As if we needed more evidence, we now have additional evidence that the progressive uplifters of our society are impervious to the claims of evidence. In support of this claim, I would simply point to the fact that California is now poised to join other economic illiterates in adopting a $15 an hour minimum wage.
Those advocating this are either ignorant or cruel. Since this is being done in the name of the poor, I would like to begin by noting that ignorant people can’t help the poor, and the cruel people won’t. The ignorant uplifters actually think that such measures will actually result in extra cash for low-wage works, and such advocates simply need to be escorted to a back room where they can lie down for a bit. The cruel know very well that this won’t help the poor, but rather will hurt them. But that is a small price to pay for the additional power they will acquire in harassing, controlling, and destroying the small business owners who actually supply jobs to the poor.
So I don’t keep you in suspense, here is the biblical case against the minimum wage. “Whoever oppresses a poor man insults his Maker, but he who is generous to the needy honors him” (Prov. 14:31, ESV).
The principal engine of oppression against the poor is fraud. The poor have no ability to hire lawyers, accountants, or economists, and so they are almost entirely vulnerable to the political thimbleriggers whose hands are always moving so quickly. And when the poor are being oppressed by massive fraud — which is what minimum wage legislation necessarily is — you can’t resolve the issue by asking those perpetrating the fraud if their claims are fraudulent. Why no, they exclaim, with raised eyebrows. Fraud? Us?
The poor don’t need promises of wages, they need wages. They don’t need the rhetoric of opportunity, they need opportunity. They don’t need low-end job destruction; they need low-end job creation.
Minimum wage laws are either a manifestation of contempt for the truth, which is the pose that the ignorant reformers prefer, or contempt for the poor and those who employ them, which is the stance of the cruel.
You stand for the minimum wage and you deny being cruel? Why aren’t you arguing for $50 an hour? Sounds cruel to me — you $35 an hour thief. But then one of the ignorant reformers breaks in — wait a minute, he says. $50 an hour wouldn’t work because there would have to be layoffs. Ohhhh . . . there is a point where minimum wage increases causes layoffs among the poor? Who knew? What is the point where that might happen? What is the threshold where we have caused a rise in unemployment among the poor? Who knows? Good thing we have top brains in Sacramento working on it.
The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel (Prov. 12:10), and so we must simply oppose their wickedness. That is one front in the battle. But the real pervasive threat is the serene blissfulness of the ignorati. It is hard to learn anything when you are taking warm and self-congratulatory baths every day, soothed by the bubbly froth of one’s own uninstructed conscience. That ignorance is a very expensive hobby, but the one in the tub never has to notice it because someone else always gets the bill.
Mr. Wilson, First of all, thank you for your stance on Biblical principles and the fight you lead, unlike many others, against the moral decline we are presently seeing. I have read some of your books and they have been a blessing to my marriage and family. I would love to hear more from you in regards to these political issues from a Biblical standpoint. I.e. What is the reason for the “ignorant and cruel” proposing these laws, what do we do as Christians in response to it, and what do we say to those we know, who would agree… Read more »
Ditto for lotteries and the payday loan places. Cruel.
Come to think of it, I just wish the progressive SJWs would treat the payday loan places as good as they treat Christian bakers and photographers.
That’s a broad brush – there are quite a few “SJW” who speak out and act out against the payday loan places. Google “payday loans are unjust” or anything like that and you’ll find a lot. My guess is that there are very, very, very few people of any persuasion who are lifting a finger to do anything to a Christian baker/photographer. The media loves the few examples they can find, because it riles up the righteous warriors on both sides who have nothing better to do than argue about their right to buy a cupcake or their right to… Read more »
Minimum wage is just a way to redistribute money from those on a fixed income to those in the workforce. First, the minimum wage recipients get more $, then some prices increase, then eventually all wages rise and all prices increase. So it’s $-neutral (though not job neutral), BUT those on a fixed income don’t get an increase, they just get the higher prices. It’s ultimately theft and a breaking of God’s law.
And don’t forget the automatic 15 cents per dollar, per hour that the government gets just in FICA withholding.
And I suppose you aren’t going to accept Social Security when you are eligible? Don’t worry that it’s going broke; it’s not. In 2034, it will still be able to pay about 80% of promised benefits for the foreseeable future. If all of us sacrifice now (recipients on a sliding income-based scale and those still paying in), it won’t be hard to close all or most of that gap.
Excuse me, but who *isn’t* on a “fixed income”? I mean, other than government “workers”, obviously.
Fixed income means retirees mostly, someone getting their income from a defined package.
Yes, I’ve lived my whole life (*) having to hear retirees whine about how hard it is to get by on their “fixed income” and how they *deserve* to vote themselves more money out of my pocket because they have a “fixed income”.
(*) I’m pushing 60
How is it theft? At what point does it become theft? Workers ought to be paid, correct? So is it theft when we raise the minimum wage to match inflation? Is it theft when it goes up 50 cents? Two dollars?
It is theft because low wage earners seldom even see that money. What they net and take home in our so called wage increases is often just gobbled up in now being in higher tax bracket and having to pay more taxes. In the end we all “feel good” about having helped the poor, but all we’ve really done is taken more money from businesses, filtered it through the poor who will never actually see it, and handed it back to the government.
Yes, but they FEEL good and virtuous and pious using OPM, and after all, isn’t that what matters?
“What they net and take home in our so called wage increases is often just gobbled up in now being in higher tax bracket and having to pay more taxes.” That is B.S. Let’s do the math. If I were making $8 an hour and I worked 40 hours a week with no vacations all year long, I’d make 15,360 dollars. If I was bumped up to $15 dollars an hour and worked the same schedule, I’d make 28,800 dollars. Now, without going through all of the deductions and so forth, if I just apply the income earned to the… Read more »
The standard deductions are essential here, as is the EIC. It may still come out that the net gain significantly exceeds the tax increase, but your calculation is far too simple to do the question justice.
You’ve left off the part about the earned income credit, the child tax credit, the Obamacare fines, and also the increased taxes from social security and medicare. You are also speaking gross income, not net, so on paper it may look good but in reality money is actually about your ability to purchase goods and services. Without fail, minimum wage increases are followed by rent increases, as we have seen in Seattle. Your extra 12 grand has now become 4 grand and is quickly gobbled up by the increased cost of housing and other goods. In the end, the net… Read more »
Why do you just throw this stuff out there without bothering to see if it’s right? A person earning 28,800 a year, with a child, can claim the child tax credit. With a qualifying child, they can also claim the Earned Income Credit. Both of them! No one making minimum wage is priced out of either of these credits. And since you took issue with my simplified tax calculations, let’s make it more realistic. Let’s take wages at 8 and 15, subtract the tax that should be withheld (based on the tax table), subtract the Obamacare penalty for opting out… Read more »
Pittard wrote:
Pittard also forgot to include the wage penalty for the guy whose wages went to zero because he lost his job to make way for the minimum wage increase. Apparently he doesn’t count in Pittard’s equation.
It’s also true that if you lowered wages, a guy that is currently unemployed might get a job. If we cut the minimum wage to 2 dollars an hour, a company could hire a whole bunch of employees. Yes, some people may lose their job as a result of this policy. But the thing to keep in mind is that the minimum wage policy is not a policy about employment. It is a policy about livable wages. Unemployment and affordable housing and other issues can and should be dealt with. But people need to be able to earn a livable… Read more »
Pittard wrote: But the thing to keep in mind is that the minimum wage policy is not a policy about employment. It is a policy about livable wages. Unemployment and affordable housing and other issues can and should be dealt with. But people need to be able to earn a livable wage. Apparently Pittard has decided that teenagers can’t want summer jobs so they can buy energy drinks and video games. No, no. Teenagers must only need or want to work so that they can support a family of four, with a livable wage. God save us from these insufferable… Read more »
24% of workers at or below the minimum wage are teenagers, and most of those are part time workers. The actual number of people working at or below the minimum wage is quite small. Only 3 million workers total in the US. That makes 720,000 teenagers, but 2,280,000 men and women (mostly women, statistics show) that are not teenagers. So even if we accept your broad generalization about why teenagers work and how they use their money (which might be based on your own experience and a teenager but is certainly not indicative of all teenagers that work), should we… Read more »
You can’t wave away the fact increasing the minimum causes some people’s jobs to go to $0/hr by pointing out that nobody should make $2 an hour. No employer will attempt to pay people $2 an hour with or without a legal minimum, or if they do, they’ll quickly figure out it won’t work, since people will not spend hours of each day working at a job that does not enable them to live on any terms, when there are alternatives. Unemployment needs to be addressed in ways that go beyond the minimum wage discussion, but it also needs to… Read more »
“No employer will attempt to pay people $2 an hour with or without a legal minimum, or if they do, they’ll quickly figure out it won’t work, since people will not spend hours of each day working at a job that does not enable them to live on any terms, when there are alternatives.” This isn’t true. For one, many people don’t have other alternatives, and the 7.25 Federal minimum wage makes is already a wage that makes it hard to live “on any terms” for those trying to support themselves or a family. And if there aren’t other alternatives,… Read more »
People have homeless shelters, soup kitchens, and food banks.
Are those pleasant alternatives?
No. But compared to trying to live on $16 a day while spending 8 hours of it tiring yourself out at a job, not to mention having to spend money on transportation and keeping your clothing clean enough for a job, they’re probably a better deal.
You’re right, which is why we should give them more than 16 dollars a day to get by on. Raising the minimum wage just happens to be a great way to do that.
But the point is that you don’t need any law to keep people from earning $2 an hour. No one will work for that, if it will not ultimately aid their ability to sustain themselves, which in real life, it will not. Raising the minimum wage is a great way to ensure that people will not earn $2 an hour, which was not going to happen anyway in the real world, but a terrible way to minimize the number of people earning $0 an hour, which does happen when people who can’t generate $15 an hour are required to be… Read more »
Pittard neglected to factor in the welfare cliff. At a certain point there are significant losses due to the sudden disqualification for other government assistance programs. Check out the chart at this link to see the disincentive to earn more income.
Yes. All those people out there that would rather not work. Have you met many people on welfare?
Spike you are the red herring master
It’s not a red herring. It is calling Katecho on his/her claim (and the claim of the chart on the decidedly non-biased Commonwealth Foundation site) that people on welfare don’t want to get off welfare because its such a great deal. It’s what we call a generalization. If you want to study red herrings, look at Katecho, who never responds to an actual argument I’m making but always changes the subject by bringing up another problem. The supposed “welfare cliff” he introduces here being a perfect example. Has he/she responded to the tax data I presented above, which was the… Read more »
What options does a constitutional Christian government have for preventing businesses from paying totally unlivable wages to, say, all unskilled labor positions?
We live in a fallen world(due to sin and it affects every aspect of our lives including jobs, wages, taxes)yes there is a purpose for each m every ordinance as God intended but they far exceed from God’s righteousness but one day God is going to destroy all corruption sin and death and only righteousness will dwell.
It becomes theft when the government uses force to force it to happen. So instead of market forces changing wages, it’s one party forcing another to do it.
SP asked “How is it theft? At what point does it become theft? Workers ought to be paid, correct? So is it theft when we raise the minimum wage to match inflation?” It became theft when the government officials & bureaubums spent on things/services that they were not explicitly delegated by the citizenry & the constitution the power to so spend. It worsened when they extorted or borrowed in order to do that spending. It worsened again when the fed engaged in “quantitative easing”, i.e. counterfeited currency for which no value had been created by productive individuals (working alone or… Read more »
Doug literally makes no argument to support his case. He quotes a verse that could also be in support of minimum wage just as much as against it. He then rambles on and on assuming it falls in line with what ever he already believes.
Please, if you are going to make an argument at least use facts and supporting evidence.
Andy, I was anticipating this reaction. If we sent the cops out to billy club the poor, would my objections be null and void because the Bible nowhere mentions billy clubs?
Wouldn’t it be simpler if we just used locusts?!????
Seattle passed its $15 law in June 2014. Starting last April, it raised the minimum from $9.32 (the state minimum wage) to $10 for certain business, $11 for others. Increases to $12, $12.50 and $13 an hour began taking effect for most employers this Jan. 1. The jumps will continue until the minimum hits the full $15 an hour in 2017 for some before it’s universal in 2019. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ monthly surveys between April and December of last year Seattle saw the biggest employment drop in any nine-month period since 2009. The city unemployment rate rose a full… Read more »
RFB, please don’t confuse things with facts, data, or anything that might be taken literally.
Google shows you copy-and-pasted from an American Enterprise Institute claim. Well, besides the fact that AEI is one of the biggest minimum wage critics out there and the author of that study had already attacked Seattle’s minimum wage dozens of times before his “study” came out, there’s also this issue: The first time he published data, he accientally used Seattle metro area data rather than Seattle city. Since the metro area is 6x larger than the city itself and didn’t enact a minimum wage increase, his claim was quite the error. The second time, he used unreliable data based on… Read more »
It is hardly surprising that government data is erroneous. From your article: The data are “prone to error,” University of Washington economist Jacob Vigdor told me by email, and “basically worthless for any serious analysis.”
And this is the same basic entity (government) that we want to authorize the use of lethal force to extort your neighbor’s money?
It would be amusing if it was not so evil.
What a strange line of attack. I’m guessing that in your perfect world, you would have the government hire hundreds of thousands of data gatherers to constantly poll every place of employment in the country every single month so that month-by-month employment figures could always be perfectly accurate? If you read the article, you’d see that the only thing that is inaccurate are the figures gained by a tiny sampling of employed people (note – employed people living within an area, not jobs in that area, were being counted), in the short-term of a few months. Those figures obviously HAVE… Read more »
“which is what you prefer, right?” No, what I want is less. When I hear that government is in gridlock, I cheer. When I hear that people in D.C. are not “getting things done”, I am elated. I am completely disinterested in government bureaucracies, and would prefer that in descending priority that they concentrate upon: National Defense Public Safety (Law Enforcement/Fire Service/EMS) Highway Maintenance Water and Sewer Service Trash Disposal Absent those and maybe one or two others, that’s it. I prefer less government, and therefore a smaller machine for all of the busybodies who want to use it for… Read more »
The BLS thinks unemployment is below 5%. And the current administration uses this BLS unemployment number to pretend that we aren’t in a recession.
Another thing happened in Seattle. Now that restaurants are forced to pay more, they add a gratuity onto the final tab. Tips basically ended. Wait staff don’t like it a bit, because if you are really good, you still make the same gratuity as someone who is mediocre, or lousy.
Plus, now all your income is fully reported and taxed.
But, but , but… This will be argued away as anecdotal, or flawed data, or some other waft of hot air that still believes that you can put a hose into the top of a barrel and fill it with the water coming out of the bottom. One of the more problematic things about it is the confessing Christians who are willing to play Robber Hood to take it from “those who can well afford it” and give it to the “downtrodden”. They advocate coveting and theft, and try to disguise it with a cheap, thin, veneer of piety. The… Read more »
It always sounds pious when you can be the one who argues for increased wages… using someone else’s money.
Seattle also dramatically increased the cost of housing and the cost of goods, causing “the poor,” to make a mass exodus, no longer being able to afford food and shelter. Rent doubled almost overnight as did the number of homeless.
This comes from one study by one guy, Mark Perry, for the American Enterprise Institute. Here are some quotes from Perry about this very same report, after he was pressed by an LA Times reporter to clarify some of the findings. Says Perry: “We can not necessarily blame the minimum wage increases [for the loss of jobs] … but that is one factor that has to be considered . . . The jury is still out on the $15 minimum wage,and it will take years to assess its impact. I’m simply pointing to some possible evidence in employment trends that… Read more »
Mr. Perry is a professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan.
At very least, that is more than just “one guy”.
Yes, in all due respect to him, he is more than just some random bloke. Still, he admits that the data is inconclusive and that it will take years to know the real effects.
Soooooooooo…..I wrote out this whole long thing, posted it then accidentally deleted it. Anywho, the short hand version is: If we don’t assume ‘their’ ignorance or cruelness does this post really say anything at all or is it just finely crafted rhetoric? Who is wielding the billy clubs? Those who are trying to pay the poor more or less? I did a short edit of your blog post showing that your words can show the exact opposite point as well. There is no real substance. My real issue is with the article format itself. You helped educate me and my… Read more »
As if we needed more evidence, we now have additional evidence that the conservative oppressors of our society are impervious to the claims of evidence. In support of this claim, I would simply point to the fact that California is now poised to join other economic illiterates in adopting a $15 an hour minimum wage. Those opposing this are either ignorant or cruel. Since this is being done in the name of the poor, I would like to begin by noting that ignorant people can’t help the poor, and the cruel people won’t. The ignorant oppressors actually think that such… Read more »
Touching…but misses the real point, which perhaps Wilson didn’t bring out pointedly enough. The REAL issue is that the concept of a minimum wage even exists and is constantly being trotted out as an economic weapon and vote-grabbing measure, especially in election years. Any honest acknowledgement of basic economic principles will produce a loathing for large scale external price fixing of any kind, whether it takes the form of farming subsidies, rent controls, corporate collusion–vertically through the supply chain or horizontally across competitors–OR minimum wages. The biggest point is that such things are ARTIFICIAL intrusions into the dynamic stabilizer known… Read more »
Back when the minimum wage laws were first being set up, the (unionized) proponents were *very* open about the *why* of it — to price Southern black laborers who had migrated to the industrial North (and whose rural skill-sets were not in great demand there) out of the industrial labor market.
You have a premise issue (among other errors), you’ve assumed that because Doug resists the increase of the minimum wage that he therefore believes it should be lower. On what basis did you make that assumption? I don’t believe Doug is arguing this (based on past blog posts and conversations), and I certainly am not either, that the minimum wage should be lower or higher but rather, I would argue that the market should dictate what those wages are, there should be no minimum wage law at all. Having a minimum wage law does not allow the market to set… Read more »
So you anticipated the fact that someone would point out that you hadn’t made the argument, and yet the best reply you could prepare ahead of time is a trite analogy that could be stuck after any claim whatsoever?
Pastor Wilson, you make far grander arguments concerning many a topic all the time. At least try to make this one. You’ve placed your hatred of the minimum wage right into your church documents/agreements concerning service to the poor….it needs to have a better foundation than “because I say so”.
It’s astounding to me that people won’t listen to what many of the poor are actually saying and reporting. So those “documents/agreements concerning service to the poor” are based on actual biblical principles, we are to love one another in away that actually benefits one another, that takes people’s needs into consideration, to love them sacrificially, meaning it is not really love to give people something that makes us feel better, that is all about what we think they need, a selfish kind of love that is more about aggrandizing our own selves rather than actually helping anyone. I dislike… Read more »
It’s astounding to me too!!! Of course, poor people are generally FOR an increase in the minimum wage. Will that cause you to adjust your opinion accordingly, or find a new talking point? Of course you can find an anecdotal example of someone opposing it anytime you want, just like you can for any issue. But the majority of the poor, and the majority of people earning minimum wage, support an increase. Public Policy Polling survey on raising the minimum wage to $10.10 (July 22, 2014) “voters making minimum wage strongly support the increase- 63/28” http://aufc.3cdn.net/65b4dc4daa916a82d5_07m6b9xkc.pdf Hart Research Associates poll… Read more »
If you make an assertion you are obligated to provide evidence to support it. When you don’t provide any evidence, then we are obligated to ignore you.
So when will that latter obligation be fullfilled?
Ideally, we would never know! ; – )
I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you…(with fingers in ears)
Of course not. We would take it for granted that it’s not right to hit people with Billy clubs, just like we take it for granted that it’s not good to treat the poor fraudulently. But that’s not the point. The problem with your post is that there is a disagreement about whether or not a $15 wage increase constitutes fraud, as you say it does. There is a debate on this issue, with voices saying a wage increase helps the poor and voices saying the opposite. The scripture verse you provide doesn’t help in that regard.
