Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren got her base high on red meat Friday during a speech at the Netroots Nation, where she outlined what she believes are 11 tenets of progressivism.
Warren is not a young woman. She's 65 years old. She should know better than to peddle failing policies and ideas like these, but there's obviously a persistent market for them. I guess it's been irrefutably demonstrated how harmful crystal meth is, but after all the public service ads showing the damage it causes, people still continue to buy it.
Let's look at the stuff Senator Warren is hustling:
- "We believe that Wall Street needs stronger rules and tougher enforcement, and we're willing to fight for it." More regulation, written by politicians who themselves make money from legislation benefitting their portfolio positions will not help matters. Housing bubble, anyone? Dodd-Frank? That was legislation causing problems. No one was punished for the outcomes. This is envy talking. And Senator Warren owns plenty of stock herself. Anyone with an IRA or 401K does. But "Wall St." is somehow "the bad guy".
- "We believe in science, and that means that we have a responsibility to protect this Earth." Cripes. One thing does not follow from the other, but Senator Warren apparently doesn't appreciate logic. This is supposed to mean that anyone who doesn't toe the line on Big Green or the faith-based "anthropogenic global warming" is anti-science. Can't have dissenting opinion, can we? DDT killing birds was bad (but malaria killing people is OK), and "Big Oil" killing birds is pure evil, but wind turbines killing endangered birds is permitted for "the greater good". If anything, a "responsibility to protect Earth" comes from the Bible in Genesis, but saying so automatically makes me anti-science. Want to protect Earth? Advocate for nuclear power. Stop flying around in your private jet. What was Netroots' carbon footprint?
- "We believe that the Internet shouldn't be rigged to benefit big corporations, and that means real net neutrality." "Fairness" means whatever those in power decide it means. Senator Warren thinks more control is needed. The market can't be allowed to determine allocation. That wouldn't be "fair". If my ISP decides to charge more for Quora access, I choose another provider. Simple. Keep government and government corruption out of it, please.
- "We believe that no one should work full-time and still live in poverty, and that means raising the minimum wage." Senator Warren believes one should be able to hold a fast-food job for their entire life and not be "in poverty". Poverty is defined as earning below $12,119/yr. for a person under 65 and no kids. Your lack of ambition should not have any bearing on your earnings, according to Progressives, because that's not "fair". http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/threshld/index.html
- "We believe that fast-food workers deserve a livable wage, and that means that when they take to the picket line, we are proud to fight alongside them." What's a "livable wage"? That rate will vary from state to state. Blue states are much more expensive to live in thanks to Progressive lust for workers' tax money. Minimum livable wage in NY might be $15/hour. In NYC, it might be closer to $18 or $20. Imagine you're a burger joint manager with 25 employees earning $9/hr. Now you're mandated to pay them $15. How will you make up that overhead? How many employees will you decide you can do without? Will you quit altogether or just move your business elsewhere? I suggest picketers bring their own bag lunch to that picket line, definitely, unless they want to enjoy a $3 burger while it's still available.
- "We believe that students are entitled to get an education without being crushed by debt." Why is college so expensive, Senator Warren? Is it greedy university professors' tenure salaries? Is it administrative costs? No, it's supply and demand! Student loans are so easy to get, universities know they can demand higher tuition and students will not hesitate to take out loans to pay whatever's asked. Many students don't think about things like payoff. They just know they're "supposed to have" a degree. Every workplace demands a 4-year degree, regardless of whether it's really needed or not. How does a degree in Liberal Arts prepare you for QA work? It doesn't. You learn on-the-job. That degree in "Gender Studies" is not going to prepare you for an administrative job or get you the "living wage" you want. Even chemists' earnings are surprisingly weak with a 4- or 6-yr degree, (~$20/hr in NY and CT, which isn't much) unless you work for (gasp! ) "Big Pharma". The most effective solution to skyrocketing education costs is to dry up the loan trough and make ridiculous fluff degrees winnow away.
- "We believe that after a lifetime of work, people are entitled to retire with dignity, and that means protecting Social Security, Medicare, and pensions." Again "retire with dignity" will not happen by "protecting" these losing programs. The SS benefits consistently provide less than cost-of-living increases. Fewer doctors accept Medicare because it only reimburses them 60% of costs. It's a loser. Why would we want to protect that? Why wouldn't we want individual retirement accounts for people to have? Because Progressives think people are stupid and can't be trusted to manage their own money, that's why.
- "We believe—I can't believe I have to say this in 2014—we believe in equal pay for equal work." There might be "equal job descriptions" or "equal job titles", but there is rarely "equal work" done by two individuals at a workplace. People have different talents and abilities. managers want to negotiate low salaries while a worker negotiates for higher pay. The bargain they strike should be their business, but Senator Warren thinks that you and the slacker in your neighboring cubicle should get the same, because big business is unfair and management won't make "fair" decisions. To her, big business is always thinking about money, and that's evil.
- "We believe that equal means equal, and that's true in marriage, it's true in the workplace, it's true in all of America." If "equal is equal" was true in all of America, we would all have the same job in the same industry and live in the same planned-communities and have the same hobbies and we would hate it. Some of us have more ambition than others, some of us hone our talents more than others, and those who work harder should be compensated more highly than those who don't. Otherwise, everyone works only as hard as they need to in order to not get fired, and that is a killer for competitive business.
- "We believe that immigration has made this country strong and vibrant, and that means reform." Reform is necessary. It's also no accident that it's undefined here and probably means amnesty and drivers' licenses for whoever comes in without documentation. Besides, where are these immigrants going to work? At the burger joint for $15/hour? No, they're going to work under-the-table for $8/hr and that college student will have a hard time finding employment at his "living wage".
- "And we believe that corporations are not people, that women have a right to their bodies. We will overturn Hobby Lobby and we will fight for it. We will fight for it!" Unions are corporations, but Progressives tend to overlook this on purpose. Anyway, with rights come responsibilities, unless you're a woman, in which case everyone else is going to be forced to pay for your choices. Unless a workplace gets to decide who a woman sleeps with and when she does it, they shouldn't be asked to pay for her IUDs, especially if the owners' faith is against abortion. Does "my right to my body" mean that when I get hungry for a ham-and-bacon sandwich, I have the right to expect the guy at the Kosher Deli to serve me one? Why should his faith deny my right to assuage my hunger, my "food insecurity" with the meat of my choice? My body my choice! I can sue him for not catering to my demands, because Progressives are about control and absolute choice for some but lack of choice for others. The fact that this country was settled and established by people wanting religious freedom, and that the 1st Amendment guarantees free religious exercise, burns some of them to no end. Nothing must get in the way of unlimited abortion on demand. Not clinic inspections, not doctor qualifications, not viability of a child, nothing. We may as well subsidize back-alley abortion. I mean, it just makes abortion more accessible, doesn't it?
Actually, Senator, it's more like: "I earned mine. The rest of you can choose to do the same."
http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/elizabeth-warren-s-11-commandments-of-progressivism-20140718
