Racism and Prejudices

I was asked recently why Jews are hated. I found that to be a thought provoking question. It led me to doing a lot of reading. Even after that I saw no clear reason. In biblical times it had a lot to do with their religious believes. Hitler hated Jews because of his time spent living in anti-Semitic, Vienna. Hitler later came to associate Jews with communism. This is likely due to the part Jews played in the Russian Bolshevik revolution.

In Poland, "Judeo-Bolshevism" was known as "Żydokomuna" and was used as an antisemitic stereotype. There has been a long connection between Judaism and communism. Some say this is a fallacy attributed to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion that told of a plan by Jews to dominate the world through communism.

The Myth of Free Speech

Whether it's democrat or republican, you will hear free speech often addressed. I'm not sure if either side truly believes in free speech. In Charlottesville, Virginia a small group of about 200, made up of neo-Nazis and average citizens, marched in protest to the removal of Confederate monuments honoring past war heroes. Many on the left believe those monuments represent traitors and slavers. I'm not going to debate that topic at this time.

The most concerning aspect, aside from those hurt, is the violence that happened because many on the left and some on the right didn't like the speech. It's hard to say who threw the first punch, but AntiFa and BLM were involved and both have a history of violence. When the police allowed the leftists to make contact with protesters, the outcome of violence was inevitable. Some believe the police encouraged this violence. We may never know exactly what happened.

Labeling America

These days, politics is driven by labels. There are three main groups, Conservative, Liberal(progressive), and Libertarian. Note that I used capitals with those labels. That's because those are names of groups. If we look closer, we will find many use those labels who have varying beliefs.

No matter the ideology, you will run into purists who try to say who can wear the label and who can't. I've personally run across that with upper case Libertarians, those who belong to the party and claim to be purists. I've been told I'm not libertarian because I believe differently on a few issues.

It seems, daily, I find anarchists who sometimes carry the Libertarian label. On a given day I'll find an anarchist who claims to be a progressive. I watch as people who all carry the same label, arguing over some issue.

Jobs and Automation

President Trump ran and was elected on jobs. If you listen to democrats, there are more jobs than people, which means labor must be Imported. Since the beginning of the industrial age people have been worrying that machines would replace humans, which is the main topic of this writing.

A friend and I were discussing economics when he asked me what I thought about minimum incomes and wages. I told him that in the USA the economy is regional and not national. For that reason any minimum wage should be regional or restricted to the state.

Economics of Illegal Immigration

The Wall Street Journal just published an article about labor shortages in United States. agricultural, construction companies, restaurants and their complaint about labor shortages due to a shortage of illegal immigrants. They complained how they had to keep increasing wages in order to keep the employees they have.

Throughout history businesses have sought-out cheap labor. It's some of the extremes businesses have taken that brought on the rise of unions, communism, and socialism. Everyone is aware the part slavery played in the early USA and the world. In the USA, agriculture required cheap labor, so they brought in mostly African slaves. Slaves had little value for many industries because they needed higher skilled labor. Even after slavery ended, Africans still did a majority of the field work. This continued until the late 60's when African-Americans became better educated and sought out higher paying jobs.

The Trump Divide: Getting Along

Twitter and social media in general is an interesting place where there is an exchange of ideas, even if some of those exchanges are sometimes contentious. Tempers can flare, especially when the topic is politics. President-elect Donald J. Trump is a newcomer to the world of politics and he has created chaos since day one. His running created a group of people who came to be known as “never-trumpers.” The Republican Party and those who often vote Republican became divided—battle lines were drawn. Some of those people fought Trump, even to the point of possibly electing Hillary Clinton as president. Even after the election of Donald J. Trump, the coals of the feud are still hot.

Personal Responsibility: Overdrafts

In one of my, You Might Be A Progressive, series, I posted one that created quite a bit of discussion. You might be a progressive if you believe a bank should loan you money for free in the form of overdrafts. The statement doesn't fully represent an overdraft, but it did create discussion on the topic of bank overdraft fees.

Earlier in the day, I had a progressive complain about the billions charged to bank customers because of overdraft fees. A progressive on Twitter, a Bernie Sanders fan, said, “Banks collected over $30 billion in overdraft fees last year from people who could ill-afford it.”

This is classic progressive thinking. I have no reason to doubt the $30 billion figure and don't deny that these fees are set high and increases company profits. What progressives don't understand, overdraft fees aren't solely motivated by profit. These fees are to dissuade people from writing checks for amounts greater than their balance. Intentionally writing a bad check is against the law even if you plan on depositing funds to cover that check before it clears.