Andy, http://www.businessinsider.com/panera-bread-20-kiosk-ordering-system-2015-11
The fact that you don’t realize businesses are moving to automation to cut rising labor costs promulgated by a rising minimum wage raises many questions. I’m not even an econ guy; this is common knowledge, I would think. Anyway, your ignorance in this regard seems to make Rev. Wilson’s point.
Yes yes, my ignorance is appalling I know. Unfortunately it goes much deeper than your article. I do appreciate the condensation though that I didn’t think about this at all. Look hommie, people are on separate sides of the isle. It does not mean that we should ignore one another or put one another down or call people trying to do good “ignorant or cruel” when they are putting the same if not more thought into it that us.
Why can’t we have any good thinkers on this topic? Like Marx or Engles?????
“Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our political opponents have guns. Why should we let them have ideas?”
Joe Stalin 1930
Have whatever opinion you want. That’s what America is all about.
http://reason.com/poll/2014/07/11/millennial-support-for-redistribution-an
Or why not Adam Smith or Thomas Paine?
Those guys might be patriarchs! Can’t have any of those now can we?????
Or Ricardo’s Iron Law of Wages? I think he said that if you pay the poor a decent wage, there will be too many of them. Just give them enough money to buy potatoes and a mud cabin. It doesn’t sound very kind, but maybe having 16 brothers and sisters warped his world view.
That was part of the ignorant age of human population expansion. Malthus, Ricardo, and their friends have been proven wrong time and time again since then. We now know that helping people make their way up in life actually results in LOWER population growth. Once people make a little more money, they’re far better able to regulate the number of children they have. Once people have confidence in their earnings and health, the reasons to have children go down. It should be absolutely obvious by now. In almost any country, birth rates decline as wages go up. In every continent… Read more »
I didn’t know we were surrounded by water. My ignorance is appalling.
Wow condescension about condensation .! When have these ever been in the same sentence?????
Sarcasm has no place in humor.
If your issue is with “ignorant and cruel”, those are the only options in this case. It’s just an assessment. Either proponents of minimum wage really don’t understand what it does… Or they do understanding and proceed in making life more difficult for the poor. To criticize the descriptions of “ignorant” and “cruel”, one must either present a third possibility or refute these. In reards to ignorance, “trying to do good” does not eliminate ignorance in a person.
Why do I have to refute or present a third possibility when the first two were never proved? I’m not the one writing blog posts and I don’t pastor any churches.
And so, the invisible hand, continues to manifest its self!????
So much so that I don’t pastor a church either!????
What’s even worse is the invisible fist.
I think you underestimate the speed with which information technology drops in price. If automation can undercut $10/hour workers this year, then it’ll be undercutting $3/hour workers five years from now anyway. Yelling “we need to outbid the robots!” is a losing argument.
The only winning argument is that a human is better than a robot, not cheaper than a robot. There has to be some good reason for the human interaction and possibilities there. As long as your only argument is price, the robot is going to win sooner or later.
Jonathan seems to have a plan to help the case for robots move faster…. using someone else’s money.
How can one “literally make no argument?”
its a figure of speech. google it
lit·er·al·ly
ˈlidərəlē,ˈlitrəlē/
adverb
in a literal manner or sense; exactly.
“the driver took it literally when asked to go straight across the traffic circle”
synonyms: exactly, precisely, actually, really, truly; More
informal
used for emphasis or to express strong feeling while not being literally true.
“I have received literally thousands of letters”
See also ‘Word Crimes’ by weird al.
It’s literally a wrong way to use the word. It’s not even an oxymoron; it’s just dumb to say that literally means “not literally.”
Don’t stoop to the ghetto-speak of our wasted culture…
Too bad language evolves over time. Lucky for you though, you will die sooner than me and won’t have to witness as much of the alleged pillaging of the English language (as if it has not been changing over time anyways).
“used for emphasis or to express strong feeling while not being literally true.”
Bwuahahahha! They used “literally” to define when “literally” doesn’t mean “literally!”
That is so random, I literally spit on my monitor. (You get to figure out if I did or not.)
‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
They are through the looking glass and do not want to come back.
I know. I love English. I think everyone should speak it. Best language NA.
When one is intellectually dishonest, as Mr Hall clearly is, one can assert *anything* and then demand it be accepted as truth.
Hahaha. Good one. Please go back and come up with better insults. Feel free to google some if you can’t think up any interesting ones.
Mininum wage laws = oppression of the poor, through loss of opportunities to work, while simultaneously pretending this is going to make things better. I agree that case isn’t made clearly here.
I think it amusing that proponents of $15/hr wages think Evil Corporations will get the money for that by deducting it from the CEO’s $15 million salary. But they should know better: they’re evil Evil Corporations. They’ll pay that CEO $17 million once he shows how the costs of installing the robots can be covered by the savings in payroll and new hire drug tests.
If minimum wage really causes less opportunities to work, and that loss of opportunities outweighs the gain that the rest of the workers make by actually earning enough money to make rent, then make the case. The case also needs to address the fact that the government has to toss up a large amount of money to support the underpaid workers (who foots their emergency room bills? Food stamps?). The EITC is part of that too, and Reagan was an huge supporter of the EITC, which is basically just corporations passing the buck for MW onto the public. Doug does… Read more »
God is no respecter of nationality, either. All Americans, Indians, and Chinese should not be paid more than the Rwandans.
Bingo!
Are you speaking to JC or to me? Reading into the case that JC is making in context, I think he’d be quite willing to account for purchasing power differences, if you explained such a thing to him. I think he feels that the divine order is only disturbed when the differences lead to one faithful worker becoming rich and another poor, thereby leading the rich to exploit the poor and the poor to be unable to faithfully care for their family.
I’m glad you are willing to mitigate St John C’s seemingly unnuanced position on wage equality, but that means the quotation is not helpful for the nuanced wage practices that you suggest. (It’s good also to be reminded by JC that it is wrong to oppress the poor–but it is a problem if JC in context means that the existence of rich people is always due to exploitation, or inevitably leads to exploitation.)
JC’s words were a sermon to a congregation. In context, of course cost-of-living does not apply. But there’s nothing helpful in saying “therefore nothing applies because all situations are different”. It’s helpful to acknowledge that, long before sinful devious liberal politicians suggested such a thing, it really was a respected position within the church that wage equality was a good thing. And yeah, JC basically said that the existence of rich Christians while poverty still exists is always problematic. Unfortunately, our current culture is so wedded to wealth that the automatic response in 90+% of American Christians of all types… Read more »
Basil the Great, another of the most highly respected of the early Church Fathers, was of a similar vein: ““But whom do I treat unjustly,” you say, “by keeping what is my own?” Tell me, what is your own? What did you bring into this life? From where did you receive it? It is as if someone were to take the first seat in the theater, then bar everyone else from attending, so that one person alone enjoys what is offered for the benefit of all in common—this is what the rich do. They seize common goods before others have… Read more »
These are excellent statements, but where in any of this is government coercion proscribed or involved? John C and Basil are directing their comments to individuals, appealing to their faith, that they would use their wealth to help the poor and needy. He is exhorting the Church to follow the teachings of Christ, not through government coercion or force, but through the exercise of their faith and the outpouring of love.
As I’ve repeated numerous times, the first step involves actually acknowledging that higher wages for the poorest would be a good thing. Pastor Wilson consistently denies that, and is entire “Biblical case for against the minimum wage” is built on that idea. I’m challenging that idea, first and foremost. IF we can come to agreement on that, the we can start discussing what is and isn’t a good way to make it happen. Obviously in Basil and John Chrysostom’s time, having the Roman government regulate wages wasn’t a big part of the picture. It may not be for us either… Read more »
“As I’ve repeated numerous times, the first step involves actually acknowledging that higher wages for the poorest would be a good thing. Pastor Wilson consistently denies that”
I’m sure we agree that a christian buisiness owner should fairly compensate his workers for their time and labor. But I don’t think Wilsons objection to the increasing minimum wage equates to him thinking that the poor would be worse off if they weren’t poor.
Pastor Wilson quite directly says that paying higher wages would be bad, because it destroys jobs. Now, if he thinks that Christian business owners should start paying their workers more, that would be a nice thing to say, because there are a LOT of Christian business owners who pay the lowest possible wages.
“Pastor Wilson quite directly says that paying higher wages would be bad, because it destroys jobs.”
He directly says that forcing buisinesses to pay higher wages destroys jobs, which is bad.
“Now, if he thinks that Christian business owners should start paying their workers more, that would be a nice thing to say, because there are a LOT of Christian business owners who pay the lowest possible wages.”
Regardless of what Wilson thinks I agree that a christian business owner should not be trying to pay workers as little as possible.
What do you think the determining line or factors should be? If you know that there are desperate families in your community, and they are so poor that you could get away with paying the breadwinner $4/hour even though that means they’ll likely have to share a home with another family, live off food stamps and government health care, and be in a decrepit neighborhood with horrific schools…how do you decide whether to pay more, and how much more? Does the fact that they’ll leave for a better job asap (but you’ll be able to find an equally desperate person… Read more »
“Does the fact that they’ll leave for a better job asap (but you’ll be able to find an equally desperate person to replace them rather quickly) play into it?” No, this is a bad business model, espesially for a christian. However I’ve seen fish processing plants pay people low starting wages with pay increases after x hours worked. This allows for temporary work for those not looking for a living wage. “If you know that there are desperate families in your community, and they are so poor that you could get away with paying the breadwinner $4/hour even though that… Read more »
What you would personally do is exactly what I’m saying that we have a discussion calling Christians to do. And we could talk about it with real examples, real numbers, real discussion about what kinds of standards we want to set for how we treat our employees. I’m told that religious Israelis actually have very strong standards in this regard (One Jewish friend from Israel told me, not sure how true it is, that some have a rule by which they never take an income higher than 8x what their lowest-paid employee makes). We don’t need one rule like that..but… Read more »
“If we agree that all Christian employers should provide such for their employees, and we agree to have real discussions on what that looks like and try to be active and accountable in talking about it as a church, then I believe we’ll have gone a long ways.”
Accepting that christian employers are subject to outside pressure and may not be able to provide this immediately. Discussing moving in this direction will be profitable.
Amen!
I do like St. John C, but I don’t think he knew much about economics. Of course, God values the surgeon and the dishwasher equally; of course, it is as noble to be a tree trimmer as to be an NFL quarterback. But the only type of society that would ever reward their labor equally is a dystopia where everyone is poor.
Was Chrysostom arguing that employers should pay a fair wage, or that governments should require employers to pay a wage that they dictate? See the difference? It doesn’t seem that Jonathan does.
If you had bothered reading what I’ve repeated over and over again, you’d see that I quite clearly do. But a strawman is easier to attack than the actual argument. As I keep repeating, the FIRST item of discussion is whether we should be paying the poorest people more. Pastor Wilson clearly disagrees – that’s what his whole “Biblical case against the minimum wage” is based on. You clearly disagree too – hence the snarky robots comment you made just before this one and your other contributions to the discussion. I dispute that point. I got called a communist repeatedly… Read more »
Jonathan wrote: As I keep repeating, the FIRST item of discussion is whether we should be paying the poorest people more. Pastor Wilson clearly disagrees – that’s what his whole “Biblical case against the minimum wage” is based on. Wilson has never opposed anyone paying more to poor people. Can Jonathan quote where he thinks Wilson said such a thing? Let’s see it. Rather Wilson’s point is that it is wrong for the State to mandate that people pay more to the poor. See the difference? It’s still not clear that Jonathan can see it, since he keeps defending statist… Read more »
Pastor Wilson makes clear over and over that he thinks the issue is not just that it is technically wrong for the state to do such a thing, or that it is an abuse of power, but that it is actually bad for the poor to receive higher wages because then they’ll lose jobs. “The cruel know very well that this won’t help the poor, but rather will hurt them. But that is a small price to pay for the additional power they will acquire in harassing, controlling, and destroying the small business owners who actually supply jobs to the… Read more »
“If you follow that logic, then you’ll oppose generally higher wages for the poor whether they’re state-imposed or church-imposed or simply the individual decisions of Christian businessowners.”
From what I’ve read of Wilson he isn’t opposed to Individual christian business owners deciding what to pay their workers, and I’m sure he would agree that Scrooge was right to raise Cratchets salary instead of hiering a second clerk.
Then he has to actually state that, and then explain why he thinks it’s better for the worker. Because the logic of this post, as it stands, would be that Scrooge is hurting the poor by failing to pay the lowest wages possible so he can employ a second clerk.
Well said. And you’ll notice how Katecho disappeared after this comment. He/she does not do well with actual, well reasoned arguments.
Or any argument. He’s the purest example of the partisan shill that I’ve ever seen on an internet forum. In 10 years of reading this blog, I’ve never once seen him listen to someone else, admit correction, change his position when it was pointed out that his facts were wrong, etc. He has his set of positions and he’ll defend them to the death no matter how many loops he has to jump through to to it. And being particularly rude and mean-spirited about it all the while.
And always referring to you in the third person. Anyway, nice work with your posts.
Best group on Facebook: Robots for a $15 Minimum Wage
“The principal engine of oppression against the poor is fraud.”
Let’s not forget that our recent “universal” healthcare law was based on fraudulent “research”.
Has anyone “saved” the alleged $2500 a year off their health insurance premiums? ????
Sounds like the principal engine of making people poor is also fraud.????
You had to go there. One of the greatest ironies of my life is how much my blood pressure becomes elevated by attempts of the government to improve health care. Such an evil, insidious plot.
The government never saves me or you any money. The IRS likes to think it does when it says, ‘refund’ but that’s not so much the case.
Duells. Agreed.
How about those 29 hour work weeks? Poor folks are loving those, I’m sure.
My health insurance premiums doubled between this year and last year, but my income dropped, so the state subsidies now pay for all of my premiums instead of half of them.
I’m so glad that the government installed a system to solve the problem that government requirements caused, thus making me dependent on said government to meet the government’s mandates. I feel so free, and not at all as though the government has taken the largest step toward making me a serf, rather than the free citizen that I used to be. / sarc
Speaking of which, provinces in Canada are having to spend hundreds of millions on youth employment initiatives to offset the consequences of their unjustified minimum wage increases. Talk about double-jeopardy for business. Yet some people run around praising Canada’s minimum wage as a success story.
But if we make being sick a $15 / HR gig, you could be free and rich! In fact, develop a chronic condition and you’ll be all set!????????
Well I am sick and tired of a lot of the stupid I have heard in this thread. Does that count?
That’s an acute condition, not chronic (I hope). :-)
Here I offer two curative articles as an antidote for flaws apparent in some of the very “righteous” opinions expressed on this topic.
(Folk/fact cures, supplements so to speak!)
1.10 Things You Should Know About the Minimum Wage Debate. By Joe Carter.
2. http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/03/28/californias-15-minimum-wage-deal-will-cause-unemployment-we-have-the-proof-of-this/#45ff57981906
I need to figure out how to inject it intravenously for rapid effect.
http://despair.com/products/government
Wilson is correct, it is either ignorant or cruel or both. Minimum wage increases actually harm the poor in a myriad of ways. Layoff and reduced hours, increased costs of goods, all things that actually reduce the amount of money we have in our hands. Also, many working poor receive government subsidies and assistance and when you increase wages, you wind up decreasing other benefits. People who once qualified for medicaid for example, suddenly figure out their new and exciting tax bracket requires them to now be fined for being unable to afford health insurance.
Min wage harms those who get laid off. And like a Shirley Jacksonian lottery the poor masses hold their breaths in hopes that they will not be one of the unfortunates who get bumped off. For if they keep their job, they make $30K/year, which IS worth writing home about. Sufficient payout, at any rate, to secure future votes… Yes, it’s a vote-grabbing maneuver, pure and simple, and the truly diabolical unwritten truth is that when 1/3 of the working poor lose their jobs, they won’t blame the government who raised the min wage to $15/hr…they’ll blame the business owners… Read more »
And that’s just one of the many reasons I didn’t support the Democrats after I had to go out and make a living. I got tired of getting hit by things like this. It reminded me of being able to join the union and the only thing it got me was more $$ taken out of my check. Then there was the next job where I didn’t have to join the union, but dues were still taken out non-the-less
Wait – is one of your arguments that raising minimum wage is bad because then the public won’t give so many welfare benefits to the poor?
Wouldn’t you rather have the people who are directly benefiting from the labor of the poor pay their benefits, instead of forcing the taxpaying public to do so?
On the other things you say, the “newest” comments by Matt and Spike point out why you really haven’t made your argument yet. The argument that there’s a net benefit for the poor is strong.
Jonathan wrote:
Wait, Jonathan doesn’t realize that he’s talking about forcing the same people in both of his scenarios?
Wow – look at you getting all socialist all the sudden. I didn’t realize that you’d be so quick to take the costs of a particular company’s policies and be willing to spread them across all taxpayers just like that. No, the people who directly profit off of people getting paid minimum wage cannot be immediately equated with the taxpaying public. If that were true, there’d be no problem with raising the minimum wage, because it would be exactly the same thing as taxing the general public, and THAT’S exactly what the EITC is already doing anyway. The only reason… Read more »
The argument that there is a net benefit for the poor may well be strong, but that doesn’t mean it is truthful or rooted in evidence and outcomes.
What an ironic statement, considering the content of the post we’re all commenting on. There are a LOT of studies that have been done on the general effects of the minimum wage. One I saw recently looked at New Jersey/Pennsylvania when one had increased the minimum wage and the other hadn’t, and found no loss of employment even at the border. But the better looks are the metastudies that compare many situations analyzed in different ways. Since the overall conclusion of the studies is “no clear relationship has been demonstrated between minimum wage increases and higher inflation or lower employment”,… Read more »
I’m sorry, I seem to have misplaced the concept of an “entry-level” job somewhere….oh, here it is, under the half-eaten stack of pancakes I scraped off the plate as a $1.60/hr busboy in 1973.
Greedy bus boy!???? That was a fortune in 1973!
Not so much, daddio. The point is (yes, I do have one) if Mr. Restaurant Owner is required to pay someone $15 to schlep dirty plates to the dishwasher, is he going to hire the pimply-faced 15 year-old who has never had a real job in his whole life? Or is he going to hire someone older, more experienced, and possibly less prone to be caught smoking in back of the dumpster when he should be working? And, if we must pay the busboy $15/hr, how much will we have to pay the dishwasher, the waitress, and the cook?
You won’t have a busboy as that would be to expensive, and waiters will have to bus their own tables.
Indeed. So, who benefits?
Pipe down and pay your health ins. Cap’n!????
$15 per hour of course. That is a living wage and no-one needs more than that to live and thrive. Is the work of the busboy somehow less valuable than the work of the waitress? Is the work of the waitress more valuable than the work of the busboy? No! The work that they do is of equal value, therefore the wage that they are paid should also be equal! The cook and the dishwasher and the manager should also be paid the same wage! /prog
So then, Arwen, if the busboy is paid the same as the manager, what incentive does the busboy have to ever become the manager?
Why does he need one? Why devalue the work of a busboy by suggesting there’s any reason he *should* want to become the manager?
But if he needs one, it will be provided by the warm glow of self-esteem and job satisfaction produced by the $15 wage. Paying people more makes them better workers, and happier people, who will then self-motivate to better themselves (insofar as one condition could ever properly be called “better” than another.)
/prog
Better or happier are not permitted conditions. Remember, anyone who is happier or is doing better is being cruel to others. Now say your penance.
