, so there are benefits to any business on encouraging employees to grow their families.

But I also have a big problem with a business being unable to dislodge an incompetent worker because of some stupid government mandate that says you can't fire an incompetent worker while that worker happens to be pregnant or has just had a baby. Businesses should have the right to hire and fire for whatever reason or for no reason at all. Period. Even if the reason is stupid, they have the right to be stupid if they want. What they can't do is force people to work there or buy their goods and services. Stupid companies go under every time almost without exception. If a company doesn't want to do the right thing by giving paid leave to keep good workers who've just had a baby, they don't deserve the talent and dedication a new mother would bring. And if you want a cake for a gay wedding, no one is forcing you to buy your cake from a homophobic baker. It's all the same thing. You don't like how things are at one place, you have the freedom to look elsewhere. It's not the government's rightful place to tell you who you can/can't hire/fire for whatever reason/no reason. It's not about sexism or Evangelicalism.


This is literally what businesses used to do before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the result was Jim Crow, segregation and the worst discrimination ever seen in the world.

Go back and study your history. You are flat wrong about this. Institutionalized racial slavery was the result of government policy that made chattel out of human beings based on race and African origin. It was GOVERNMENT, i.e. Congress that kept blacks in slavery. What happened was Abraham Lincoln became president and decided that GOVERNMENT was going to be the solution for the slavery problem the government itself created and THEN proceeded to upend the Southern economy and ruin southern farmers. There was little in the way of peaceful solutions to avoid war.

The Constitution was at odds with itself because it gave the promise of freedom for man but made allowances for slavery. Once slavery was abolished and the war won, there was nothing left to do in the way of civil rights except to actually enforce laws that ALREADY PROTECTED THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. Murder is wrong, therefore you go after murderers. There's no need to make laws that make it illegal to lynch BLACK PEOPLE because, first of all, lynching is murder, and black people are people. Why create a special protected class if all people are considered equal under the law?

Racism and discrimination constitute the worst form of collectivism. Blacks are already guaranteed the right to vote, so when you're denied the right to vote or you are harassed in the way of being denied your right to vote, then you go after collectivists and even governments that stand in your way. They have committed a crime, so you bury them. There's no need for special laws and protected classes to enforce what is effectively common sense and, thus, laws already on the books. If you do not wish to do business with those who trade with people of all races and skin color, then that's your prerogative, but irrational discrimination based on skin color only hurts the individuals who engages in it. You don't need laws that FORCE you to do business with people you don't want to do business with. On the other hand, there are trade relationships that ARE harmful, and businesses and individuals deserve the right to refuse service or to maintain control over how their goods and services are used. The whole cake baking thing comes to mind. If someone doesn't want to bake a cake for any reason, they shouldn't be forced to. If you don't like someone's reasons for baking/not baking a cake, then you don't do business with them. And if someone is stupid enough to refuse to do business with anyone and nobody wants to do business with them because of bad decisions, then that business risks forfeiting its right to exist...not because a law says it can't exist, but because a business that can't do business is dead. But if you don't like a business because it choses not to trade with a protected class that violates its values and you set their building on fire, you've committed arson and destruction of property. There are ways of making your point and hurting someone you dislike when the natural consequences of their own bad decisions catches up with them. There are already laws that protect the rights of ALL citizens. What point is there to singling out any group for special privileges? Isn't that counterintuitive to equal rights for everyone? You can't grant special privileges and still claim equal rights.

salad wrote:
I'm glad that America evolved beyond such stupidity

Oh, please...

My main concern is the right of individuals and businesses to conduct trade as they please, about individual rights over the rights of "society" and the collective. Granting special privileges (by the government) will always prove destructive. Take, for instance, the "civil right" that individuals and businesses aren't allowed to discriminate or control how their goods and services are used. Let's say you have a problem with the use of chemical weapons. And let's say your business deals in agricultural chemistry. Someone claiming to have a government contract walks in to order a couple hundred tons of hydrogen cyanide for a minor lice infestation along the southern border and willing to pay cash all in advance. I think in that event you would want the right to refuse business to anyone. And if it really does happen to be the federal government placing the order, that's all the more reason for you to call security and have the "agent" escorted off your property. If you absolutely have no control over the things you sell and what they can be used for, you are forced to participate and take responsibility for whatever is about to happen. You'd like to think that someone is purging bugs from freight cars and you have a positive business relationship that allows you an early retirement with more money than you could ever spend. But if those "bugs" have two arms, two legs, and can clearly speak in some human language, selling chemicals to eradicate them may ultimately prove bad for business. You may end up being held responsible for it and die in prison for war crimes.

