Successful, that is, in solidifying my current position.
Perhaps this one and the waterboarding one were produced by the same guy? Maybe that guy was David Zucker, and he's just pulling a fast one on clueless Democrats who don't know where his allegiances lie?
Watch closely. I'll list the crimes against humanity visited upon this young woman after the YouTube. This is a Roseanne Barr/AFL-CIO production:
First, did you catch that she actually makes more than minimum wage? This is one of only seven sob stories these folks felt compelling enough to convince people to support a wage hike, and they couldn't even find someone who's on minimum wage?
I really only need to pull one quote from this (of course, I'll do more), and this is it. Am I the only one who laughed out loud at the fact that the girl is almost weeping over this? Weeping.
"When you work a job that doesn't pay a lot, you have to work a lot of hours to make a decent amount...I'm not making that much, but I'm working almost, almost 40 hours a week every week and I just look at my paycheck and I wanna cry."
Almost 40 hours? Every week? Hot diggety, it's like the ever-lovin' Gulag! Sweetie, take that mess somewhere else, 'cause it ain't gonna sell around here. In what world is almost 40 hours "a lot of hours" for a grown-up to work? But, give her a break, Mary Katharine. Surely she's got children to take care of and a mortgage to pay?
"I'm young and I'm still living with my parents."
Seriously, this is one of the best seven stories they can come up with to illustrate the dire need to raise the minimum wage? That makes me rather more convinced than I was before that we shouldn't. She's a 20-something in her quarter-life crisis, possibly mooching off her parents, and she's only got minimum wage to serve as spending money, and I'm supposed to be upset about that? More going-out money for Erin is what raising the minimum wage will get us? Hey, it's not me telling you. This is what the advocates say. This is the case the supporters make.
"I'm gonna probably end up going to get a two-year degree or something...So, that I can at least get a job where they pay decent, so that I can move out of the house and figure out what I want to do with my life."
Once again, not sad. There is not a wet eye in the crowd. In fact, this is wonderful. Making minimum wage and sitting at her parents' house with no direction for her life is not making Erin happy. She wants bigger and better things, and has the desire to get the education needed to get there. Now, what would happen if we gave this young, smart lady who is capable of moving upward and onward $15 an hour to run a cash register at the Food Lion?
She'd much more likely stay in that job, which is partly fine, but isn't it nice that she's incentivized to move upward when she's perfectly capable of doing so instead of sitting at her parents' house forever? In addition, once she leaves that job, it comes open to someone who is either still in their quarter-life crisis and living at Mom's crib, or someone else who may not be blessed with the skills and time Erin has to get a two-year degree, but who needs a job.
"You pretty much have to just do something that you really don't want to do to make the money that you need to support yourself."
Yes, this is true, Erin. Most people call this truth "their job." That's the way the world works.
And, here's the saddest part. Bleeding-heart liberals like Roseanne actually have this girl convinced that she should be crying over her situation. Crying. The situation in which she gets a discount on a 24-pack of The Beast before she takes it home to her parents' house to sit on her rent-free deck and drink it with her old buddies from high school. It may not be the richest life, and Erin I'm sure has problems that are worth sympathy, but this does not seem to be one of them.
Erin says herself that she's not sure what she's gonna do with her life, but is planning on getting a two-year degree and figuring it out. That's awesome! The fact that some people want to make a smart young woman like this pity herself and ask the government to solve her problems for her is so counterproductive and sad. It's so infantilizing.
Liberals subsist on creating victims because victims are their voting base. If this young woman doesn't see herself as a victim of the system; if she acts on her desire to move out of this job by saving some money and going to college; if she then succeeds in making plenty of money and acting as a model of self-sufficiency to other members of her community and family, the Democratic Party is out a couple of votes. Which is sad for Democrats, but great for Erin and her family, who will find much more happiness and long-lasting prosperity in self-sufficiency than in a minimum wage hike.
People look on conservatives as heartless for opposing minimum wage hikes, but is it any wonder I don't want my tax dollars being used to make this girl a perpetual victim instead of the smart, confident, successful person she's meant to be? I've seen it happen to too many people. The wrong kind of compassion can hurt exactly those it's meant to help.
This is the exact same thing the welfare state in Ohio is trying with the Amish community. "Hey, I've got a great idea. We've got an entire population of people that is responsible, self-sufficient, and supportive of one another without government help. Let's dismantle all that to hit our food stamp quota, shall we?"
I was covering a school board meeting several years ago when the conversation turned to free-and-reduced lunch numbers. You see, public schools often get state and federal aid based upon the number of free-and-reduced lunch students they have. Thus, it's in the schools' interest to make sure all of their eligible students are taking advantage of the free-and-reduced lunch program. Of course, a lot of poor families were not willing to accept free-and-reduced lunch just because Dad had recently lost his mill job. They wanted to tough it out and provide for themselves. It was a point of pride.
"Well, how do we get them to let go of that? We've got to get these kids on free lunch."
Let go of that pride, kid. It certainly won't serve you as well as this $1.50 credit for over-greasy pizza and a pint of milk. The nature of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party and federal government programs is to squelch personal responsibility and self-sufficiency. They think it's compassionate, but in extremes, it is neither the path toward better government nor happier citizens.
There are better ways to help people. Much better.
Update: I figured out how we can raise the minimum wage to $100 an hour!
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