None whatsoever, which is the point – remove all incentive to strive and improve, thus preventing ambitious underlings from gaining the skills to outdo their hierarchical superiors. Everything stays constant, everything stays in place, everything stays manageable, and the control freaks that infest our government and fancy themselves our intellectual betters get to keep their cushy little jobs because no one will have incentive to riot and overthrow the government. (Poverty is the only cause of civil unrest, you understand.) And then everyone will gather together for a rousing rendition of “Imagine” (…or as rousing as is possible with the… Read more »
Got it, Arwen, thank you. I did not recognize the sarcasm in your first post. I thought you were serious. Bread and circuses. Check.
And as for Dunsworth, below: I believe the social experiment you are advocating has been tried and found lacking in many, many countries where little red books were issued. The triumph of the proletariat over the bourgeois inevitably results in the bureaucrats becoming the bourgeois and millions of the proletariat ending up dead at their hands.
No worries. I did kind of hide the “/prog” tag at the end of the paragraph. ^_^
I am not familiar with that tag. What does it mean?
Ya know, this system just does not work, we need to stop trying it, said no communist ever.
Fortunately, God has made the world in such a way that statism collapses under its own weight. God is not mocked, we reap what we sow. It will be a very painful lesson, particularly because much of the world is in the same warm bubble bath of fiat bliss. This time around the statists are not limited by other people’s money, they have graduated to spending the productive output of generations of people yet to be born! This is how we know that their promises will be defaulted on.
Keep saying thinks like that and people will start calling you Mike :)
(1 Kings 22)
Oh, I dunno, RFB. I imagine someone in Tiananmen square might have uttered something along those lines at some point.
They weren’t really communists, which is the point.
Right. They were “dissidents.” Which, in a communist country, is a temporary state immediately preceding their status as “dead.”
Not entirely. There are dissidents alive and not wholly unwell in China today. Not living easy lives of it, but living.
Can you speak a little louder, its been a while since we greased the idlers and road wheels of the tracks and they make quite a racket when we…oh never mind, now I can hear better.
With Arwen, I was using the /prog tag to indicate that I had been speaking in a progressive voice, not my own.
I would say that the “the control freaks that infest our government” are only half of the problem. The other is the Marxist theological adherents that provide the aforementioned with an religious albeit idolatrous veneer.
Actually, $8.10/hr in 2012 dollars. Better than the $3.35 ($6.98) I was making at McDonalds in 1986.
How much is that in dog dollars? ; – )
Trick question, right? Everyone knows dogs have transitioned to the Yen.
Don’t waste my time. :^)
That’s $8.90/hour in 2016 dollars, you know.
Which is about what that job pays now.
Where? Cost of living and wages vary dramatically from place to place.
Here in Minnesota. I could not find an average wage for a busboy, but I did find this site that says a dishwasher’s national average wage is $18,000/yr, so that’s right in there with the figure you quoted. I think dishwashers may make a pinch more than busboys, but it should be pretty close. https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/mankato-dishwasher-salary-SRCH_IL.0,7_IM525_KO8,18.htm
I’m just asking because my guess is the cost of living in Seattle city (as in most cities) is going to be higher than the national average. There are “cost of living” calculators for immigrants who are looking to relocate to the USA for work. One I clicked on randomly suggests that Seattle costs about $1000/month for a single person or $3500/month for a family of four….not counting rent. That means a $9/hour job will only barely support a single person if they find roommates in a very cheap apartment, and has no chance of supporting a family at all.… Read more »
And that’s exactly and precisely why I chose the words “entry-level job” at the beginning of this conversation. As a teenager in 1973, I understood that a job bussing dishes for $1.60/hr was a starting point from which to work oneself up to a higher paying job. It’s where 16 year-olds enter the job market to establish a work history as worthy of a better job. No one ever considered that job as a “career” capable of supporting a family–and that’s a good thing for two reasons: 1. If you could support a family bussing dishes, you cheat society out… Read more »
Family business? Work study? Internships? Mowing lawns, raking leaves, and shoveling driveways? I availed myself of all those options other than the family business, and did decently fine. I also worked a few regular jobs between 16 and 19 that were alongside family people trying to make ends meet. My first job was barely above the minimum wage, the others were generally 20-50% above it. Family men and women had to take the same jobs. If we had an ample supply of jobs for all the 20-25 year olds supporting families, and therefore we could designate lots of other stuff… Read more »
So, are you advocating that “busboy” should be a $15/hr job typically held by a 20-25 year-old supporting a family?
I’m not ready to make that an iron law. I’m only talking about the factors that come into play for me when discussing this issue.
And again, place matters a lot. $15 in Seattle city (or even worse New York) and $15 in Idaho are not remotely the same thing.
Jonathan wrote: And again, place matters a lot. $15 in Seattle city (or even worse New York) and $15 in Idaho are not remotely the same thing. Hilarious. If place really mattered, why is minimum wage going up for all of California? Does Jonathan think that northern California should compete with the downtown San Francisco cost of living? Tell rural California how much place matters, Mr. “I’m not ready to make that an iron law.” Get ready for it soon. The government will declare that “place matters”, and that your new living wage will be custom tailored and assigned, based… Read more »
In a way place does matter, and there is a correlation between increases in minimum wage and the cost of housing. In Seattle for example, minimum wage was soon followed by doubled rents.
So if California makes a non-ideal policy, that invalidates my argument about the truth? How did California policy suddenly get equated with truth?
Katecho, you throw out the most random red herrings. I have never in any way endorsed California law.
And instead of working his way up, learning new skills, starting his own business, etc., he should unite with co-workers and demand a living wage? Kind of like the Occupy Wall St. farce, where unemployed college grads demanded upper-middle class incomes because they had MAs in Contemporary Art or Feminist Studies.
When I worked in that restaurant (Happy Chef) the manager told me it operated on a 1% profit margin. I also know patrons paid 6.5% sales tax on every bill, meaning that state made 6.5 times more money off that business than the owner did. I think if we mandate that busboys get $15/hr, we have just eliminated busboys–and the wait staff is picking up the dirty dishes. Poof! More jobs gone.
Jonathan wrote:
Who would have thought that when the government sets interest rates at zero that rich people would continue leveraging debt like crazy, while poor folks would be left behind with their savings rotting in a bank with no interest? Who would have guessed?
Clearly, the solution, in Jonathan’s eye, is for the government to mandate higher wages for the poor… using someone else’s money.
The wealthy have been winning the race handily for nearly 35 consecutive years now. Once again you throw out a red herring instead of arguing the point. Real take-home income for the poor and working classes was growing by far the best in the 1950s and 1960s, when inflation-adjusted minimum wage was at its peak and the tax burden was shifted much more towards the wealthy. The stagnation of income for the poor and working classes started in the 1980s, and despite a mild rise in the late 1990s, was killed off enough in the 2000s that it’s still barely… Read more »
“Personally, I’m a fan of suggesting that a full week of honest work should allow a man to support a family.” For any work? Flipping hamburgers, moving fertilizer bags and watering plants at a nursery, very basic data entry in an air-conditioned office? If I’m an employer, you have the right to coerce me to pay more than the market would dictate?
“Commerce itself is not bad; indeed it is an intrinsic part of God’s order. What matters is how we conduct our commerce. The reason why commerce is necessary is that God created human beings with different ambitions and skills. One person is a good carpenter, another a good preacher; one person can make crops grow in the poorest soil, another can heal the most terrible diseases. Thus each person specializes in the work for which God has ordained him; and by selling his skills, or the goods he produces, he can obtain from others the goods which he needs. The… Read more »
“inequalities in what people receive for their labor” “For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and to them he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. And about the eleventh… Read more »
Nope.
BTDT to no avail.
There must be a translation that says “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me” actually means, “No, you are not allowed.”
That’s the second time someone brought that passage up. You do realize it refers to the judgmental-ism of the “righteous” against sinners who were now being offered the Kingdom of Heaven, right? It’s not about paying your workers.
You might as well quote the Shrewd Servant parable as an argument for being corrupt.
“You do realize it refers to the judgmental-ism of the “righteous” against sinners who were now being offered the Kingdom of Heaven, right?”
Yes.
My intentional miaspprorpriation of that parable segues like this.
If you want the poor to make $15/hr. than hire them at $15/hr. Making the minimum wage $15/hr forces other people to pay them which is not in line with any biblical command about caring for the poor.
At least for Israel (and Sodom and Gomorrah, for that matter), the Biblical judgment regarding failure to treat the poor justly was taken out on the entire society, not just the employers. I agree that the case for using the government to encourage a minimum wage isn’t made. But let’s first agree that such a living wage is the goal, and then we can talk about means to attain it. Pastor Wilson’s agenda, for the decade I’ve been reading this blog, has been to try to argue that low wages somehow help the poor, and otherwise to almost entirely ignore… Read more »
“If we can at least agree that living wages are a good thing, and are better for poor people than poverty-level “whatever the market will bear”, then we can have an honest debate about the means for getting there.”
We would first need a definition of what a living wage is.
No, that would come second. As far as I can tell, Pastor Wilson has never acknowledged that there’s any unacceptable bottom at all. Arguing on how much a living wage is is pointless if one side doesn’t even believe in the concept. Otherwise, once again, the arguments on technical details will just be based on irrelevant philosophical/theological assumptions.
“No, that would come second. As far as I can tell, Pastor Wilson has never acknowledged that there’s any unacceptable bottom at all.”
I think it is fair to say that Pastor Wilson would find it unacceptable for people to be dieing.
With the incredible resilience of human beings, there are an amazing number of things that low-wage earners can do to avoid death. I’ve seen many with my own eyes. A good number are sinful or degrading, but they are preferable to death for many desperate people. Of course, going to government handouts instead of/supplementing work is also a common solution. But I don’t know why we continue to encourage that. And saying that we want to eliminate the handouts, while still doing little-to-nothing about higher wages, church substitutions for safety nets, or the degrading/sinful options at the bottom continues to… Read more »
“Yet, as far as I can tell Pastor Wilson simply fails to address any of this. I’ve never once seen him comment on what Christians should pay their employees, or how we should advocate for fair trade law that’s not specifically designed to impoverish the most vulnerable poor.”
I think that’s due to his faith in free markets. His posotion is probably something like remove regulations and the christ like buisinesses will survive while the others will sin themselves into failure.
Yet I only see him making a strong case for that when it has to do with not paying poor people more. There are some slam-dunk free market issues that obviously hurt the poor. Like protectionist international trade, or food aid law. (Food aid law that has actually caused poor people to starve specifically comes in part due to lobbyists with connections to the Palouse). Considering the tiny number of beneficiaries to the unjust laws, and the lack of preset public feelings on the issue, pushing for the elimination of wealthy-protecting, non-free laws would be a much easier effort (and… Read more »
That I do not know.
What if a teen needs a summer job so he can buy energy drinks and video games? What’s his “living wage”? Oh, you mean he can’t get a summer job now because all the employers cut their summer staffing because they can’t afford Jonathan’s blanket notion that people only get jobs because they have to support a family?
I thought Jonathan said that “place matters”. Does the difference between a teenage summer worker vs a man supporting a family of five matter? If so, what does that do to Jonathan’s one-size-fits-all minimum wage egalitiarian utopian do-goodery of unintended consequences?
Obviously, someone whose family is already making a living wage….is already making a living wage. Teenagers should compete for jobs on the same standing as everyone else. If you want to provide special low-cost opportunities for teens to get work experience that aren’t available because breadwinners have snatched up all the jobs, then they can do that through internships, work-study, family businesss…you can create a new category for it too if you really want. It’s a debate worth having, not one that should be buried in your insults. But yes, I find the argument for teens needing jobs less compelling… Read more »
I presented the problem of a teenager who just wants a summer job, and not a “living wage” to support a family of four. Jonathan’s answer is that teenagers should just compete with everyone else, or try to get experience elsewhere, somehow. Here’s a quote from a link that bethyada posted: Milton Friedman once described the minimum wage as a requirement that “employers must discriminate against people who have low skills.” As Anthony Davies explains, “the minimum wage prevents some of the least skilled, least educated, and least experienced workers from participating in the labor market because it discourages employers… Read more »
Of course, I’ve already told you half-a-dozen times where teenagers can get that experience. typical “teenage” jobs like mowing lawns family business internships work study the already-existing minimum wage exemption for the first 90 days a teenager works Of course, you ignore because you’re making an argument to win, not concerned about the actual facts of the situation. You can create a new category if you want too, as I already acknowledged. But if the teenager is actually applying for full-time, long-term work, then he should complete with the other workers for full-time, long-term wages. Thank you for pointing out… Read more »
Jonathan wrote:
Jonathan seems to be doubling-down into his discrimination against those with low skills and experience. Notice how he says that teens must compete, but then, from the other side of his statist mouth, he forbids that they be allowed to compete on price. What was Wilson saying about such cruelty toward the poor?
Cruelty indeed.
What is fascinating (in the manner that a parasite inhabits the host and then devours it from inside out) is that those embracing these lusts (for OPM) cannot see that it is none of their business. They refuse to see their own covetousness while speaking of how they want to control others.
I have no idea what you’re trying to argue anymore. It seems you’re just throwing whatever you can against the wall, mixing it with insults, and hoping something sticks.
Jonathan wrote:
If mandatory minimum wage is such an unmitigated universal slice of goodness for employer and employee alike, why is there an exemption for summer work? Let’s watch Jonathan try to explain that for us.
Who said that mandatory minimum wage is an “unmitigated universal slice of goodness”? Your strawmen are multiplying. The reasons for minimum wage being good for employee is that a breadwinner should at minimum be able to support his family on his wages. A teenager limited to summer work doesn’t need to do that. The reasons for minimum wage being good for employer is that it decreases turnover, increases the ability to train someone up, and increases the long-term value of any individual worker. All of those factors are almost meaningless for someone working less than 90 days. This has already… Read more »
Jonathan wrote: Thank you for pointing out that you don’t have any data for how destructive the minimum wage is. Good admission, but what a ridiculous excuse. Jonathan seems to be getting desperate now. Of course I didn’t say that I don’t have any data against forced minimum wage. The mounting exemptions to the imposed minimum wage are prima facie evidence that it is not the universal good that Jonathan keeps suggesting it is. What I said was that government handouts and subsidies and exemptions have the effect of hiding the negative affects of their continued meddling in the market.… Read more »
Where do you get “mounting exemptions” from? You claimed a small business exemption, and I proved to you that the exemption was not specific to minimum wage and was so rarely used as to be basically meaningless. I challenged you to state for me how many workers were being underpaid due to this “tiny business with no interstate dealings whatsoever” exemption, confident that you couldn’t because the number is so small as to be ignored.
My guess is that you will continue to ignore that, and try to move on to something else. Right?
Jonathan wrote:
Encourage? Why does it feel more like being bludgeoned than encouraged? Who knew that minimum wage laws were just encouraging suggestions? And what does Jonathan mean by “using the government”? They certainly aren’t going to pay for this unfunded mandate.
It’s more like the government is using us and our money, to buy the youth vote, by promising to make entry level jobs pay a “living wage”.
Dabney was a hopeless optimist:
“…conservatism will tacitly admit it into its creed, and thenceforward plume itself upon its wise firmness in opposing with similar weapons the extreme of baby suffrage; and when that too shall have been won, it will be heard declaring that the integrity of the American Constitution requires at least the refusal of suffrage to asses. There it will assume, with great dignity, it, final position.”
The EITC is already funding the mandate. If the poorest workers are receiving a living wage, the the EITC would no longer be necessary. There would be reduced food stamp and government health care costs too. And if higher wages at the lowest ends really have the benefits that experience and logic say they do (more stable employment, more family time, more stable families, greater ability for the husband along to be the breadwinner), then the extra societal benefits will pay off economically very quickly. You claim right here the government wants to “buy the youth vote”, when that very… Read more »
Jonathan asks: can we talk about whether or not raising wages for the poor is a good thing, and THEN we can talk about what the righteous ways to do it are Jonathan accuses me of red herrings? Has anyone suggested that the poor should remain poor, or that there shouldn’t be livable wages for those who seek them? Hardly. That’s not what the debate is about, and if Jonathan thinks it is, then he is simply insulting me and everyone else’s intelligence. We don’t need to talk about whether people should be trapped in poverty. That’s not the debate… Read more »
Pastor Wilson claims in his original post that higher wages hurt the poor because they reduce unemployment. By that logic, even if we were a nation filled solely with Christian business owners, we shouldn’t pay higher wages because they hurt the poor. If there weren’t thousands of Christian business owners paying their workers the absolute minimum wage, then no, I’d see no reason to have this discussion. And I’ve asked you a dozen times to stop your lying “raging statism” attacks. I’m more than sick of the name calling, not to mention the pure lies that fill your last paragraph.… Read more »
Jonathan wrote: Pastor Wilson claims in his original post that higher wages hurt the poor because they reduce unemployment. By that logic, even if we were a nation filled solely with Christian business owners, we shouldn’t pay higher wages because they hurt the poor. Knowing that Jonathan has a deep and abiding interest that no one ever be misrepresented or lied about on this blog, can Jonathan quote Wilson claiming that higher wages hurt the poor? We’d like to check and see if Wilson actually said any such thing, or if Wilson’s point was that government imposed higher wages hurt… Read more »
Yes, this is where he said that higher wages hurt the poor: “The cruel know very well that this won’t help the poor, but rather will hurt them. But that is a small price to pay for the additional power they will acquire in harassing, controlling, and destroying the small business owners who actually supply jobs to the poor.” “Minimum wage laws are either a manifestation of contempt for the truth, which is the pose that the ignorant reformers prefer, or contempt for the poor and those who employ them, which is the stance of the cruel.” “You stand for… Read more »
Jonathan wrote: If you follow that logic, then you’ll oppose generally higher wages for the poor whether they’re state-imposed or church-imposed or simply the individual decisions of Christian businessowners. You’ll tell those businessmen, “Why are you hurting the poor by paying them more, when you can pay them less and employ more people!” That’s the false logic that I’m arguing against As I suspected, each of Jonathan’s quotes of Wilson are clearly against a state-imposed mandatory minimum wage. Notice that Jonathan was unable to quote Wilson in opposition to voluntary wage increases for the poor. Also notice that Wilson never… Read more »
“no one ever be misrepresented” katecho, I think this discussion is more complex as different things are being talked about. Wilson is talking about minimum wages mandated by government. Not only do we both know what Wilson thinks here, we also don’t think this means that Wilson thinks low wages are in general good, though those opposed to Wilson here seem to think this is implied. I think a discussion at a more basic level is required. Not really that keen to get into a long discussion in this thread, but some thoughts that I think need to be made… Read more »
bethyada wrote: Businesses that want higher minimum wages want to impose their will on other businesses as they are already free to offer higher wages. Well stated. I wonder how Jonathan would respond to the point that businesses are already free to offer higher wages if they think it is beneficial to them. Why do they need the government to tell them to raise their wages if they independently think it is good for their business? bethyada wrote: As the money given to the poor and in foreign aid is voted by men who do not give the money, it… Read more »
I’m confused, because you’ve already asked this question elsewhere, and I responded, and yet you’re posting the same thing in multiple places…why? Pastor Wilson makes clear over and over that he thinks the issue is not just that it is technically wrong for the state to do such a thing, or that it is an abuse of power, but that it is actually bad for the poor to receive higher wages because then they’ll lose jobs. “The cruel know very well that this won’t help the poor, but rather will hurt them. But that is a small price to pay… Read more »
Jonathan wrote: The EITC is already funding the mandate. If the poorest workers are receiving a living wage, the the EITC would no longer be necessary. Does Jonathan seriously think that a tax credit for low income people somehow funds employers to be able to afford to pay an increased minimum wage? A tax credit is not a fund, and it’s not even going to the employers who have to pay the unfunded mandate of higher minimum wages. Jonathan wrote: You claim right here the government wants to “buy the youth vote”, when that very vote is already with the… Read more »
Maybe you’re unfamiliar with how the EITC works. You should look it up. Either the EITC is a funded mandate or it is an unfunded mandate, but it’s certainly a transfer of money from taxpayers in general to low-income workers specifically. Paying workers more would reduce or eliminate this EITC transfer, giving the taxpayer more money in their pocket. No, I’m suggesting that “buying the youth vote” with a minimum wage increase would be a really dumb strategy, and is not at all realistic. They already have the youth vote and it’s the lowest-volume vote for reasons they can’t do… Read more »
Jonathan wrote: Maybe you’re unfamiliar with how the EITC works. You should look it up. Either the EITC is a funded mandate or it is an unfunded mandate, but it’s certainly a transfer of money from taxpayers in general to low-income workers specifically. Paying workers more would reduce or eliminate this EITC transfer, giving the taxpayer more money in their pocket. I’m familiar enough with EITC, but the question was how the increased minimum wage would be funded. The EITC does not fund it, since it goes to low income filers, not to the employers or businesses who have to… Read more »
Re-read your first paragraph over and over again until the situation makes sense. Or have someone else read it and explain it to you. You have all the pieces in place, but haven’t put them together yet. This is one of those times where you’ve gotten so caught up in arguing that you can even EXPLAIN my own argument in your attempt to contradict it, and still fail to see it. As far as your second paragraph, in the states that Bernie Sanders wins, he tends to win all or nearly all demographics, not just the youth vote. The youth… Read more »
Based on this non-answer, I guess Jonathan is conceding my original point that mandated higher minimum wages are unfunded, just like the EITC (I should say, these must be funded with other people’s money). Regarding Bernie Sanders, I never claimed that the youth vote was enough to get him elected. What I said was that statists compete, even among themselves, to buy votes with handouts and promises of other people’s money. In Bernie’s case, his promises directed at the youth bought 87% of their vote compared to Hillary’s 13%. Jonathan thinks that he counteracts this point by saying that the… Read more »
No Katecho, I’ve conceded that anyone willing to use an even partially objective brain can see that you accidentally made my point for me, but were so caught up in your argument that you still haven’t realized it. It’s right there on the surface of your own comment – anyone who has a chance of being convinced will already read your statement and see how you’ve confused yourself and answered your own question, so why keep going?
anyone who has a chance of being convince
Who are these people that do not have a chance of being convinced? Why do I have a nagging sense that the people who do have a chance of being convinced already agree with you?