Bad business practices such as racial discrimination as a justification for denying goods and services will only harm business owners, not help them. People who are discriminated against in these isolated instances can always go to someone else who will sell them whatever they want, and normal competition will drive the bad guys to extinction. Nothing good can be gained through force. If America ever truly evolves beyond stupidity, it will be through recognizing the individual right to do business as one pleases AS LONG AS no person's actual rights are violated, i.e. your practices do not cause harm to one's reasonable freedom to act or to his body, you don't have to resort to force or coercion to achieve your goals, as long as one's goals are not motivated by greed or envy.

salad wrote:
and put these measures in place. I wonder why on earth you are possibly against measures that were made in response to one of the worst systems of discrimination in the world? Are you not concerned that revoking these measures could lead to regressing to the pre-Civil Rights Act America which was such a dystopia for minorities that it necessitated these measures being placed in the 1st place?

The answer to a problem perpetuated by government is not more government.

Go back and read the Declaration of Independence.

Quote:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.


It is understood that man is free and that individual freedom is basis for the establishment of a new nation. This is the main founding principle of the United States. The preamble of the Constitution:

Quote:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.


This outlines exactly the proper role of ANY government. There is nothing here about racial discrimination. Slavery is addressed because it was an existing institution that could not be easily remedied with the simple consent of citizens. Article I section 2 states the intention of the founders to ultimately end slavery with the 3/5 compromise which kept slaveowners from claiming an absurd level of political power by claiming each slave as a single vote. This becomes a moot point with the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. However, these amendments state what should be obvious: defining citizenship as those born/naturalized here, the recognition of ALL citizens as having the right to vote, and the explicit abolition of slavery (except as punishment for a crime). The Constitution itself does not spell out that blacks, Indians, or anyone else have special rights and privileges. This comes from the clause that Congress is authorized to ENFORCE these amendments. Enforcing simply means passing legislation to make sure that people and governments aren't subverting individual freedoms and preventing people from participating in government as voters and candidates.

It doesn't require any high level of intellect to figure out that people infringing on the REASONABLE freedom of others are corrupt and must be held responsible (prosecuted, imprisoned, or even executed depending on the crime). The assertions some people seem to make in the present day that America still has civil rights issues appears to be completely ignorant of the amended constitution and of the antebellum period when racial slavery was an integral part of the economy. I bet those slaves could teach us a thing or two about civil rights. With Constitutional guarantees of citizenship and freedom for all citizens, the claims that some make about the denial of civil rights in the present day are based entirely on fiction and fantasy. You HAVE rights. What many among us lack is the knowledge that we can wield those rights, that we can live apart and above negative and destructive cultural influences that would have us convinced rights don't exist in present-day America.

ACTUAL marginalization of civil rights does continue in America in the present day. It's just doesn't take the form we're led to believe it takes. Let's talk about the right to life in America, for instance. The Constitution and Declaration both state in various ways that it is the purpose and role of government to "effect their Safety and Happiness" (this quote from the Declaration to be understood in context, of course). Those who have been labeled as minorities and thus claim victim class status already have the full rights and privileges as are basic to American citizenship, thus there's no civil rights problem here. They have access to the aforementioned Safety and Happiness.

But what about the government response to the COVID-19 pandemic? First of all, our leadership failed to recognize the actual danger posed by the virus. Once the danger of the virus WAS recognized and pharmaceuticals called in to develop a vaccine, pharma was hampered by myriad regulations that prevented them from rapidly developing and deploying the vaccine. They had to wait for Operation Warp Speed to get an emergency waiver to test and manufacture the vaccine in parallel, whereas the usual government regulations would have us waiting years to get a vaccine. And then once the vaccine DID come available in sufficient numbers of doses, it was only under careful government scrutiny that people could even GET the vaccine, with the medical community getting first dibs and then the government deciding after who should and shouldn't get it and when. The government essentially cast itself in a role to decide who among us lives and dies, whereas untold numbers of Americans could afford to pay for the vaccine and would have better supported vaccine developers than government alone.