On the general question of the minimum wage, how high it should be, and whether or not it should be regulated by the state or simply something the church asks of its own members, there are many people with their opinions still out on the matter. My own opinion isn’t set in stone, and there have been some really good conversations on this thread where people have moved in one direction or the other. On the more specific question of the supposed “unfunded mandate”, either Katecho really doesn’t know what the term means or he’s purposely being obtuse being he… Read more »
Jonathan you have a tendency to assume you have won an argument by merely having a coherent case and that your failure to persuade is somehow the fault of your interlocutor. On the general question of the minimum wage, how high it should be, and whether or not it should be regulated by the state or simply something the church asks of its own members, there are many people with their opinions still out on the matter. I have not followed this thread as I am busy with other matters, but your assumed premises are where the weakness in your… Read more »
“Jonathan you have a tendency to assume you have won an argument by merely having a coherent case and that your failure to persuade is somehow the fault of your interlocutor.” -it helps of the other side cares about a discussion….. “What katecho does very well is use dialectic to attempt to get you to question your basic premises and perhaps consider some different ones.” -katecho uses dougs rules for reformers, which is basically a copy of “rules for radicals, which is essentially worldly actions. Katecho doesn’t care about understanding one’s opinion and encouraging others to consider different premises. She… Read more »
Timothy, I did not put forth any model at all, much less a complete one. The things you mention are important and certainly deserve being discussed. I really wish we had been having the type of discussion that involved even getting the opportunity to put forth a coherent case instead of just a series of defenses of attacks against even the idea that such a case could be made.
Nothing is stopping you from doing that Jonathan. I encourage you to start doing so. That means defining terms and discovering first principles and starting from there.
It is very hard work, but in the long run (we are all dead….sorry, Keynes joke…) it avoids the clutter you have here.
Except that the Lord’s account names the steward as dishonest, or unjust, whereas the owner of the vineyard is not so named, but is a fitting picture of grace.
The steward is still put up as a model.
And, at least in that case, the parable is actually about money.
I’m a little distressed that we’re even having a serious discussion about this. There isn’t a Biblical scholar in the world who would claim the parable speaks directly to employee wages. Next we’ll be talking about how we each need to make financial investments that produce at least double or we’re not being faithful with our money.
“Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things? Or is your eye evil because I am good?’”
Don’t be distressed. Of course it does not speak “directly” to employee wages. A preacher would be remiss to preach it that way.
However, you can’t help noticing that the employer is justified, and the complainers are sinfully envious.
Yes, complaining about other people getting their pay increased, as the jealous people in the parable do, is indeed an issue.
Now, remind me again which side is doing that here?
There are even people in this thread saying, “Back in….I only got paid….why should they think they deserve any more” which has to be about the most direct example of what you’re saying possible.
The “people in this thread saying, “Back in….I only got paid…” were saying that they though it to be a privilege that we could find a paying job even if the wage seemed low. I never thought I deserved anything let alone more. Where do you get this “deserve” shinola? The essence was the lack of a complaining spirit, and the understanding that personal endeavor would be the ticket to increased earnings. The idea that government existed to do anything beyond man the battle stations, keep criminals locked up, put out fires and keep the streets repaired was not on… Read more »
So what entity determines and enforces the equal “fair wage” that everyone in the world will receive? That enitity will have way too much power.
“So what entity…”
That’s easy, the idol that they claim to hate but (not so) secretly desire to use for their own personal piety crusades: force.
Why do you think it has to be an “entity”? Why can’t it be an ongoing debate among Christians as to what we’re willing to support? Over the years Pastor Wilson has tended to make arguments that align him with the crew which says, “Corporations should be allowed to exploit the poor as much as they want, and to the extent that the poor can’t do anything about it due to lack of options, we should ignore that.” He’s even argued that it’s unBiblical to call for other Christians to avoid purchasing products that were produced in unjust sweatshop conditions.… Read more »
Why do you think it has to be an “entity”? Why can’t it be an ongoing debate among Christians as to what we’re willing to support?
Because it’s not just a debate. You want some entity to impose a minimum wage. (The civil government is the only entity in our society permitted to thus impose.) Why is the alternative of employer/employee voluntary contract “worshiping the market”?
Christians saying that they will encourage all in their church community to support at least a minimal livelihood for their workers would be the first step.
Using the pulpit, witness, and purchasing power to encourage others to do the same would be second.
Those would both come long before a law, but only after a discussion.
Pastor Wilson doesn’t even want to discuss how much we should pay our own workers.
All conduct is voluntary to an extent…and all conduct is based partially on external pressures. You can’t pretend that the poor don’t feel pressure and are completely voluntarily taking such low-paying jobs, then complain that the unfortunate wealthy are under so much pressure from everyone. Even Pastor Wilson wants to exert pressure – thus this post, and his previous posts on the matter. All my posting does is more of the same – verbal pressure for Christians to adopt a certain position, though from a stance of much less power. As I’ve repeated multiple times, what I’m arguing for at… Read more »
Jonathan wrote:
This is the question Jonathan needs to answer every time he distracts us with his defense of a government imposed minimum wage. Would love to hear Jonathan’s answer as to why he has been the strongest advocate here for top-down government “entity” solutions. It seems, in spite of history, he has more faith in the compassions of the sword-wielding State than in Christ’s Bride, which I find very telling.
You are a liar. I accuse you of that right now. You have lied about me and my faith, and I rebuke you. A good part of this discussion, which I have been undertaking in part with well-meaning, reasonable people, is how I can balance my tendency I’ve shown on these forums NOT to rely on government with my desire for the poor to earn higher wages. I have not changed that tendency. As I have stated over and over again, first we, in the Church, need to decide WHAT the best policy is. I am arguing against Pastor Wilson’s… Read more »
Jonathan, do you see a problem with potential injustice in what you propose? I taught at a Catholic school for several years, and our wages were set by the board of governors. (They were uniformly low as it was understood that you undertook this work in a sacrificial spirit.) Even so, there were some teachers whose financial situation was much worse than others’. Would it be unjust to pay the new teacher with a wife and child more than the teacher with a master’s degree, lots of experience, and no dependents? Should the church custodian, assuming he is poor, earn… Read more »
Your reading of the people who are attacking me is covering up what I’m actually saying.
I have at no time ever suggested paying someone based on their number of dependents or their poverty. I specifically suggested otherwise. Dependents are already taken into account in the tax code – there’s no need or desire to do more than that.
I can understand and sympathize with a Christian employer who chooses to help an employee in a difficult time…but that would seem like a very individual, case-by-case scenario and I would never advocate anything more than that.
Hi Jonathan, I misunderstood you when you said, “Those in the church who pay people should pay a higher wage to the poorest workers.” I took you to mean that a church salary scale should be based on need. I believe that Christian support for a free market economy must be tempered by concerns about justice and charity. But I also believe that a genuinely free market can achieve widespread prosperity and encourage liberty in ways that no other system can. I teach ESL to new immigrants, and I have seen this first hand. They begin their first jobs speaking… Read more »
Ah, I see what you thought I said. No harm. Whether a $15 minimum wage is a good idea is a worthwhile debate. That’s a huge jump in most places. I certainly don’t feel that $15/hour is necessary everywhere (though it’s been quite a few years now since I grew up in the rural Northwest, so things may have changed more than I’m aware of). However, I think that the minimum wage can certainly be increased over it’s present level in most situations without any meaningful loss of jobs, and I believe the evidence is behind me. So the worry… Read more »
Jonathan wrote: I am arguing against Pastor Wilson’s claims that higher wages aren’t good for the poor. That comes first. Why does Jonathan think that Wilson is against higher wages for the poor? Wilson has only spoken against state imposed higher wages. Perhaps, as a radical statist, Jonathan can’t see the difference and needs to misrepresent Wilson? Jonathan wrote: I’m really sick of you lying about me and my faith. I haven’t said anything about Jonathan’s faith (unless his faith is in the state). Unfortunately, lots of genuine Christians are statists too. If Jonathan wants to rid himself of the… Read more »
You said, “he has more faith in the compassions of the sword-wielding State than in Christ’s Bride, which I find very telling.” You are lying about my faith. And now you are lying about having lied about it. We’re already discussing Pastor Wilson’s views on higher wages in general elsewhere on this thread, among people who want to have an honest discussion. And your claims for my “stench of statism” are based on nothing more than your repeated accusation of me as such. Your accusation that I’m “advocating statist solutions to everything” is another lie for which I’m quite certain… Read more »
Jonathan wrote: You said, “he has more faith in the compassions of the sword-wielding State than in Christ’s Bride, which I find very telling.” You are lying about my faith. And now you are lying about having lied about it. A clarification is in order. I certainly don’t mean to imply that Jonathan has no faith in Christ, or in the Church, but he does seem to have more faith in the compassions and mercies of the State relative to the Church. He seems to cast the Church as the stingy 1% giver (10% of 10%), and the State as… Read more »
Thank you for that clarification. However, you are as wrong as you can possibly be and have absolutely no evidence to support such a claim. I certainly believe that the American Church is very stingy with regards to the poor. It’s a horrible issue. And we need to do much better. What I said was that EVEN if we are generally giving 10% to the church (which we all know that we’re not, not on average), AND our church is giving 10% to the poor (which is the number I’m most familiar with), then we’re only spending 1% of our… Read more »
Jonathan wrote: THEN we can move on to discussing how our stance affects our support of various government policies. That can include support for a government minimum wage, although it need not be enforced at the point of a gun. It need not be enforced at the point of a gun, most often the state would enforce such things by liens against the business, putting all of the employee’s jobs at risk. The state apparently views corporations as persons, but they don’t seem to mind sending these “people” to the corporate grave in order to make a point about who… Read more »
I never said that the state IS offering minimum wage “encouragements”, I simply said that that was one possible option for us to advocate among several. When we ever get around to having that discussion.
The only thing I ever said about what the state is currently doing in enforcement is that no one is getting shot for not paying the minimum wage. I oppose the way the state currently uses the gun to enforce obedience on MANY issues, and have stated that clearly, but that’s a discussion for another thread, not this one.
Jonathan talks a lot about the Church, or Christians, or businessowners, or governments encouraging a fair wage, but let’s not allow it to escape our notice that a mandatory minimum wage is not an encouragement or a suggestion. It can get you fined, and possibly destroy your business if you don’t comply. It is an example of the government operating outside of its legitimate sphere of jurisdiction over crime, and imposing itself in matters of otherwise voluntary wage contracts.
And so we can talk about whether it should be mandatory or not, or what would be a just way to encourage it within or without the Church, AFTER we agree on whether it’s a good thing for the workers themselves or not.
Jonathan wrote: And so we can talk about whether it should be mandatory or not, or what would be a just way to encourage it within or without the Church, AFTER we agree on whether it’s a good thing for the workers themselves or not. Jonathan seems to want to play coy now, but he has been defending a state-imposed mandatory minimum wage increase from the start. Everyone saw it. It’s hilarious to watch him try to back up the debate now, and demand that we stop refuting the statist position. For Jonathan’s information, the debate has never been about… Read more »
I can give you dozens of quotes where I point out that a state imposed minimum wage is not necessarily the best solution. We haven’t even had a real discussion about what the best way is to try to help ensure that there’s justice for the poor in terms of wages, because (some of us) are still getting around the argument of whether better wages even help the poorest workers. Can you point out anywhere, even once, where I said otherwise? “Everyone saw it” is not an argument. Your claim about what the debate is about is completely false. Pastor… Read more »
Jonathan wrote:
Since when did we worship giving someone else’s money to the poor so that we could feel pious?
You’re really reaching with that one. This is one of those cases when you should have chosen just to make your case instead of trying to sound smart.
My argument is that “the wage the market dictates” isn’t necessarily the best wage we Christians should support.
As long as you’re opposing the truth of that even in the context of our own businesses, then why are you even talking about what we do with other people’s money? You love that red herring, but you won’t even touch the primary argument.
Jonathan, there is no doubt that the market dictates some questionable things, like thousand dollar tickets for rock concerts. But has history shown us a preferable alternative? If I have a commodity to sell (for example, my time as a tutor), am I not much better off looking for buyers who will meet my price?
As a Christian employer, I’m willing to pay more than the market dictates because I believe they deserve a living wage, it earns the goodwill of my employees, I can keep them on for longer and therefore worry about turnover less and train them up to be more and more skilled, etc. As a Christian who loves my neighbor, I’ve seen the “market dictates” to be the source of an enormous number of abuses. This might be less obvious for people in America, though it certainly wasn’t in the late 1800s and early 1900s when such abuses were at their… Read more »
Since when are career politicians, cronies and well-paid busybody regulators smarter than the market?
Since when, indeed? No idea who you’re trying to argue with with that statement.
Is this where Jonathan introduces us to the Universal Basic Income guarantee? We can be like Europe.
Another logical fallacy that doesn’t advance the discussion at all.
Let’s really talk and at least try to learn something from each other. Stop the games.
Here again, katecho questions your foundational premises. Again, you dismiss the Socratic tradition of dialectic as a ‘logical fallacy’ when it is nothing of the kind, it is the primary tool of the craft.
It makes no sense to ‘advance a discussion’ built along incorrect or unexamined principles.
I see you do this time and time again, “Here is my model, here is why it works, no, you cannot distract me from it as my premises are non-arguable’ .
Its quite boring.
You would make an excellent bureaucrat in a statist regime. John Koskinen would hire you in a heartbeat.
The United States has had minimum wage for nearly a hundred years, supported by the majority of its population, without having ever introduced a UBI or trying to become “like Europe”. The fact that I am supportive of some sort of minimal wage here, not having articulated a position that is any stronger on that issue than most Americans and even being in line with a substantial number of conservative Republicans, does not make me “want to be like Europe”. It’s a lazy attempt at making a false guilt by association, and implying a slippery slope where none exists. It’s… Read more »
You continue with the ‘its not based on logic” line and that is flatly untrue. You have radically different models of how the world works.
Your statist position is to use the power of government to force employers to pay people a certain wage. Because it has been doing so for one hundred years and with the will of the people does not make it less statist.
Did you ever stop to consider that one important reason that $1.60 in 1972 equals $8.90 in 2016 is precisely because of minimum wage laws?
Of course – I’ve considered the question of minimum wage and inflation before. It certainly is not the primary factor in inflation, and may or may not be a meaningful factor at all. Here’s a quick explanation:
http://dollarsandsense.org/archives/2014/0714macewan.html
And here’s one that shows the minimum wage and inflation side-by-side:
http://benjaminstudebaker.com/2015/07/23/misconceptions-raising-the-minimum-wage-does-not-automatically-lead-to-inflation/
Matt just made a good, simple comment up top as to why minimum wage increases do not lead to an equal amount of inflation.
Your pancakes are in the garbage can covering my $.65/hour working in a mom and pop in 66.
Please do something with your pancakes;)
Nonsense! Pancake makers deserve a decent, middle-class wage. How dare you suggest it’s a job for students, part-timers or someone between jobs. Are you implying they should have the gumption to work their way up, learn new skills, open their own business, etc, if they want more money? We’re on Bernie’s Big Rock Candy Mountain now. We should all have free housing, free healthcare and free college. And if we choose to flip pancakes after the free college part, then pay us a living wage!
I would try to help you out here but I am busy writing up my report on the Capn for AWP (assault with pancake).
Indeed. Because no one would ever want to flip pancakes unless they needed to support a family of four, and a cat. So it has been decreed by the statists who are here to help us.
Yessir, Officer RFB, I cannot tell a lie. I put that $.65 under those pancakes. Somewhere, there are 27 color glossy photos with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one proving just how totally depraved I was to do such a terrible crime. I think I’ll just go sit down on the Group W bench for awhile now.
The $15 an hour minimum wage is yet another effect of massive Third World immigration to America. Mexicans now make up a majority of Californians, and increasingly dominate the politics of the state. A Republican can’t get elected to statewide office, and more and more House districts have swung from GOP to Dem. This has taken place in the largest state in the union, which has 55 electoral votes. Those votes used to go to the GOP most elections, like every single one between 1950 and 1990, because white Californians were some of the most conservative voters in America.` Back… Read more »
That’s not true at all. Have I said Ted Cruz is lying because he’s secretly black? But, as I said above, a great many things do come down to race. Pretending otherwise doesn’t change that fact. Feel free to point out where I’m wrong above. Are you seriously claiming that when California was overwhelmingly white it wasn’t one of the most conservative states in the union, usually going for the GOP in the presidential contests? Or are you claiming that the demographcis haven’t changed much at all, and it’s not true that white people are now a minority and brown… Read more »
How about that California was overwhelmingly Hispanic before it was overwhelmingly white?
LMAO
You, sir, are a genius!
Not to mention that Lady Dunsworth is quite a Lady!
But California never was “overwhelmingly Hispanic”. The Mexican colonists of California (who were, after all, mostly “white”) were still thin on the ground in 1849, when Americans started pouring into the region.
They may have been thin on the ground, but they were everybody there, before the white people showed up — except, of course, for the natives, who weren’t white.
What an amazing and quite useful skill you have, to be able to acknowledge that what someone else said is correct … and thereby prove him wrong!
I didn’t acknowledge you were right, because you weren’t. California was overwhelmingly Hispanic before the other white people showed up. Natives were also thin on the ground.
White and Hispanic are not mutually exclusive categories, but you were using them as though they were until it became convenient to your argument not to.
California was never “overwhelmingly Hispanic” (it was “overwhelmingly” American Indian, and then it was “overwhelmingly” American) … and you are intellectually dishonest.
And before that it was overwhelmingly Indian before the Hispanics showed up
How about that California was overwhelmingly Hispanic before it was overwhelmingly white? You seem to be confused. I asked the other guy to to tell me what I got wrong. You seem to be laboring under the misapprehension that I asked if someone would please bring up some information that has absolutely nothing to do with anything I discussed, but can be seen as some sort of proof that you’re not a racist. But I didn’t. I asked where I was wrong in the comments I posted. So…where in my comments did I deny that the area now known as… Read more »
No doubt a major contributing factor in the GOPs past California electoral vote success was that in the ten Presidential elections between 1950 and 1990 a Californian was the candidate in five and the Vice Presidential candidate in two. In two instances the Republican candidate had been Vice President under a President from California. In 1964, the California vote went to the Democrat. So it isn’t necessarily all attributable to California having been whiter, but yeah, Hispanics do tend to vote Democrat.
That doesn’t explain why their Congressional delegation was so strongly conservative, like Robert “B-1 Bob” Dornan, William Dannemeyer, John Schmitz, and many, many others. Nor does it explain why the John Birch Society was wildly popular in California in the 1960s, or why Orange County was long known as the most conservative large municipal area in the nation.
I never said a word about “sin.”
I simply pointed out the fact that non-whites support big government at rates far higher than whites, and that whites are the only racial group that support conservatism in any appreciable numbers.
If I’m wrong, show me. If I’m not, quit whining about sin and racism.
Doug Wilson: “It is hard to learn anything when you are taking warm and self-congratulatory baths every day, soothed by the bubbly froth of one’s own uninstructed conscience.”
Me:
You didn’t support your case very well. You need to develop your argument for why iti is cruel. The one avenue raising minimum wage does work is if the employee is in government service. I know a single mother of two works in a public school in a paraprofessional capacity. In Washington State. She is making minimum wage. She is getting by a lot better there than if she were in Idaho.
“You didn’t support your case very well. You need to develop your argument for why iti is cruel. The one avenue raising minimum wage does work is if the employee is in government service. I know a single mother of two works in a public school in a paraprofessional capacity. In Washington State. She is making minimum wage. She is getting by a lot better there than if she were in Idaho.”
Now *there* is a real argument about the goodness of minimum wage laws /sarc
I detect a touch of snarkiness in your answer. This woman works full time. Her take home is better in Washington than Idaho.
That’s because Washington doesn’t have income tax withholdings. To make up for it, they have a much higher sales tax and cost of living.
Yes and no. Sales tax is higher, but they don’t tax most food.
I worked at my grandpa’s lunber store during two of my high school summers. Made the $4.25/hr minimum both times. No raise. I worked in the back, loading up lumber, sheetrock, fiberglass insulation etc, outside, on asphalt, in north Louisiana.
Once, I was mowing the ditch in front of the store in 100 degree weather when Pawpaw drove up. He rolled down his window:
“You doing alright?”
“Yes sir. It’s really hot but I’ve got some gatorade right here.”
“You want do this the rest of your life?”
“No sir.”
“Stay in school.”
Ah yes. The poor are poor because they don’t work hard enough and stay in school. Silly poor people.
Andy Hall said:
I’m telling my experience with minimum wage. Do you have a problem with me telling it? I made no judgment at all.
Why yes, he does. That spoils a sentimental narrative.
No, you are perfectly fine to share your story as I believe I am perfectly fine to point out that it does not apply to a vast majority of poor people today. Both are equally true.
And do you literally know the vast majority of poor people today, or is this not quite literally true?
I do read the social policies and look at the data and work with the poor. So yes. I have literally met with every poor person.
“I have literally met with “every” poor person.”
Wow, you are a busy guy.
Yeah. That’s me. If you look at a different post in this big long chain people are making fun of my facetious use of the word literally. It’s pretty funny. Interesting fact. The internet now says that you can use literally facetiously! Hooray! Good thing too because everything on the internet is true.
But is it literally true?
Debatable.
Andy, I see that you work with low-income people. As do I. In your estimation, what percentage of low-income people would either cease to be low-income or have their lives significantly improved by living a Christian lifestyle? And by this I mean no smoking, no drinking to excess, no drugs, and maintaining a healthy monogamous relationship.
Aren’t poor people already more likely to be Christian? That might cause you to pause in so quickly naming things as “Christian lifestyle”. And where’s no smoking come in? I really don’t like smoking at all, but I thought this was a very pro-tobacco blog. On a more pertinent note, your question belies the fact that addictions are often a outcome of poverty, not a cause. Over-consumption of alcohol, tobacco, and drugs are often caused by high stress levels, and create a feedback loop that enhances both the harmful habit and the life of poverty that heavily led to it.… Read more »
Jonathan, I’d like to see Andy’s reply before I address yours. Thank you.
That’s a scary line of reasoning that America has already been down in social welfare. I’m not smart enough to write big long articles on this but have studied a lot about how we have already used and rejected this idea of the ‘worthy poor.’ As Jesus once said, ‘love your neighbor as yourself, as long as they have a high school degree and live worth lives”
What? Oh, I see where you went with that. You have assumed I meant cut off benefits for people who smoke, drink, etc. No, that’s not at all what I meant. What I meant was, of the people I see on a day-to-day basis (and I have been doing this for 15 years) about 80% are engaged in lifestyle choices that are not helping them at all. (This does not include low-income immigrants and refugees. That’s a different topic.) See, I used to be low-income myself. I was engaged in all kinds of sinful lifestyle choices, but Jesus turned my… Read more »
The “vast majority” of poor people stayed in school? You may need to do some more homework on that thought Andy!????
I apologize for that one. I know that we are coming from different view points and you are correct. I would not say that a “vast majority of poor people stay in school.” But at the same time I think I was trying to make the point that it’s not always their choice, due to what’s going on in their lives, the school itself, parents in jail or dead, etc. Rather than looking at poor people and say, they didn’t try hard enough like me, maybe we should look at their situation and try to help them out of it… Read more »
You know Andy, a big reason people are on this blog is for amusement. People do tend to whack each other’s hornets nest, and it’s kind of funny. Backing way up, it sounds like a $15 min. Wage is a 50% raise over what it is now. Looking at this another way, do you deserve a 50% raise? Do you think most businesses could pay 50% more? Is it right for the state to dictate the value of a wide array of labors?
Separate question: “You helped educate me and my peers (logos, nsa osmosis, church, counseling)” I am wondering if you have healthy reparte’ with Wilson, or something less cordial than it once was?
Wilson has been known to make much more direct Biblical cases than this one, though he is correct in that inept government policy does oppress the poor. The failure of orthodox communisim, “you pretend to work, we pretend to pay you”, is the “evidence” of the economic case. I do understand that there is such a thing as constructive govt. policy, as opposed to inept.
Whether or not your statment is true, you characterized me as disparaging those whose situation is much more difficult than a simple “stay in school”. I meant no such thing. And yes, there are a lot of them. And for them, I also believe that they will be best helped in the long run by much less government, not by more.
It is hard to interpret what people say on the internet. So what was the reason for your story? I honor your opinion that people will be helped more by less government than more. That is where we will have to respectfully disagree because I know neither of us will change the other’s mind.
Will facts? “support for paying higher taxes to increase financial assistance to the poor declines with income and education. Seventy-one percent of those making less than $20,000 a year support raising taxes to increase financial assistance to the poor; this number drops to 47 percent among those making over $60,000 annually. Likewise, two-thirds of those with high school diplomas or less support high taxes to expand the safety net, compared to 50 percent of college graduates. Intensity of support for government guarantees also declines with income. For instance, 46 percent of millennials making less than $20,000 a year say the… Read more »
That just shows what millennials ‘think’. What does that have to do with what is best for the country?
Well Andy, I suppose the burden is upon you to demonstrate why it is Scripturally moral to use the compulsory power of government, with the threat of lethal force for failure to comply, to steal from a private business owner’s revenue so as to give it to another.
When you argue for these “programs”, you support pointing a gun at your neighbor’s head. Do you think that is good?
That is arguably not “best” for any country
Just don’t disobey the laws. Then no one has to point a gun at you. Also yeah, God, as the goverment of Israel, pretty much told them what to do all the time. I’m just not convinced that the American obsession with freedom is biblical.
Ok, just so that we are clear, you are willing to execute your neighbor to take his money and give it to others?
So you don’t believe in any taxes?
Yes, I am willing, but in a very limited manner:
“They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer…This is also why you pay taxes…”
Yeah. So I don’t understand where you are coming from when you say that we want to go execute our neighbors? As as Christian pay your damn taxes. If you don’t then you go to jail. Its the law. There is no morality behind it. Just what happens. If you disagree with the taxes that’s okay. We just need to use our democracy to change those taxes.
“There is no morality behind it.”
Really, then not doing it has “no morality behind it” either. Since by your own hand, the law is morally neutral, why condemn someone for violating it.
“The power to tax is the power to destroy” McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316 (1819)
Cool. Someone said something one time.
So, for the sake of clarity, you are willing to point a gun at your neighbor’s head so that you can take his money and give it to someone else?
“Just don’t disobey the laws. Then no one has to point a gun at you.”
So, are you intellectually dishonest, or just willfully ignorant?
====
For those who don’t get sarcasm, those two options are the same thing.
Then there’s Harry Reid, who thinks that paying taxes is voluntary.
True. But, at the same time, there is also katecho, who thinks that “I refuse to acknowledge that you have made your point” is equivalent to “you have made no point”
I don’t understand the sour grapes. I never said that Ilion made no point. His position and his arguments were quite clearly stated. I just didn’t find them persuasive after looking into both sides. That’s all. I just don’t grant that “natural born” is a measurable property of one’s being that needs no legal definition. Natural born is used to describe those who are citizens by virtue of their birth circumstances alone, and do not need to be naturalized. I don’t believe there is any distinction between citizen from birth and natural born. I believe that the founding fathers gave… Read more »
“Just don’t disobey the laws. Then no one has to point a gun at you.”
You just made his point.
Having once worked for a gov’t handout program, I can attest (i.e., sample size of thousands) that there are a large number of able-bodied “poor” people who have no plans or incentives to work. A few really know how to exploit the programs and live middle-class lifestyles. Unfortunately, they never undertand what it means to earn money. Some even leave their doors open in winter/summer since someone else pays their utility bills.
Some of my classmates would have benefited greatly from working a minimum wage job and learning early on how tough it is, how small that paycheck is, and how even smaller it is after Uncle Sam’s grab. Little was expected of them in school or at home, and they didn’t learn the soft skills of work ethic like I did. I bet there’s a lot more of them out there.
Unfortunately there is. I am currently a social worker for a low income school. I want to make it very clear that I have no clue what your life is/was like and your life experiences. When I lived in Idaho it made a lot more sense to take a more libertarian point of view. The whole idea of pulling yourself up by your boot straps and you can make due with what you got. Many people I knew came from backgrounds where their future depended on their contribution to it and the decisions that they got to make. Unfortunately, during… Read more »
I am familiar with the circumstances of quite a few urban poor people. I agree with you that many do not have the skills and opportunities to drag themselves out of poverty on their own. But can you see that a huge increase in the minimum wage will harm many such people rather than help them? I supplement my income by tutoring history and cleaning houses. Because most of my clients are not well off, I would lose all of them if I suddenly doubled my hourly rate. I need more money, and it could be argued that I deserve… Read more »
There may be some people hiring on such small margins…but a lot of low-wage earners are also working for the WalMarts and chain fast food and the like…..who can afford to pay quite a bit more than they already do. Low wages in general support factory-style service and large, faceless businesses, because the employees are completely interchangeable, generally unskilled, and completely unknown to the person cutting the check. Higher wages have a good chance of supporting smaller businesses because small businesses can better take advantage of talent and of the positive benefits of a more friendly human touch. No one… Read more »
Jonathan,
It is none (capital NONE) of your business to decide what anyone else can afford.
“Take what belongs to you and go…Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?” Jesus Christ
Please don’t tell me that you believe that’s the meaning of that verse. Don’t be one of those people. I know that God has several times judged entire societies due to the manner in which those societies treated their laborers. I don’t want to be one of them. Therefore, it is my business. I know that when trying to earn enough food to see their baby make it to the next day, people will be willing to do anything. I’ve seen kids putting in a full day’s work in sweatshop conditions for 11 cents a day. I’ve literally seen that… Read more »
So, you think that when Jesus says “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?” that He actually means you are not allowed “to do what I choose with what belongs to me [you]? How amusing. Saying that it means more does not mean that it means less. You are talking to somebody whose father dropped out of school at 6th grade, and worked all of his life. He did that to support a wife and 5 children, and it provided the ethic that allowed me to work 2 jobs back-to-back while putting myself… Read more »
He is saying that salvation belongs to Him. The verse has nothing to do with money. The Bible is quite clear over and over that the fair wages of the laborers belong to THEM, even when he who pays the laborers chooses to keep it in his own hands. We can have a debate about what fair wages are, but “let the market decide” obviously doesn’t cut it Biblically. I don’t know how your dad ended up with a wife and 5 children in the 6th grade, but I applaud him for his strong work ethic and ability to get… Read more »
First it was to support his mother, brother and sisters since his father could not due to illness. Then he continued when married.
We will agree to disagree. I cannot find common ground with communist economic sympathies.
I have no desire for the government to own the means of production.
Your father sounds like he went through quite a trial. I’m sure he was an amazing man. It goes to show that people certainly get put into situations where they are forced to support a family with an entry-level job.
His experience during that time period was actually quite normal for the micro-culture, and neither he nor family or friends thought that level of effort as exceptional. Their collective philosophy was don’t complain, do not expect hand outs, get to work, work hard, and if that is not enough, work harder or die trying.
I’ve encountered much the same attitude among the working poor overseas today. It is admirable, though the circumstances which cause it also lead to a lot of other consequences that you would never wish on your own neighbors, much less your children.
I have traced my ancestry back to the 1400’s, and by the grace of God will see great-grandchildren in not too long. It has been, and is, a legacy of hard work and not whatsoever discounting the grace that made it. In none of this have I seen negative consequences, just the opposite in fact. Thankfulness for the gift and ability to work.
I was speaking more of: Inability to treat chronic health problems, due to need to work, poor working conditions, and lack of affordability of health care. Inability to access education of almost any type, due to lack of time and resources, leading to an over-reliance on cultural norms (which is great if you’re raised in a highly grace-filled and Scripture-educated Christian culture, but otherwise….) Limited chance to provide additional opportunity to women in the family, due to being on the fringe of making ends meet, therefore they can get in difficult situations. Forced location in communities with serious physical and… Read more »
“Inability to access education…” K-12 government school is paid for by taking money from people who work, and giving it to everyone. Undergraduate (4 or less years) is widely available at low or not cost, subsidized and paid for by taking money from people who work, and giving it to everyone. “Additional opportunity to women.” The greatest opportunity the women in my family ever enjoyed (self-professed) was raising future adults. None of them, for hundreds of years, ever expressed the idea that doing that was somehow lacking in opportunity. “Forced location in communities with serious physical and moral issues due… Read more »
I think the amusing one in our conversation is the person who claims to have known what every single individual in his family tree expressed over the course of their lives hundreds of years before he was born. You’re going overboard with this, “But I know my family history and they’re saints!” argument. You’re also doing this weird thing of taking situations that I’ve witnessed with my own two eyes, and then discounting them because your family was personally in a different situation. Either you’re losing track of what the conversation is about and think that I’m only talking about… Read more »
My consistent iteration of thankfulness for the grace of opportunity and the ability to work must have mislead you into thinking that I meant pride instead. My personal most-often reflection is “there is no way I could have done any of this…how could I have ever been so successful being such a knuckle-dragger…thank you Jesus”! What I meant by my pointing at my ancestors was: I read their baptism records, I read their obit’s and funeral cards, I see how they were born and died in Christ, I see how hard they worked, I see how tough they had it… Read more »
There is a lot to be said for coming from a long line of cheerful, honest, and hard-working people, just as there is a lot to be said for being brought up in a decent home. No matter how tough our subsequent lives may become, that head start is an incredible blessing.
And the premise of being raised by “honest, and hard-working people…and being brought up in a decent home…” stands athwart the meme that being of lesser means (the new definition of the term “poor” in the U.S.) that someone else “did it to you” and that having less is some type of evil that needs to be conquered.
Poor does not equal having less than another, nor is it defined by what someone/anyone wants.
‘B, I believe it was Confusious who once said:
“Never give driving lessons to a guy who’s canoe never had wheels!”
; – )
Yep, and given that it makes me wonder how they get so wrapped around the axle.
Proverbs 22:14 Young’s Literal Translation
15 Folly is bound up in the heart of a youth, The rod of chastisement putteth it far from him.
That reminds me of another saying:
Everybody’s got a plan until they get punched in the throat.
And my dear father’s favorite: If you’re not a socialist at 20, there’s something wrong with your heart. If you’re still a socialist at 30, there’s something wrong with your head.
I have two dear friends who, unlike me, are trust fund babies. They were gung-ho for Sanders until they started listening to him. “He wants to take all our stuff!” they told me.
While not a socialist, I’ve never understood that quote to be anything more that the frequently-expressed Biblical truth that when people acquire money, it has a tendency to harden their heart.
No doubt the acquisition of wealth hardens some hearts. But it also enables the rich to help the poor in ways that the rest of us simply can’t, much as we would like to. I was a socialist at 20. I believed that everyone was willing to work hard for the common good. I thought that poor people needed only enough money to get an education, and then they would no longer be poor. I have not lost my compassion for poor people. But the things I believed at 20 were demonstrably wrong. That, I think, is the point of… Read more »
The mere fact of wealth existing indeed “enables the rich to help the poor in ways that the rest of us simply can’t.” It also enables them to hurt the poor in ways the rest of us simply can’t. To make a meaningful argument for wealth, you’d have to explain why one would be more likely to happen than the other. The Biblical witness certainly seems to back the “exploit” side of the argument. It is absolutely impossible to read James, or the words of Jesus, and believe that wealthy people will generally work towards the good of the poor.… Read more »
It boggles my mind how Jonathan can rattle off the titles of such books and still come out as a harping statist.
I suggest that you let your mind actually get boggled, instead of just saying so for rhetorical effect, and start to consider that I might not be a statist despite your attempts to label me as such so you can “win an argument”. If you dropped the name-calling and assumptions, and actually spoke to me on my own terms about what I’m saying, then we might have a productive discussion. For you to take that entire long and very non-statist comment I just made, and not engage the actual content one bit but just attack me as a “harping statist”,… Read more »
On the other hand, if you’re ever a socialist, no matter how young you are, there is something wrong with your moral compass.
I honor your opinion that people will be helped more by less government than more. That is where we will have to respectfully disagree because I know neither of us will change the other’s mind. One more quick thing. It would also be very bad if the government just shut off the spigot and everybody was “Ok, you’re on your own now!” A sensible, but steady, ramping down of wasteful and pocket-lining programs that do more to hurt the poor ALONG WITH a ramping up of accountable ministries of mercy from Christ centered churches is what we need to shoot… Read more »
Dude, I totally agree with you. Buuuuuttttt, what is the actual feasibility of having all social welfare and charity come out of Churches? I used to think the same thing but now I just don’t think that it is possible. The shear magnitude is incredible and nothing that the splinters of the current church could take on. So I believe that we need to have to reform the goverment systems.
Could it be that the Church “isn’t trying” because She too has bought into the ProgLib tripe that the government is responsible for the poor, or at least already has that covered? Could it be that the Church would LIKE to put more effort into helping the poor but finds it difficult because tithing is way down because taxes are way up from a legalized theft ring dubiously aimed at helping the poor?