What happened to the civil rights of drug manufacturers who are compelled to wait on the government to say "go"?

What happened to the civil rights of the American people when they have to wait for the government to say they can even have the vaccine but die from COVID-19 because the government hadn't gotten to them yet? Why is the government discriminating against these people?

And I can go on and on and on about how victim classes REGULARLY violate the civil rights of others who may have a legitimate objection to providing goods and services, though I'm not convinced any such justification is even necessary at all. Baking cakes, dispensing vaccines, unnecessary and unreasonable environmental regulations, entire industries that only exist because of dirty deals between lobbyists and legislators that prevent innovation and compromise the safety and happiness of all citizens...yes, we do have a real civil rights problem in this country, all right.

I say we deal with those problems right away and stop focusing on fiction and fantasy.



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08 Apr 2021, 3:37 pm

:roll:


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08 Apr 2021, 8:07 pm

AngelRho wrote:
salad wrote:
AngelRho wrote:
Fnord wrote:
As I said, there is push-back from Big Business, which sees mandated neo-natal leave with pay as cutting into their profits.  Arguing that mandatory paid maternity / paternity leave is bad for business proves this point.

Implying that a pregnant woman is inherently incompetent hints at the same sexist ideology that is a pillar of religious fundamentalist and conservative cultures.

Some women are incompetent, same as men, and whether someone is pregnant or not doesn't change that. I've made clear that parents tend to be stable and desirable employees, so there are benefits to any business on encouraging employees to grow their families.

But I also have a big problem with a business being unable to dislodge an incompetent worker because of some stupid government mandate that says you can't fire an incompetent worker while that worker happens to be pregnant or has just had a baby. Businesses should have the right to hire and fire for whatever reason or for no reason at all. Period. Even if the reason is stupid, they have the right to be stupid if they want. What they can't do is force people to work there or buy their goods and services. Stupid companies go under every time almost without exception. If a company doesn't want to do the right thing by giving paid leave to keep good workers who've just had a baby, they don't deserve the talent and dedication a new mother would bring. And if you want a cake for a gay wedding, no one is forcing you to buy your cake from a homophobic baker. It's all the same thing. You don't like how things are at one place, you have the freedom to look elsewhere. It's not the government's rightful place to tell you who you can/can't hire/fire for whatever reason/no reason. It's not about sexism or Evangelicalism.


This is literally what businesses used to do before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the result was Jim Crow, segregation and the worst discrimination ever seen in the world.

Go back and study your history. You are flat wrong about this. Institutionalized racial slavery was the result of government policy that made chattel out of human beings based on race and African origin. It was GOVERNMENT, i.e. Congress that kept blacks in slavery. What happened was Abraham Lincoln became president and decided that GOVERNMENT was going to be the solution for the slavery problem the government itself created and THEN proceeded to upend the Southern economy and ruin southern farmers. There was little in the way of peaceful solutions to avoid war.

The Constitution was at odds with itself because it gave the promise of freedom for man but made allowances for slavery. Once slavery was abolished and the war won, there was nothing left to do in the way of civil rights except to actually enforce laws that ALREADY PROTECTED THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. Murder is wrong, therefore you go after murderers. There's no need to make laws that make it illegal to lynch BLACK PEOPLE because, first of all, lynching is murder, and black people are people. Why create a special protected class if all people are considered equal under the law?