That would be a bit ridiculous, because the overall amount of take-home income in America is atmospheric. Our homes are three times larger than they were in 1950, even though we have half as many kids. The amount of technology and other luxury goodies that we buy is through the roof (laptops, smart phones, SUVs, flat-screen TVs, etc). And taxes haven’t picked up in 35 years. It’s never been easier to tithe. And besides that, what % of your church tithe actually goes to the poor? Maybe 10%, if that? So even if everyone in your church is giving their… Read more »
You are always free to give as much as YOU want. You are not free to use the compulsory force of government to point a gun at your neighbor’s head to take his money and give it to someone else. When you say poor, what is your definition? From Census report: 80 percent of poor households have air conditioning. In 1970, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning. 92 percent of poor households have a microwave. Nearly three-fourths have a car or truck, and 31 percent have two or more cars or trucks. Nearly two-thirds have… Read more »
Again, what a strange line of attack. No one forces anyone in this country to employ people at the point of a gun. Actually, what the government DOES do is take money from everyone to pay off the Earned Income Tax Credit. That’s a payment to poor workers, taken from the public, to make up for the fake that our minimum wage does not allow working families to make it out of poverty. That’s a lot closer to “use the compulsory force of government to point a gun at your neighbor’s head to take his money and give it to… Read more »
I find it amusing that you use the word decent while advocating rank indecency. Listing the author of any government project carries no weight with me. If you can convince the citizens (including any businesses) to give their money freely, fine. Beyond that, stop pretending that using the compulsory power of government is not force. “No one forces anyone in this country to employ people at the point of a gun. Actually, what the government DOES do is take money from everyone…” So, what happens if you refuse: First they send the letter. If you refuse that long enough, they… Read more »
So in your mind, the fact that I am not in favor of Christians taking part in or advocating violence therefore determines that I’m not allowed to take a stand on any government action, ever, because then the government might someday use the violence I disapprove of in order to effect it. It’s sweet of you to care so much about my position. But in reality, I, like every Christian in this country that has bowed their knee to the god of American government, actually has to live with the tension of the government doing many things I disapprove of… Read more »
Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire.
Government does not encourage in any manner except by taking more, or less. If you do what it says, it may take less, if you do not, it will take more, up to and including your life.
Jonathan, In what way have you bowed your knee to the god of American government? Are you not obeying the God who is when you live with government doing things you would not approve, rather than rebelling? I don’t have a strong opinion on the issue of minimum wage one way or another. I, like you I believe, do not subscribe to the notion that taxation is theft, nor do I categorically object to the idea of my tax money being used to help people. That said, you also have to come to terms with the fact that RFB is… Read more »
Romans 12:9-13:10 makes clear that rebellion in such scenarios is cautioned against. I don’t think it’s an absolute argument that rebellion is never, ever an option (though violent, killing rebellion isn’t). But that section of Romans, confirmed by Christ’s actions and the NT in general, suggest that a great deal of injustice can take place in the government while we still continue to obey their obey-able laws and pay taxes to its often unholy yet still God-appointed enforcement, and hope to positively influence that government in its obey-able edicts. I’m not against force. I am against irreparable violence. I’m not… Read more »
Jonathan, In those countries where the police very seldom use deadly force it largely because they very seldom need to use force to ensure compliance in the first place. The reason they don’t is partly cultural – simply put, people are conditioned to behave better than they do here – but partly because the threat of violent force is very much there, and people know it. Don’t argue with the German Polezei, you won’t enjoy the outcome. When you say Christians should encourage their society do pay sustainable living wages do you mean voluntarily, or do you believe there should… Read more »
Yes, let it go. If we wanted to back up for a second, what I am absolutely in favor of is that Christians make the argument that all people deserve a just wage, and take our own actions to help get society there. There’s a lot of room for individual discernment within there. if we really got so far as to make the end game you’re talking about, I don’t even think there’d be an issue. Christians would have already done such a good job of setting the societal standard that there’d be little need for a poor person to… Read more »
Well, Let it go does keep you consistent with principle, and that is to your credit, but when a law will not be enforced it might as well not have been enacted. A rule not worth enforcing probably wasn’t worth making in the first place.
I’ve seen that sentiment in this particular community, and find it odd. (For example, there are people here who claim that any OT law without a specific penalty ascribed doesn’t count and doesn’t have to be followed.) Does the same go for church law? Or any other law? That if death isn’t an eventual consequence, it doesn’t count? As I repeat over and over, there are MANY ways in which to have a regulation be meaningful without pointing a gun at anyone. You use network of association – those who fail to follow the law are unable to use other… Read more »
You do realize that the census numbers for poverty are simply rough numbers based on reported cash income? How many of the people in those numbers you just cited are elderly people on fixed incomes (who probably are in Arizona/Nevada/Florida needing AC to survive), or who already own their own home and who are thus don’t actually have as much difficulty getting by as the younger working poor we’re talking about? How many are rural poor where it would be impossible to work any job without owning a car, or where both the husband and wife are forced to work,… Read more »
Compassion is what you do with your money. Compassion is not using government to do something with someone else’s money.
I was merely speaking about the manner in which you were choosing to speak about, and in some sense misrepresent, poor people.
No one’s individual economic circumstances are any of my business.
Then I’m not sure what point you were trying to make with the “facts” you cited. They certainly appeared designed to taint the whole group based on the circumstances of a subset of the group.
But yes, the economic circumstances of others are indeed our business, as the Bible makes clear at many points.
My business is any individual that God places into my path, whereby I have the wherewithal to help. My business is absolutely not to get into someone else’s business, or use the force of government to make him do something with his money.
Well, consider this debate to have been placed squarely in your path.
No problem, as long as you consider yourself helped…
by being made aware of the immorality of using force to take from your neighbors. (You know, like thou shall not covet they neighbor’s anything…)
Because, absent convincing them with the power of your argument in the marketplace of ideas, you are left to using force.
No, you could use network of association. Or shaming. Or provide fringe benefits or tax breaks for compliant businesses. There’s more – quite a wide range in fact.
And you just confirmed the reality of force:
…provide fringe benefits or tax breaks for compliant businesses…
Compliant with what? The FORCE of law.
“Government does not encourage in any manner except by taking more, or
less. If you do what it says, it may take less, if you do not, it will
take more, up to and including your life.”
Again, you can choose merely to give extra benefits to such groups, or to include them within beneficial association, without needing to shoot anyone. You’re very focused on this. How many minimum wage rejecters have had their lives taken in the last few administrations?
Refuse government, and be adamant about it. Take the stand on principle, do not back down, and then extrapolate the consequences. Watch what happens. It is called a trajectory, and it can be plotted. I am focused upon it because it seems as if you are very cavalier regarding what it looks like up close and personal. I want you to picture yourself looking at a man through the sights on your firearm, willing to take him from his wife and children, and send him to stand in front of God for eternity, all because you want his money for… Read more »
Except I literally never, ever have.
Besides the fact that no one in this nation is shot for violating minimum wage laws, your argument is akin to claiming that anyone willing to support national defense is supporting the murder of innocent Iraqi children, because you can’t support national defense without supporting the practical consequences of what those defense forces do even when you disagree with them.
By advocating using the force of government to tax (a forced minimum wage) you are advocating for that. “The power to tax is the power to destroy”; Chief Justice John Marshall, for a unanimous Court in McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316 (1819)
No one is shot for violating minimum laws of any kind; the gallows has
stairs, and you start at the bottom. You walk your principles to the
top.
You are conflating warfare and law enforcement. Apples and oranges, and not even close.
Well said RFB. The issue is not true poverty. The issue is State induced dependency. Universal serfdom through handouts and entitlements and other appeasements. The “poor” are being farmed.
God help us when the State implodes and the handouts disappear.
The issue that girds my grid is the ready willingness of professing Christians to send brother against brother to enforce their sentimental utopian ideas.
It is a lot different looking down the barrel (from either end.)
That (when the State implodes) is what the Marxist theology advocates do not get. They think that they will have the strength of 10 because their hearts are pure.
Right.
They will be as mice trying to negotiate with owls.
They will regard the owls way as “wrong”. The owl will regard them as dinner.
Exactly. I’m sure some Venezuelans supported their system like Berniebots are doing now…only to find themselves trying to get in front of the food lines when the OPM Ponzi scheme broke down.
While making predictions about future economic events is a loser’s game, I will say negative interest rates in Europe and Japan are a very bad sign. Debt-driven nanny states can only last so long.
Could it be that the Church would LIKE to put more effort into helping the poor but finds it difficult because tithing is way down because taxes are way up from a legalized theft ring dubiously aimed at helping the poor? This is A problem, but not THE problem. I have found that people with less are often more giving than those with more. I was in Ethiopia once when a 13 year old orphan boy got two jolly rancher candies that the rest of my group was handing out. He insisted that he give one to me. Sweetest candy… Read more »
Well said, Malachi. It’s difficult for the Church to compete with a charity monopoly that farms the poor… using other people’s money.
Look for the State to float the idea of taxation of churches soon.
That’s true in general. It can also be said for many, many churches on a specific level.
I get the feeling that you think a certain verse about a mote and a log and things stuck in eyes might apply here….
Rob Steele interpreted you quite nicely.
And you know this, how?
The Sarcasm Tell.
http://thefederalist.com/2016/03/29/70-tries-after-seattle-raised-its-minimum-wage-i-still-cant-find-a-job/
Did I miss your article condeming the pillaging of America by Bankers, or is that the kind of theft your ok with. Your selective outrage is telling.
What about your selective “outrage”, to say nothing of your selective “honesty”?
I’m sorry I am not understanding your question.
One of the things the cruel know is that the minimum wage is always zero…
James 5: 1-6- Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. 2 Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. 3 Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. 4 Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. 5 You have lived… Read more »
“’So I will come to put you on trial. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners among you of justice, but do not fear me,’ says the Lord Almighty.” – Malachi 3:5 “You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your brothers or one of the sojourners who are in your land within your towns. You shall give him his wages on the same day, before the sun… Read more »
This is Calvin’s commentary to James 5. Speciffically to the issue of wages. “Behold, the hire. He now condemns cruelty, the invariable companion of avarice. But he refers only to one kind, which, above all others, ought justly to be deemed odious. For if a humane and a just man, as Solomon says in Proverbs 12:10, regards the life of his beast, it is a monstrous barbarity, when man feels no pity towards the man whose sweat he has employed for his own benefit. Hence the Lord has strictly forbidden, in the law, the hire of the laborer to sleep… Read more »
Juan, in this fallen world, those instituted governments can themselves be fraudulent, just as you and I have been at times.
You and I are also instituted to do justice, however the spirit may lead us.
The only argument you need against minimum wage is the economic one. The more something costs, the less of it you will get. Increase the cost of labor and you will have less labor.
The elites who think they are helping the poor are actually hurting them, and the poor soon find out that the minimum wage is actually zero because they are out of a job.
Unless increasing the cost of labor helps to create more stable labor, which therefore creates higher skilled labor, which therefore compensates for the increased costs.
Not to mention the positive societal effects of fewer families in poverty which therefore raise the tide of all boats.
Except we have research that supports this basic principle: raising the MW will cost jobs. Raising the MW to $15 would cost 6 million jobs according to this study. That’s 6 million lower income people out of a job, because people like you are looking out for them. http://www.americanactionforum.org/wp-content/uploads/files/research/Counterproductive.pdf Look what happened when America Somoa was forced to institute a MW. “By May 2009 the third scheduled minimum wage increase in Samoa took effect, rising to $4.76 an hour and covering 69 percent of canning workers. This did not increase purchasing power, stimulate demand, and raise living standards, as many… Read more »
I’m not sure you want to be quoting AAF – they’re run by McCain’s economic adviser and spend a lot of money trying to support the gang of 8 and S.744. They’re very big cheap labor fans. And I didn’t see where I or anyone else advocated raising the wage to $15 across the board. I think that’s ridiculous. Cost of living is very different in place to place. In some cities in certainly takes $15/hour to raise a family even at a minimum level without government support. In other places it might only take $9-10/hour. Of course there’s a… Read more »
Why don’t we just cut minimum wage in half!!! That way we can employ twice as many workers! This is a genius article.
The minimum wage only puts people out of work if there is surplus labor within an organization, i.e. if a business does not actually need all the workers it currently employs. This could be the case if labor is so dirt cheap that businesses see no need to optimize or if a particular business is just poorly run, but in general the practice of keeping excess labor around doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. If no excess labor then a business’s main responses to the minimum wage are to either raise prices or reduce profits (or most likely, both).… Read more »
Very well stated.
“That is, if a McDonald’s worker makes twice as much tomorrow as today, a hamburger won’t cost twice as much to go along with it”
Not immidiately, and the burgers might not cost 100% more, but most of the increased wage cost will be passed on to the customers.
Doug, your theory that a higher minimum wage results in higher unemployment–a theory also held by some economists–is just that: a theory. It is a theory supported by some studies, but it is also refuted by other studies. There are many economists that theorize that a modest wage increase has little effect on employment. What we have going on right now is an experiment in which we get to see what actually does happen when we raise minimum wage by close to 50%. You might be right in asserting that it will cause more unemployment. But you also might be… Read more »
Spike, -1300 resturant jobs recently lost in Seattle, per the article below, is reality, not theory. While economic realities are never fixed in place, the reality, not theory is, a compulsory $15/hr, minimum wage increase in the Seattle area, decreases the number of some low skilled jobs. Current reality is worth noting in your comments, don’t you think? ; – ) “Perhaps Seattle’s restaurant employment will recover, or perhaps it will continue to suffer from the upcoming full 58% increase in labor costs for the city’s restaurants that will be phased in during the coming years – time will tell.… Read more »
That is not “fact”, as we discussed earlier. It’s an assumption based on extremely limited data. There hasn’t even been any government data tracking jobs released within that time (just employed persons, which isn’t the same as jobs, and only then a minimal sample with a ton of assumptions). Perry had already spoken out against Seattle’s wage dozens of times before finding that data, which was true for the ENTIRE Seattle metro area, 5/6 of which had not passed a minimum wage hike, and even he admits it’s complete inconclusive. “Perhaps those BLS data are unreliable,” he told me by… Read more »
The negative trend was a fact at the time, and I believe still is. I don’t dispute that the number could vary over time.
My principle dispiute with your position is that quantifiable fact can and has been gathered about the influnece of a minimum wage increase, thus there is more material to work with than just “theory”, an accurate reality can be known. That reality is not completely known, at least to me and you as of yet. It is well known to people who lost their jobs.
That “negative trend” was indeed a guess of the short-term data of a couple months…for the ENTIRE Seattle metro area, over 80% of which had nothing to do with the minimum wage increase (and which in fact had shown some of the top job growth in the industry over the past five years despite already having the highest state minimum wage in the nation). It could simply have been a short-term correction, or related to myriad other facts. Assuming the trend of the whole region was do to a law that only took effect in Seattle city is very poor.… Read more »
And you think your argument is good…..based on?
Nice quote, “A” Dad. The LA Times reported on the Perry data from his AEI article. Did you read it? Here is part of the LA Times piece: “Perry defends his analysis. ‘Perhaps those BLS data are unreliable,’ he told me by email, but he maintains that all the data still suggest there are ‘negative employment trends in the Seattle area.’ He adds, ‘We can not necessarily blame the minimum wage increases … but that is one factor that has to be considered.’ ” So Perry himself is saying that we can not necessarily blame the minimum wage increases for… Read more »
S’, people cite the Seattle information because it is recent , germane and honest enough not to be premature in its conclusions.
There is other data that demonstrate the negative elements of ill conceived wage and tax increases.
Would any demonstrably factual analysis , in opposition to your opinion, change your mind?
Thomas Sowell has some good information, looking at U.S. employment before minimum wage laws as well as data from
other countries: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/415569/ruinous-compassion-minimum-wage-laws-thomas-sowell
Thanks mkt.
S’, does anything T’sowell says and demonstrates count as fact for you?
“Ohhhh . . . there is a point where minimum wage increases causes layoffs among the poor? Who knew?”
The Solution: You just pass a law that makes it a felony to fire someone after you raise the minimum wage. That’ll keep you from exploiting the poor, and, help the poor when they see justice applied to to their oppressive rich bosses!
Doug, IMO, is absolutely right regarding asking about an optimum minimum wage. The thing is considered strictly from the worker and the employer there is no optimum. Any optimum is found in some societal bs which is lost on the guy not getting a job or the employer who is paying more that a guy is worth. When you optimize you have to have (at least) two competing effects. The optimum comes in balancing them. For example if a seller can sell more of something if he lowers the price..at the cost of lower profit…then he has to decide how… Read more »
Matt already explained it well. I’ll copy-and-paste his answer: “The minimum wage only puts people out of work if there is surplus labor within an organization, i.e. if a business does not actually need all the workers it currently employs. This could be the case if labor is so dirt cheap that businesses see no need to optimize or if a particular business is just poorly run, but in general the practice of keeping excess labor around doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. If no excess labor then a business’s main responses to the minimum wage are to either… Read more »
Politicians are famous for their fulfillment of the law of unintended consequences. Case in point – Obama’s Cash for Clunkers program. It claimed to help the poor. What it actually did was take an entire segment of thousands of affordable late model vehicles out of circulation for the poor and cause older models to slide into the created gap at a higher price than they were worth. The new vehicles were purchased by people of means who probably could have afforded a new vehicle anyway. Minimum wage laws are the same type of legislation.
Cash for Clunkers is what we should call the food stamp program.
While suffering from a metal illness, my family and I were on food stamps. Really helped us out. Not that the church could not have done it as well, but my church pretty much wanted little to do with me through a “messy” time. All that said, your joke is pretty funny :)
No sarcasm
Ok, guys, this blog post is not the economic nor the sociological case against the minimum wage. Doug is giving the Biblical case against it for those who already accept the former two. If you want an economic or sociological case, I bet he can provide you with a dozen book recommendations.
Right. Ryan Sather below says Doug’s not an expert on the issues of poverty and justice, the corollary to which I assume is intended to be “therefore shut up.”
But Doug is something of an expert on the book that tells us what justice is, and he’s applying that to one particular area.
I have noticed however that Ryan Sather appears to be an expert on Doug’s lack of expertise on _________.
Because we all know that Doug is an expert in issues of poverty and justice. He embraces those things that would eliminate poverty. To take Prov 14:31 and somehow think you can apply it to a minimum wage law is silly. But hey, what would you expect from a guy who had this to say about slavery: “When we ask the question whether slavery in the South was a biblical slavery, the answer must consequently be yes and no. Was the South a nation in covenant with the Lord Jesus Christ? Had it undertaken formally to conform all its laws,… Read more »
Slavery card!
Wheeeeeee!
If you were trying to get the “Asinine SJW Comment of the Day” award, you won. Run along now.
Methinks Doug has been trying to be true to the full council of scripture and in doing so he has to deal with slavery and how God commanded Isreal and the church to relate to it. What is your perspective on biblical slavery? So far Doug’s logic and interpretations are much more cogent then what I read from you. But take your time and convince us all with founded arguments that include the full council of scripture. I want more than a whining “progressive”.
The problem is, Doug isn’t being true to the full council of scripture….
Thanks for clearing that up Tony
I`m surrrprised nobody else has sooner…unless, of course, many here are more loyal to a political idealology or a cult of personality then they are to Scriptural truth…..
….said the guy who thinks abortion should remain legal.
I will repeat what I said above:
It would help if you quoted what I actually said instead of selectively twisting words. I NEVER said I want abortion to remain legal. I said we should put recources in lowering the abortion rates now, and that abortion becoming illegal is still a long way off.
It`s funny, you don`t actually answer my critique just throw a character assasination………interesting…
“I NEVER said I want abortion to remain legal”
To be fair until you said otherwise there was no indication you wanted abortion to be illegal.
So, it is ok to state something completely false about someone simply because the question never came up in a conversation? By that logic, I can claim you want pedophelia to be legal because you didn`t state that you believe it should be illegal….