Racism and discrimination constitute the worst form of collectivism. Blacks are already guaranteed the right to vote, so when you're denied the right to vote or you are harassed in the way of being denied your right to vote, then you go after collectivists and even governments that stand in your way. They have committed a crime, so you bury them. There's no need for special laws and protected classes to enforce what is effectively common sense and, thus, laws already on the books. If you do not wish to do business with those who trade with people of all races and skin color, then that's your prerogative, but irrational discrimination based on skin color only hurts the individuals who engages in it. You don't need laws that FORCE you to do business with people you don't want to do business with. On the other hand, there are trade relationships that ARE harmful, and businesses and individuals deserve the right to refuse service or to maintain control over how their goods and services are used. The whole cake baking thing comes to mind. If someone doesn't want to bake a cake for any reason, they shouldn't be forced to. If you don't like someone's reasons for baking/not baking a cake, then you don't do business with them. And if someone is stupid enough to refuse to do business with anyone and nobody wants to do business with them because of bad decisions, then that business risks forfeiting its right to exist...not because a law says it can't exist, but because a business that can't do business is dead. But if you don't like a business because it choses not to trade with a protected class that violates its values and you set their building on fire, you've committed arson and destruction of property. There are ways of making your point and hurting someone you dislike when the natural consequences of their own bad decisions catches up with them. There are already laws that protect the rights of ALL citizens. What point is there to singling out any group for special privileges? Isn't that counterintuitive to equal rights for everyone? You can't grant special privileges and still claim equal rights.

salad wrote:
I'm glad that America evolved beyond such stupidity

Oh, please...

My main concern is the right of individuals and businesses to conduct trade as they please, about individual rights over the rights of "society" and the collective. Granting special privileges (by the government) will always prove destructive. Take, for instance, the "civil right" that individuals and businesses aren't allowed to discriminate or control how their goods and services are used. Let's say you have a problem with the use of chemical weapons. And let's say your business deals in agricultural chemistry. Someone claiming to have a government contract walks in to order a couple hundred tons of hydrogen cyanide for a minor lice infestation along the southern border and willing to pay cash all in advance. I think in that event you would want the right to refuse business to anyone. And if it really does happen to be the federal government placing the order, that's all the more reason for you to call security and have the "agent" escorted off your property. If you absolutely have no control over the things you sell and what they can be used for, you are forced to participate and take responsibility for whatever is about to happen. You'd like to think that someone is purging bugs from freight cars and you have a positive business relationship that allows you an early retirement with more money than you could ever spend. But if those "bugs" have two arms, two legs, and can clearly speak in some human language, selling chemicals to eradicate them may ultimately prove bad for business. You may end up being held responsible for it and die in prison for war crimes.

Bad business practices such as racial discrimination as a justification for denying goods and services will only harm business owners, not help them. People who are discriminated against in these isolated instances can always go to someone else who will sell them whatever they want, and normal competition will drive the bad guys to extinction. Nothing good can be gained through force. If America ever truly evolves beyond stupidity, it will be through recognizing the individual right to do business as one pleases AS LONG AS no person's actual rights are violated, i.e. your practices do not cause harm to one's reasonable freedom to act or to his body, you don't have to resort to force or coercion to achieve your goals, as long as one's goals are not motivated by greed or envy.

salad wrote:
and put these measures in place. I wonder why on earth you are possibly against measures that were made in response to one of the worst systems of discrimination in the world? Are you not concerned that revoking these measures could lead to regressing to the pre-Civil Rights Act America which was such a dystopia for minorities that it necessitated these measures being placed in the 1st place?

The answer to a problem perpetuated by government is not more government.

Go back and read the Declaration of Independence.

Quote:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.


It is understood that man is free and that individual freedom is basis for the establishment of a new nation. This is the main founding principle of the United States. The preamble of the Constitution:

Quote:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.


This outlines exactly the proper role of ANY government. There is nothing here about racial discrimination. Slavery is addressed because it was an existing institution that could not be easily remedied with the simple consent of citizens. Article I section 2 states the intention of the founders to ultimately end slavery with the 3/5 compromise which kept slaveowners from claiming an absurd level of political power by claiming each slave as a single vote. This becomes a moot point with the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. However, these amendments state what should be obvious: defining citizenship as those born/naturalized here, the recognition of ALL citizens as having the right to vote, and the explicit abolition of slavery (except as punishment for a crime). The Constitution itself does not spell out that blacks, Indians, or anyone else have special rights and privileges. This comes from the clause that Congress is authorized to ENFORCE these amendments. Enforcing simply means passing legislation to make sure that people and governments aren't subverting individual freedoms and preventing people from participating in government as voters and candidates.