Tony, I don’t comment much here anymore because I’ve found (as you’ve seen here) none of these folks have a lick of wisdom or common sense. They are married to certain political persuasions, attempt to mix in Scripture (in pathetic an unsound ways), and don’t reflect the gospel of Christ in the least.
But what would you expect from folks who are loyal to a guy who runs meme contests nick naming a woman’s breasts, writes letters in defense of sexual predators, likes to use words like “slut” & “lumberjack dike”, and marries pedophiles?
“none of these folks have a lick of wisdom or common sense”
Wow? Really? Seems more like some of you boys can’t handle a few tough beans, and in some areas, you don’t know beans although you think you do.
And tough beans don’t come much better or wiser than Jillybean!
Jillybean has good things to say. I was referring more to clowns like yourself “A” dad.
Whoever derides their neighbor has no sense, but the one who has understanding holds their tongue.
And sometimes it takes chain binders and vice grips.
I can hear Jackie Gleason’s voice saying “why eye oughta…”
16 Fools show their annoyance at once, but the prudent overlook an insult.
No lack of fire discipline on your end RFB!
Your unfailing kindness and patience are an example to me. I appreciate them.
Proverbs 12:15-16
15 The way of fools seems right to them, but the wise listen to advice.
16 Fools show their annoyance at once, but the prudent overlook an insult.
Proverbs 1:20 Out in the open wisdom calls aloud, she raises her voice in the public square;
How do we like them beans?
We likes Jillybeans just fine! ; – )
“none of these folks have a lick of wisdom or common sense.” — I’m glad you don’t make gross generalizations
“They are married to certain political persuasions” — And you’re not?
“don’t reflect the gospel of Christ in the least.” — The great catch-all. Which gospel and which Christ are talking about, anyway? The hippie/Bernie Sanders one, who wants to win the respect and opinion polls of the world?
“none of these folks have a lick of wisdom or common sense. They are married to certain political persuasions, attempt to mix in Scripture (in pathetic an unsound ways)”
I’ve been tempted to say the same about you.
I have hope for change.
For instance Ryan “promoted” me up from a “troll” to a “clown”, albeit a “pathetic and unsound” clown! So people do “change” and get more prudent in their statements!???????????? there is however, no know correlation between this sort of change, and minimum wage increases!
Funny. My hope for change is that people, and especially believers, would see these sorts of issues as more that a “I am right and you are wrong if you don’t agree with me completely” and a hope that believers will stop cherry picking bible verses and twisting them as ammo for debates when there are real people involved…
Gosh, if only I was involved, right, and a real person!????
Then I would not have to be an alleged pathetic and unsound clown!
But at least a fellow believer upgraded me from troll status!????
Oh ! to be on the straight and narrow.
Have you thought about being a bit less sensitive……..just an idea…..
Don’t worry, I am not offended, I am amused. People who have their hubris confused with humility tickle my funny brain!????????
It’s almost like a blessing.
C’mon Tony don’t you know when you’re being kidded?
With all due respect, on this site-I don`t know anymore-some who I thought w were a complete joke turned out to be serious……I am sure you can understand the confusion…
On the plus side, an unintended consequence of your commenting here might be that you get you to know yourself better!
I am certain that would clear up some confusion! ; – )
At least I knw myself better than most who comment on this site…..
Well, let’s aim a bit lower. Try going on a “word fast”, where you stop using the word “most” for a month!????????
I use “many” in place of “most” often when I write on this site-does that count? lol
Why yes ! “Many” is much less presumptuous than “most”! That was not so hard now was it?????
Now that we have common ground, any place I wrote most, just insert many. Doesn’t change any basic argument, but hopefully people will be more comfortable, because I am sure that is the reason people on this site don’t like what I have to write… ;p
Perhaps I’ve read more “A” dad than you have, but you’re being kidded.
ok…although if jokes need to be explained, it could be that “”A” dad needs to work on his comedic delivery or get some different aterial that will resonate with his audience…….just a little helpful advice…lol
The topic of the legality of abortion did come up.
And I have consistently stated though I would like to see abortion illegal, it is not happening soon, so let’s make it so ministries that give women choices not be scrapping by, thereby reduce interest abortions now…
You have been consistant in saying that but I don’t recall you saying that before people accusrd you of being pro choice.
That may be because some choose to read ito my comments something that was not there instead of thoughtfully reading the comments…..
Your initall comments were to the effect that the CMP are dishonest and possibly criminal, while abortion doctors and eomem getting anortions are not criminal and should not be called murderers. These were all unqualified statements so I’m not surprised that people took your position to be pro-choice.
My comments on CMP, which I have stood by from the begining, are true.
For abortion doctors, my point has always been that it is counter productive and just seperates the sides even more considering those who are performing abortions are doing so legally and they do not believe in the personhood of the fetus. Or to put it another way, how willing are you to listen to someone if they call you a murderer when what you are doing is legal and you do not believe that fetus is a person?
I know what your position is, but it was not fully evident in your initial posts.
To be fair, you could have asked to clarify…
I’ll repeat what I said above: Tony has repeatedly scolded anyone who would dare to make abortion illegal. Tony is so aggressive in his denouncements that he declares that anyone who seeks to make abortion illegal is just an anti-abortionist and not even pro-life. Tony argues that making abortion illegal is just, “sweeping abortion under the rug so you don`t have to see it”. Tony argues that science can’t say when consciousness begins, and that all we have are our faith commitments, and we can’t use those to argue for making abortion illegal. Tony said: “we should not call or… Read more »
cute….i will paste what i wrote above: “Tony has repeatedly scolded anyone who would dare to make abortion illegal. Tony is so aggressive in his denouncements that he declares that anyone who seeks to make abortion illegal is just an anti-abortionist and not even pro-life.” -You have quite the selective memory. Again, I never said that I am against anyone who wants to fight to make abortion ilegal. I HAVE stated that for every dollar we give to a pro-life lobby group, we should give a dollar for inistries, programs and crisis pregnancy centers that are doing something NOW to… Read more »
Tony is trying to backpedal from his rhetoric now. He expressly
denounced Wilson as not even being pro-life simply because Wilson would actually seek to have abortion made illegal. Those who seek to make abortion illegal now are castigated by Tony as merely “anti-abortion”, and not pro-life. Tony thinks making abortion illegal now would be a setback, and he opposes such a move using most of the same reasoning as abortionists. Tony has set himself as an opponent to anyone who would make abortion illegal now. Thus he believes that abortion should remain legal for the foreseeable future.
You don’t need to repeat the same exact thing in two places…you will get carpal tunnel…..
… said the guy who started repeating the same exact thing in two places.
You kinda forced me to, didn’t you
Tony, You probably really do not understand how your argument sounds when murder is in view. Let me try it a different way using your position but replacing the term for the action: “I HAVE stated that for every dollar we give to a pro-private property lobby group, we should give a dollar for ministries, programs and robbery crisis centers that are doing something NOW to lower robberies and give robbers options. I HAVE stated that most robbers who choose to rob are doing so for financial reasons, so it only makes sense to help in that way.” or even… Read more »
Absolutely.
Tony pretends that he has been advocating some kind of balanced approach to the pro-life cause, but he has been aggressively vilifying those who want to make abortion illegal now. He has said that such a thing is explicitly counterproductive and somehow is just sweeping the problem under a rug.
I think that there might be something to be said for re-crafting the term from abortion to infanticide so as to more clearly keep the horrific truth of the act in view.
Okay, infanticide it is. But are you personally willing to support this child for the next 18 years (better make it 22 because my own snowflake shows no signs of self-support just yet)? Are you willing to pay for braces, Disneyland, and a four year college? How about hockey expenses or, alternatively, pageant princess costs? No? Then how dare you speak slightingly about infanticide. Don’t you want to be truly pro-life?
Well I might be willing since I have nothing against adoption. Nonetheless, I do not have to support any other murder victims to recognize the judicial condemnation of murder so, in this case, whether I financially support another snowflake or not does not minimize the evil of the act perpetrated against Miss Flake. But yes, I can hear that… Sort of like when I quoted a seminal SCOTUS decision by an eminent jurist, the response (in this very thread) was words to the effect of “big deal, so some guy said something once”… That is why [quick, cover your RC… Read more »
Were you indeed! I have known many Roman Catholics in law enforcement. It used to be such a good fit back in the day when the rules were the rules, and Sister knew exactly what they were! I liked it when they told us at confirmation that we were now soldiers of Christ who would suffer cheerfully for the faith. They don’t do that anymore, and the result is a world of special snowflakes.
Well I used to take a lot of snowflakes and make snowballs out of them…
uh oh, wrong forum…
So basically rehashing the same arguments that have been used for the past 40 years……
Like I said elsewhere, you resent the definition of the act because of the implications thereof.
Infanticide is murder, straight up.
You couch your opposition in terms or pragmatism. The truth resides in what those words do at a visceral level, and you do not like it.
No, it`s an issue of arguing the same basic things on both side for 40 years, which hasn`t done anything constructive to lower abortion rates or to make it illegal.
You are making a broad based assumption that a refusal to address it head-on is the winning method, and that calling it what God calls it is a losing strategy.
I see.
Actually God Gives us a method-Preach the Gospel, Love your enemies, help those in need, Trust God`s working.
He does not give us the game plan of deamonizing people, yelling at people and ignoreing all evidence that does not rigidly support a very narrow belief….
There are two ways to be haed b the world friend-
1) Proclaim the truth of scripture to the world, where some who reject your message will resent it,
or
2)be a beligerent jerk about your beliefs
God never endorses option 2
Okay, lets try this: All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am he, you will indeed die in your sins. And God…said to them… And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning…From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man…for God made man in his own image. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him… Read more »
And Galatians says that one of the fruits of the Spirit is Peace, Eph says that the gospel is a gospel of peace 1 Cor 13 describes love (that all believers should have towards other) is not arrogant, rude, irritable or resentful. 2 Timothy says we should pursue peace and love, and Romans 12 says, as much as it depends on us, live at peace with all. Essentially, it`s the attitude that detemines whether one is simply speaking uncomfortable truth or just a beligerant jerk. For your seconnd point, knowing some will be offended with biblical truth, why add to… Read more »
Tony, There were questions in my above reply, and they are not rhetorical. You did not reply to any of them. I would request that you start there, and then followup with these. Was Jesus being arrogant, rude, irritable or resentful when He said the statements that I quoted above? Was Jesus being (as you put it) and “arse” when He said “But as for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and kill them in front of me”. Was God arrogant, rude, irritable or resentful, Who when speaking to the… Read more »
“Was Jesus being arrogant, rude, irritable or resentful when He said the statements that I quoted above?” -If you remember, Jesus always used his harshest language (as well as Paul) to the religious, to those who should know better, and not to the unsaved…. “Was Jesus being arrogant, rude, irritable or resentful when He said the statements that I quoted above?” -Jesus is the perfect Son of God. He spoke truth firmly, knows the hearts of people and loves all his creation. Humans however are different. A christian can do proclaim the Message of the word for selfish reasons, deamonize… Read more »
Tony, So when He spoke “to those who should know better, and not to the unsaved”, are you saying that He was saying all of those harsh things to the “saved”? We are commanded to imitate Jesus and also the apostles. If we are commanded to imitate Jesus in what He loves, are we then not also to imitate Him by hating what He hates? After all, if you argument is that we are not perfect, and that is the reason to not imitate Him, then that would go for everything, not just the things you do not prefer. Romans… Read more »
“We are commanded to imitate Jesus and also the apostles. If we are commanded to imitate Jesus in what He loves, are we then not also to imitate Him by hating what He hates? After all, if you argument is that we are not perfect, and that is the reason to not imitate Him, then that would go for everything, not just the things you do not prefer.” -I never read in the Gospel where Jesus hated the prostitute or tax collector. e did say thinnngs were sin, but he also showed grace an compassion to the woen caught in… Read more »
The problem is you are trying to start from a neutral middle ground position that does not actually exist.
For some that doesn`t exist-or they just refuse to listen to it….
One cannot do battle against an ally (aggressively vilifying those who want to make abortion illegal now) and expect them to consider you as one.
If, for example, a British soldier intentionally raked an American unit with fire, that would not be considered the act of an ally. Such acts lend credence to the true loyalties of the person.
In some sense, anti-abortionists (and not true pro lifers) would never see anyone as an ally who does not agree with them 100%, which is a problem.
Tony,
Being an ally is not about agreeing 100%. It is about having shared principles, and chief among those is the identity of the enemy.
In this case the enemy is murder.
Failure to comprehend and assimilate that principle renders you impotent as an ally, and places you in the position of giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
How does wanting to help women have choices aiding the enemy? How is refusing to lie about an abortion doctor or planned parenthood aiding the enemy?how is being honest about facts aiding the enemy? That is simply honesty and integrity…
This is my problem with Tony’s approach. I would find it much easier to think he was simply taking a different method toward achieving the same goal were it not for his defense of abortionists and his criticism of people whose beliefs he could reasonably be expected to support.
If you are talking about groups like CMP, I will not support someone who lies and twists information. Nobody should. Should you honestly support someone who lied just because they have the same general belief as you?
Actually I have-just because you want to deamonize a balanced approach doesn’t mean I haven’t advocated it….
The record shows pretty clearly that Tony is the one who came in demonizing Wilson, and also anyone who would “sweep abortion under the rug” by trying to make it illegal. Tony needs to savor the taste of his own words for awhile. As far as a balanced approach of making abortion illegal, while supporting the truly needy through the Church, it is hilarious to watch Tony suggest that I have ever demonized such a thing. Of course he can’t quote me doing any such thing. He seems to be just lashing out in random fits of anger at this… Read more »
“The record shows pretty clearly that Tony is the one who came in demonizing Wilson, and also anyone who would “sweep abortion under the rug” by trying to make it illegal. Tony needs to savor the taste of his own words for awhile.” -I have pointed out what Doug is writing is wrong. I have disagreed with his ideas. I have never called him a terrible person, I have never called him evil or a monster. And again, you need to actually read what I write instead of inferring. I have written that just making abortion illegal WITHOUT dealing with… Read more »
Let’s flip that argument-how does it sound when the mom hears “abortion is murder”, when they want to keep that child but do not have the financial recources or support to do so, and those who claim “pro-life” do not lift a finger to help?
Before that question becomes useful to answer, can you point out some real-life circumstances in which women find themselves, where there are pro-life people around who refuse lift a finger to help?
I mean, if that ever really happens, then your question deserves an answer. But your question presupposes that it happens on a somewhat regular basis, and as yet, I’ve yet to see you back up your constant repetition that pro-life people do nothing to help mothers in difficult circumstances. My own experience is rather otherwise.
I have seen it way too often. And The fact that 3/4 of women who get abortions do so for economic reasons and a lack of support, if the church by and large were there to help, most women would not be getting abortions…
Tony, there has been confusion here over whether you support making abortion illegal. Assuming Roe were overturned and the legality of abortion were shifted back to the states (a big assumption, but bear with me), how would you vote today in a referendum that made abortion illegal over the whole nine months with exceptions only for life of the mother? What legislative restrictions would you accept immediately?
I would vote to make it illegal. May I ask you a question- if making abortion illegal is still a long way off, and considering many ministries and non profits that give options for women considering abortions are struggling, do you believe it t is helpful to fund these org.’s in the meantime so we can at least reduce the abortion rates, thus saving some lives?
Yes, of course, I support these organizations. I don’t know any Christian who doesn’t consider it an essential act of charity to support pro-life ministries. My own denomination has operated shelters, adoption agencies, maternity homes, and overall Catholic charities for years. I know that it is a rare city that does not have services for pregnant women run by evangelical churches. But, I do not believe that financial need is the only thing driving the demand for abortion. If it were, then nations with generous welfare benefits and maternity leave policies would have very low abortion rates. I agree that… Read more »
Mrs. Bean, Guardrails in S. CA are ubiquitous to the point of disappearing in the clutter. On high mountain roads where the short drop is only a few hundred feet they are a comfort and a reminder. Guard rails remind people of the danger to themselves and to their occupants. Good drivers hardly ever come in contact with a guardrail, but I for one have been still thankful for them. I am willing to argue that if a woman thought that committing infanticide would place her in great danger of having her life forfeit (for premeditated murder), that it might… Read more »
“Yes, of course, I support these organizations. I don’t know any Christian who doesn’t consider it an essential act of charity to support pro-life ministries. My own denomination has operated shelters, adoption agencies, maternity homes, and overall Catholic charities for years. I know that it is a rare city that does not have services for pregnant women run by evangelical churches.” -That is Good, and I am sure many believers, if given the option or knowing of their existance would gadly support and volunteer at these great organizations. Unfortunately with large lobby non-profits basically hogging the money (which is in… Read more »
Tony, my neighborhood has pregnancy help centers all over the place. Bus placards, bus bench banners, bill boards, yellow pages under both A and P. I will take your word for the state of affairs in NYC, but no literate person could live in Los Angeles and say honestly that they have never heard of a church or pro-life organization devoted to helping pregnant women. I disagree with you about wise use of donated money. Right now my top priority is making abortion illegal. If that day comes, the crisis pregnancy centers will be needed more than ever and my… Read more »
“I disagree with you about wise use of donated money. Right now my top priority is making abortion illegal. If that day comes, the crisis pregnancy centers will be needed more than ever and my support will be readjusted accordingly.” -And that idea is shared by many. And there are some places that crsis pregnancy centers and ministries are more widely available than other places (However, just having them there does not mean they are well funded or accessable, or that the advertisment is effective-if all the advertisment is on christian radio or publications, it won`t be as well known… Read more »
Hi Tony, you said: “The fact is, as I stated earlier, there has been a steady number of roughly 90,000 abortions per year. I am not happy about that, but it is much better than 1,000,000.” Obviously both numbers are far too high, but you are not taking into account the difference in populations. With just over one-tenth of the population we have, Canada’s abortion rate is not substantially lower. My point was that given Canada’s safety net, its abortion rate (not number of abortions) should be much lower than ours. The Guttmacher Institute estimates the percentage of abortions due… Read more »
“Obviously both numbers are far too high, but you are not taking into account the difference in populations. With just over one-tenth of the population we have, Canada’s abortion rate is not substantially lower. My point was that given Canada’s safety net, its abortion rate (not number of abortions) should be much lower than ours.” -first, as I said earlier, using the per capita statistics can be incredible hard to reliably determine. The stats you posted were 13-15% for canada and 17-19% per 1000. Not only is 13% compared to a 19% a big difference, but because these stats are… Read more »
Tony,
That argument is a straw man. The fact that ministries and non-profits exist and are funded only by those who are opposed to infanticide strains the credulity of any argument that they are not being supported. Regardless, the existence of any entity, ministry, etc in no way legitimizes murder.
Change the age of the victim to 1 year old and then make your argument regarding the morality of the act.
What organization does anyone need to invent to stop the murder of 1 year old children?
And those ministries are not well funded and many don’t even know they exist. In NYC, where I use to work, the general populace is not aware of the many ministries and orginizations available to help. Even some in churches don’t even know of their existence. Now for your example of the one year old, the major difference in the mind of a pro lifer is that there is debate over when that fetus gains conciousness or personhood whereas a one year old does show conciousness and personhood. The fact that since roe pro choice vs pro life has been… Read more »
You keep repeating the same types of ideas as if they have some moral effect upon the action. Consciousnesses, person-hood, and debate seem to be your current goal posts. Consciousness? Please demonstrate how it is justifiable to murder an unconscious person? Person-hood? God says that He made us and knows us before we know ourselves. Man does not make that decision; God has. God has specified the due process and justification for homicide. Voting for whether that human being is “wanted” is excluded. This fact rules out debate as valid in any manner. You are reluctant to accept the definition… Read more »
You completely proved my point friend. You (as I do) believe God has made that baby. You (as I do) believe that verse in the psalms. The pro-choice side does not believe in the personhood of that fetus. Science, at this point, can not determine when conciousness happens in the development of the child. Many who are pro-choice do not believe in judeo-christian values. Both sides are talking about two completely different isues, and have been since Roe v. Wade. And the result is clear-since Roe, there has been basically a 50/50 split between those who are pro-life and pro-choice.… Read more »
When you cede the language and definitions, you cede the battle-space.