It doesn't require any high level of intellect to figure out that people infringing on the REASONABLE freedom of others are corrupt and must be held responsible (prosecuted, imprisoned, or even executed depending on the crime). The assertions some people seem to make in the present day that America still has civil rights issues appears to be completely ignorant of the amended constitution and of the antebellum period when racial slavery was an integral part of the economy. I bet those slaves could teach us a thing or two about civil rights. With Constitutional guarantees of citizenship and freedom for all citizens, the claims that some make about the denial of civil rights in the present day are based entirely on fiction and fantasy. You HAVE rights. What many among us lack is the knowledge that we can wield those rights, that we can live apart and above negative and destructive cultural influences that would have us convinced rights don't exist in present-day America.

ACTUAL marginalization of civil rights does continue in America in the present day. It's just doesn't take the form we're led to believe it takes. Let's talk about the right to life in America, for instance. The Constitution and Declaration both state in various ways that it is the purpose and role of government to "effect their Safety and Happiness" (this quote from the Declaration to be understood in context, of course). Those who have been labeled as minorities and thus claim victim class status already have the full rights and privileges as are basic to American citizenship, thus there's no civil rights problem here. They have access to the aforementioned Safety and Happiness.

But what about the government response to the COVID-19 pandemic? First of all, our leadership failed to recognize the actual danger posed by the virus. Once the danger of the virus WAS recognized and pharmaceuticals called in to develop a vaccine, pharma was hampered by myriad regulations that prevented them from rapidly developing and deploying the vaccine. They had to wait for Operation Warp Speed to get an emergency waiver to test and manufacture the vaccine in parallel, whereas the usual government regulations would have us waiting years to get a vaccine. And then once the vaccine DID come available in sufficient numbers of doses, it was only under careful government scrutiny that people could even GET the vaccine, with the medical community getting first dibs and then the government deciding after who should and shouldn't get it and when. The government essentially cast itself in a role to decide who among us lives and dies, whereas untold numbers of Americans could afford to pay for the vaccine and would have better supported vaccine developers than government alone.

What happened to the civil rights of drug manufacturers who are compelled to wait on the government to say "go"?

What happened to the civil rights of the American people when they have to wait for the government to say they can even have the vaccine but die from COVID-19 because the government hadn't gotten to them yet? Why is the government discriminating against these people?

And I can go on and on and on about how victim classes REGULARLY violate the civil rights of others who may have a legitimate objection to providing goods and services, though I'm not convinced any such justification is even necessary at all. Baking cakes, dispensing vaccines, unnecessary and unreasonable environmental regulations, entire industries that only exist because of dirty deals between lobbyists and legislators that prevent innovation and compromise the safety and happiness of all citizens...yes, we do have a real civil rights problem in this country, all right.

I say we deal with those problems right away and stop focusing on fiction and fantasy.


I applaud your effort but none of what you wrote changed my mind because everything you said was purely theoretical. What happened historically practically shows that before these laws and bills and government initiatives took place segregation, discrimination and Jim Crow were rampant. You can try again to change my mind, but counterfactuals and hypotheticals dont change my mind when the record of history shows otherwise.

Still I appreciate the effort you put into that, so A+ for effort


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08 Apr 2021, 8:27 pm

Because that would be SOCIALISM and socialism is eeeeevil.
It also would allow mothers more financial independence, and evangelicals aren't about to tolerate that. Especially if they're *gasp* single mothers. You want to be a mother? You should just quit your job and be a mother full time! Mandatory maternity leave is just a feminist plot to destroy the american family! If you get pregnant then you get no abortion, no maternity leave, and no help with medical bills! Now shut up and get back in the kitchen!


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08 Apr 2021, 10:54 pm

Because Americans don't demand it & American politicians have been good at selling citizens their corporate donors' lies about how providing for them would lead to communism blah blah blah.

Meanwhile we have maternity/paternity leave as well as universal healthcare and other things here in Canada.. that apparently the USA, with all it's money, can't afford.

Probably has something to do with all the money you guys spend on bombing other countries instead of building up your own.


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09 Apr 2021, 6:29 am

goldfish21 wrote:
Because Americans don't demand it & American politicians have been good at selling citizens their corporate donors' lies about how providing for them would lead to communism blah blah blah.

Meanwhile we have maternity/paternity leave as well as universal healthcare and other things here in Canada.. that apparently the USA, with all it's money, can't afford.

Probably has something to do with all the money you guys spend on bombing other countries instead of building up your own.

The US doesn’t actually have money. What it doesn’t borrow from other countries in bonds it borrows against future taxes. If another global conflict broke out and the US was actually defeated, other superpowers would find themselves without a revenue stream and the world economy would be destroyed. The US economy is in a remarkably similar position as pre-NAZI Germany after the First World War. It’s just nobody is calling us on it. I wonder if the US national debt is the biggest deterrent since the nuclear bomb.

The last 4 years have been a blessing in that we’ve MOSTLY kept to ourselves militarily, which is as it should be. Our new administration doesn’t have quite the scruples as Trump did for avoiding international conflict, so we’ll just have to wait and see whether we can continue minding our own business. Odds favor getting involved in someone else’s war in the next 8 years. I say we annex Quebec and see if we can’t persuade Canada to throw in Alberta for free.

The immigration problem will meanwhile cause a significant drop in Mexico’s population. I think we should get together and independently start a colony somewhere in the mountains and bring in gangs from El Salvador as a security force. Not sure how we’d convince Mexico’s government to grant us a tax-free, free state, but I suppose that’s just a minor growing pain of a micronation. One thing’s for sure, though...you have a higher likelihood of a business operating there voluntarily offering paid maternity leave than you would in a nation that DEMANDS it.

I don’t want to say “I have to grant maternity leave.” I’d rather say “I get to grant maternity leave.” If the employees are valuable to the company, they are worth investing in even when they are unable to work. If you love them, you take care of them. You return value for value, and that means investing in them and their families. A new business that lacks a steady income stream won’t be able to do it. But companies that generate enough wealth to support parental leave for all employees can also afford to snipe employees from companies that don’t offer leave even when they can afford it, which means competition, not government, forces companies to offer incentives for employees to stay with them.



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09 Apr 2021, 7:01 am

salad wrote:
I applaud your effort but none of what you wrote changed my mind because everything you said was purely theoretical. What happened historically practically shows that before these laws and bills and government initiatives took place segregation, discrimination and Jim Crow were rampant. You can try again to change my mind, but counterfactuals and hypotheticals dont change my mind when the record of history shows otherwise.

Everything I said IS fact. You are completely ignorant of history. What IS theory is that the change from discriminatory practices to voluntary inclusion driven by competition and innovative people would inexorably happen, and it remains theory ONLY because government policies refuse to get out of the way. MOST individuals and businesses prefer diversity in the marketplace, regardless of sexual orientation (you can buy a wedding cake), race (I never see black people mistreated at the grocery store), or religion (I’m an outspoken Southern Baptist, my wife was raised United Methodist, and I’ve had very good, close friends among Catholics, Jews, Mormons, and even Wiccans). If discrimination doesn’t happen, then discrimination is pure fantasy, plain and simple. And it is that fantasy that drives the push towards MANDATORY parental leave. You don’t need a government regulation for that. All you need is a company offering paid parental leave as a perk, you snipe the best and the brightest from comparable businesses using this perk to lure them out, and that alone will force other companies to offer the same or better perks to keep other businesses from stealing their best employees. This isn’t simply theory. Companies already do this with existing benefit systems.

The only drawback is that industries in the US cooperate rather than compete, which, again, is supported by excessive government interference. In a competitive market, company policies would naturally achieve an equilibrium, and established companies could mutually agree not to offer benefits that would cause movement among employees. All it would take would be one innovative individual to recognize a need, pull employees together among all companies in the industry, offer a unique and attractive set of benefits the others don’t, and the rest of the industry would be forced to adapt until they reach a new equilibrium or one or more competing businesses is forced to shut down.

Discriminatory policies are the result of a society and culture struggling to keep up with change. Jim Crow laws are/were LAWS established by the government to institutionalize racism. Jim Crow laws functioned to marginalize personal freedoms and were at odds with the founding principles of the United States. They are the result of government interference, NOT government protecting its citizens. Overturning Jim Crow laws are a matter of government walking back its grip on human life, not a matter of increasing its control. Affirmative action, on the other hand, operates on the fiction and fantasy of victimhood.