I do not use “pro-choice” as a legitimate term. It is murder, pure and simple. If that turns stomachs, so be it. Those who support that position are pro-murder, THAT is what they are choosing.
I have no common ground with murderers. Call it what it is.
And again, you proved my point….With that attitude, NOTHING CHANGES…..
Part of that “80%” on the pro-coice side are trying to make the amount of pregnancys inversely porportional to the amoumt of sex had, reducing abortions would just be a side effect.
I think you may have some typos in that comment-explain what you mean please
some people want the scenario P=C/S (P is pregnancy, C is contraceptives, S is sex). These people are not trying to reduce abortions.
First, I guess you are against the pil, condoms, etc.
Second, that is a pretty glib to assume those who do not hold to judeo-christian values should be expected to follow judeo-christian values.
Second, using multiple contraceptives (such as the pill and a condom) actually reduce the chance of an unplanned pregnancy incredibly (which is one of the reasons abortion rates have gone down steadily and signifigantly since the mid 90`s).
“using multiple contraceptives (such as the pill and a condom) actually reduce the chance of an unplanned pregnancy incredibly (which is one of the reasons abortion rates have gone down steadily and signifigantly since the mid 90`s).”
Sure, but the P=C/S formula is inherently flawed. Saying women should not get pregnant from having sex is not the same as wanting to reduce abortions.
So, just to clarify-and correct me if I am wrong-women on the pro choice side don’t really want abortions reduced because they are sluts who insist on having sex-is that what you are saying?
I don’t think that is what he is saying. I think he is saying that a goal of many progressives/feminists is to discourage pregnancy across the board. One problem with contraception is that it does completely divorce sexual expression from its inherent reproductive function. It is possible for Christians to see this as a potential problem without seeing sexually active women as sluts.
First, I don`t think that is what he was saying.
Second, when talking about progressives/feminists, seeing that both movements are a massive arching spectrum that encompasses many different views and agenda`s, it is not truthful to lump them all into one group. We can say the same about christianity.
Third, sex is not purely a reproductive function, and pragmatically, demanding an unbeliever to subscribe to a religious belief when they are not religious is probably not a great tactic to arguing against abortion.
I think that there is a large and significant percentage of men and women who want to be able to enjoy fornication without the consequences. Infanticide, for this segment, is simply one of the costs of “doing business”.
so basically anyone who is not a Christian is a whore…… That simplistic notion ignores the fact that many women who get abortions already have children (whether single moms or women who are married) who can not afford a child. It also ignores the fact that according to the bible, we need to be converted because we are sinners, which means before Christ we don’t follow god’s commands. So, you are essentially demanding unsaved people to live like believers, even though they do not accept God and His word, have not been saved and do not have the Holy Spirit… Read more »
Tony,
Is murder, rape or robbery wrong?
If so, why?
The reason murder, rape and robbery are illegal is not because of Jude’s-Christian values. For sure, for a Christian they are sin-but sin is not the reason they are illegal in the industrialized world…
Oh, okay.
So if we passed a law that makes them not illegal, then they are not wrong?
You issed or ignored the point. Legality is different from morality. There are many things that are morally wrong but legal, just like there are many things that are illegal but not a moral issue in and of themselves.
The reason that murder, theft, etc., are illegal is not because the Bible says so. There are many athiests who believe murder, theft, etc., is wrong, just like man other religions consider these things wrong.
I did not ask what you (or anybody else) believe. I asked if it is wrong.
You know, objective reality.
Is murder wrong, and condemned by God, regardless of the time, place, or the existence of any human witnesses.
A simple yes or no will suffice.
Answer my questin first friend- Are laws regarding murder, theft, etc., based soley on God`s Word?
A simple yes or no answer will be acceptable-though I would love to read the explaination….
“Are laws regarding murder, theft, etc., based soley on God`s Word?” If by solely, you mean that nothing else compliments His Word, then of course there are subordinate laws. (Authentic law parallels God’s declarations.) If by solely you mean without God, then no, nothing has any meaning. The reason for any government to exist is to echo God’s declaration of right and wrong and to execute His wrath upon those who do evil: “…rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is… Read more »
So, with all this, you have stated (in summery) that: -God workd through human government -Governments should rule rightiously -If a government does not, it is in rebellion (just like all of humanity and -God`s Word superseeds human optinion. Yet, you have not clerly answered- -That the Bible is not the reason unbelievers say murder is wrong -Why we don`t have laws that condem people who have sex before marriage to death, -why a nation that is not christian would follow God`s law, much less base their laws on the Bible, or seek to follow it. or -why “God said… Read more »
Tony, I will try to answer your questions. 1. “God worked through human government.” Not only does He work through human government, it is expressly the “ordinance” or construct that He has created and appointed to execute His wrath against evil and to provide for general order in society. Said government is either trending towards or away from subordination to King Jesus, either in obedience or rebellion. He uses them for His purposes whether they realize it or not. For example: ” Assyria, the rod of My anger; the staff in their hands is My fury! Against a godless nation… Read more »
“Let’s say that unbelievers say that there really is no such thing as gravity, and instead, it is just suction from a turtles mouth inhaling holding us all to the ground ;)” -So, you are compareing God`s Word, which we accept by faith, and there is no Difinitive “proof” it is from God, to gravity, which we can see and study the tangible effects…….. “Well here is one reason:” -so you give one example that works while forgetting all the other instances where it didn`t and the fact there is no comparable in the NT. You have clearly shown (here… Read more »
Well Tony, your use of words obviously differs from how God defines things. You say we lack “Definitive proof” that it is from God. God says that faith is both substantial and evidential of what is not tangible.”: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” God also says that the Word of God is self-authenticating: “And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention…” The author of the OT is the same Person Who authored the NT: like Jesus says: “Then I said,… Read more »
With all that, you did not definitively prove the existence of God.
Now, I am a born again believer. I have no doubt God exists and accept the bible as the authoritative Word of God.
But I will also admit that God is outside the realm that can be quantified, examined or studied. No believer can definitively prove gods existence just like no athiest can definitively prove that God does not exist.
And all that does not prove that a sovereign nation should be expected to make laws according to the bible.
“-So, you are compareing God`s Word, which we accept by faith, and there is no Difinitive “proof” it is from God, to gravity, which we can see and study the tangible effects……..”
So you don’t know if Jesus rose from the dead? It’s possible that chtistisns are just delusional?
Can you prove without a doubt that it happened?
God blesses Christians for having faith. If we had scientific proof of the Resurrection, it would not be a question of faith but of a factual certainty.
And it seems God is more concerned about believers living the faith than proving it…
I have reason to believe that it happened, my point is that you’re buying into the atheist position that all gods are equaly without evidence.
How on earth, from my comments, did you get athiest position.
Are you saying that if one is honest and say “There is no definitive proof for or against the existance of God, which makes belief ultimately faith (albeit a reasonable faith)” you are buying into athiest propaganda?
That is the argument used against believing in God.
So you are stating we should be deceptive just because an athiest says something that is true-especially when stating the truth does not lead anyone away or to God?
It is not deceptive to not grant atheistic presupositions.
But it’s not a presupposition……..
The universe is good evidence for the existance of God. To agree with the atheist that there is no proof is to deny this.
Evidence is not proof. Evidence can lead someone to a conclusion-proof means there is no question…..
Which is why the atheist will say there is no evidence for God, and that they are just being reasonable by not having faith.
First off, evidence is not proof. There is a ton of evidence for the existence of God, just like there is evidence for there being no God. Evidence and proof are different. Second, it cuts both ways-athiest, just like Christians, can not prove with out a shadow of a doubt that God does not exist.
The problem is that your statement ‘We don’t have definitive proof for the existance of God’ gives away more than you intend it to. The inevitable reply will be to ask why you expect someone to beleive in God without proof, why not be readonable and say there is no God.
First, you ignored what I said about the difference between evidence and proof. As I said, there is plenty of strong evidence of the existence of God, the bible, Jesus, etc. but that evidence is not proof. Second, how many people come to Jesus because they were given proof? Many people’s reasons for rejecting God is not intellectual, but personal. As well, one of the greatest evidences of this God is the message of Christ embodied in the life of the believer. Third, the athiest is giving up just as much. Showing that there is no proof that God does… Read more »
I don’t think you need the guidance of the Holy Spirit to understand that dismembering a child is wrong. I would not expect an unsaved person to go to church, to give money to missions, or to pray for guidance in their daily lives. I wouldn’t expect them to accept the moral teachings of The Sermon on the Mount (though many do). But I certainly expect unsaved people to tell the truth, to refrain from theft and murder, and to see the moral problem with delivering a baby half-way, stabbing the back of its head with scissors, and sucking out… Read more »
Then again, you are talking about people who debate the personhood of the fetus. If someone truely believes that personhood or conciousness is not present in the early term of the pregnancy, of course they won`t believe it is murder.
And for the unsaved telling the truth, refraining from theft, murder, etc., Believers have a tough time doing it…….don`t expect the unsaved to do something that christians have trouble with….
The example I gave was of a late term, dilation and extraction abortion. Again, I don’t believe that any person needs Christian or any religious belief to understand that torturing and killing a baby who could possibly live outside the uterus is a great evil. A fact that always intrigues me is the low percentage of people in prison who identify as atheist. There is zero evidence to suggest that non-Christians or the unsaved are likelier to commit thefts and murders. Some people believe that natural selection favors the pro-social–that evolution has hard-wired into us an ethical instinct that makes… Read more »
“I invite my unsaved friends over without worrying that they will steal my spoons.”
Watchout for the Sackville Bagginses. :-)
My point is that you are reducing humanity, and human experience in incredibly simplistic terms.
How so exactly?
This spicific thread has been about the belief that God`s law is and should be the basis of a nations law, whether that nation believes in the Word of God or not. In your response you stated that esseentially, people know right from wrong. The Bibe states that people do have a general sense of right and wrong, but that they also justify their actions. C.S. Lewis has great insight on this fact. Tha is why people can do aweful acts and feel justified in doing it. That is also why christians, who should know better, can also commit horrible… Read more »
That is not exactly what I said. I believe that almost all people recognize right from wrong when it comes to the major sins (or crimes or acts of antisocial behavior depending on how you choose to word them. In my post I referred to theft, murder, and adultery. A person need not believe in God to realize, on a purely naturalistic level, that theft, murder, and adultery cause serious harm to others and are therefore wrong. I still maintain that it is a rare adult who, whatever his religious beliefs, goes through life murdering and stealing. These are not… Read more »
Thanks for the clarification. I am totally on track with all that you are saying and agree. First though, in regards to this specific thread, which has been about certian christians believing that God commands us to force nations which are not christian to hold to christian law, what you are saying is not what they are saying. Second, in regards to the specific abortion comments, not only is the personhood of that fetus still very much debated, As well, many who are pro-choice (even many christians) hold that view for reasons such as “Abortion will never go away so… Read more »
“Hopefully this gives more carification as to why I strongly support putting recources and doing things now to reduce abortion rates”
No one has argued against this.
Then why for the past two weeks people have been basically calling me an pro-choicer and getting angry for saying that exact thing? If nobody disagreed with what you quoted (which is essentially been what I have been saying from the beginning), why has there been such venom by some?
Because you keep bringing up the personhood debate. I think you are trying to make a good piont but you’re mixing it with pro choice talking points.
So, one is not allowed to point out why someone may be pro-choice and to be honest and admit when they make a valid point and if you do, well, you are the enemy too…..
No wonder the pro-life/pro-choice percentages have not changed in 40 years….
It should be clear that several of us here don’t accept the validity of the ‘not a person’ argument. You don’t need to convince us of that in order for us to follow Jesus’ commands regarding widows and orphans; or loving our neighbors and enemies.
The point in bringing up that point has never been to prove it but to mainly point out that both sides are talking about different issues, which only exasperates the argument, which is why there has been no headway in that regard for over 40 years.
I have not seen venom directed at you. I have seen confusion and a little frustration, and I will explain why. You deny being a pro-choicer, and I accept that. But you use the talking points that most people have come to associate with pro-choicers, some of whom say pretty things about stopping abortion but are unwilling to actually make it illegal. I take your word for it that you do not agree with them. But too often you have sounded as if you agree with them. These are examples of arguments you have suggested that most people here have… Read more »
“I have not seen venom directed at you. I have seen confusion and a little frustration, and I will explain why. You deny being a pro-choicer, and I accept that. But you use the talking points that most people have come to associate with pro-choicers, some of whom say pretty things about stopping abortion but are unwilling to actually make it illegal. I take your word for it that you do not agree with them. But too often you have sounded as if you agree with ” -you have been great jellybean. You have been thoughtful and though we disagree… Read more »
I understand why you support using resources to prevent abortion. I disagree with you that this is the most valuable approach. But there is a need for both avenues, so that is okay. I disagree with you that abortion providers are interested in reducing abortion. Why on earth would they be? If I am a plastic surgeon fixing people’s noses to earn my daily living, why would I want to see a reduction in noses that need to be fixed? I think that many pro-choicers are indifferent to the idea of reducing abortions. If they were, why are they so… Read more »
When you mentined that you do`t understand why people wouldn`t want the government to make the decision in the case of abortion, well, think of many of the people who comment on this site. Conservatives believe in limited government. They don`t believe that the government can be trusted to make decisions regarding education, buisness, health, etc. I totally get why many don`t believe its the governments place to decide abortions, especially when they don`t have any responsibility. For your point on the unborn child is a living being-again, that does not determine conciousness or personhood. Even the majority of pro-choicers… Read more »
First, to clarify, I made an exception for the life of the mother. That means that I support doing whatever is necessary to save her life even if the baby dies as a side effect of treatment. When I talk about the life of the mother, I am not talking about her state of mind or her future futility. I mean that without a particular course of action she will die. I am sure that crisis pregnancy centers have helped many women decide not to abort their pregnancies. I do not think that such centers or ministries have played the… Read more »
“I am sure that crisis pregnancy centers have helped many women decide not to abort their pregnancies. I do not think that such centers or ministries have played the main role in driving down the abortion rate, and I do not think they are likely to. I believe that the lower surgical abortion rate is due to: (1) access to effective contraception (2) a documented drop in the number of teens having sex (3) the morning after pill (which, I realize, acts as an early abortion by preventing implantation, but which is not included in abortion statistics, and (4) a… Read more »
“That simplistic notion ignores the fact that many women who get abortions already have children (whether single moms or women who are married) who can not afford a child.”
Then why not kill the child that has alredy been born?
I think you know the answer to that question….
If it makes sense to kill an unborn child for economic reasons, it also makes sense to kill a child already born.
But the pro-choice side acknoledges the life in the womb, but does noot believe there is personhood or conciousness.
Why should we agree with them?
Nobody needs to agree..but it helps to actually lower abortion rates now, and to show compassion
Some of them, yes.
what percentage? 1%? 40%? 80%?
maybe 10%, but theres also the 40% cheering for them.
Again, major assumption…….and not a correct one.
On what do you base your assumption that 80% of the pro choice crowd want to decrease abortion rates?
There have been numerous surveys and studies the state that fact.
Considering that many women personally would never choose an abortion but do not trust the government in making that decision for a woman is a big part of that group.
Sluts like having sex.
They like it A LOT.
Being pregnant makes it nearly impossible to find guys to have sex with for several months.
And having to take care of a child for 18 years means a whole lot less sex in the future.
So, yeah – women on the pro choice side don’t really want abortions reduced because they are sluts who insist on having sex
Do you have anything to back that up other than subjective judgements?
Not really, no. It may be that women who have lots of sex with different men do so because they actually hate having sex. I don’t know for sure and shouldn’t speculate. It may be that being visibly pregnant makes it much easier, not much harder, to attract male sex partners. I personally find the idea of having sex with a woman who’s pregnant by another man revolting, but I’m probably just funny that way. And it may be that raising a kid for 18 years takes up hardly any of a woman’s time or labor, and won’t interfere at… Read more »
Well, thanks for being honest and stating you are talking out of your rear and don`t have much to add to the discussion….
But practically contraceptives reduces abortion rates. This has been born out in the data.
Naturally, if you don’t get pregnant you can’t kill your children.
Which is the point…..
So you defend a womens right to sexual promiscuity?
Do you suppot legeslation in the States to make sex outside of marriage illegal?
In principle yes.
I figured out the problem…..
That’s encourageing.
Not really-that means there is a tons more work to do …..
Well we already knew that.
apperantly you don`t friend…….
Now you’re being presumptuous.
Geez….don`t you now when someone is kidding…….lol
not always.
Well, apperently we both have the same problem…..
Excuse me Tony, but your presupposition is showing: “that is a pretty glib to assume those who do not hold to judeo-christian values should be expected to follow judeo-christian values.”
Really.
Turn it around and see if it works:
“that is a pretty glib to assume those who hold to judeo-christian values should be expected to follow non-judeo-christian values.”
Such as, “but I really cannot, because of my conscience, bake you a cake for that purpose”.
So, do you believe that a non Christian, someone who does not follow God,mother Bible, etc., should be forced,-in a country that is predominately non-Christian, for follow the God of the Bible? Would you be willing to follow the commands of Allah if the US were predominantly Muslim?
Allah is not God. The Lord God, Jesus Christ, the King of kings says this: Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” God also says: “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” Simple addition: “All authority in heaven and earth”, plus “now he… Read more »
So you believe that one should not base a countries laws on one groups scriptureal or religious beliefs when that group is a minority and that someone who does not believe a particular religion should not be forced to act as though they do through government intervention……….interesting….
One of these days you’ll have to face the fact that God doesn’t run the universe as a democracy.
He doesn`t run it as a theocracy either…
Jesus is Lord, over everything, right now.
And 2 Corinthians 2:2 says that Satan is the God of this world…..
But you may have a point, because scripture continually shows God seeking to make nations that make laws that are according to His will and not conversion……
“And 2 Corinthians 2:2 says that Satan is the God of this world…..”
Than why did Jesus cast out demons?
Jesus said His kingdom is not of this world….are you calling Jesus a liar?
I’m saying that this world isn’t satans ‘safe zone’, while God has let satan loose on the world, the world belongs to God.
Which doesn`t prove that the Bible states that He commands us to change societies through theocracies….
We don’t need to establish a theocracy because Jesus is Lord and therefore there is already theocracy.
Which, again, does not give any evidence that God command his church to go and, through legeslation and culture wars, make nations christians even if the majority of the citizens are not christian….
I think He ran Israel as a theocracy back in the day.
And how did that go……
As God said it would.
And how did God say it would go?
The Judge of the whole earth, plus no one else, is a Majority. Humans do not possess the authority to judge the Word of God. The Word of God judges us.
I would encourage you to read Lex Rex by Samuel Rutherford
Yes I agree with that 100%. But nowhere are we called to commanded to legeslate obedience but to proclaim the Gospel.
“But nowhere are we called to commanded to legislate obedience but to proclaim the Gospel.” Really? What do you think that The Gospel includes? Why do you think that the shepherds tending their flocks at the birth of Christ were afraid when the “host” of God appeared? (This may seem like an off-subject question, but it reveals a lot regarding what you think regarding what happened there.) How about lets work this out a little: 1. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus… Read more »
You also fail to mention: -In the OT (and throughout history), basing the nations laws solely on God`s Word fails miserbly and never brings about what God deires -Jesus says My kingdom is not of this world -When Jesus faced trial, He did not appeal, which is the most unjust act ever comitted -Nowhere in the NT are we called or commanded to change a society through power or legeslation -The only time there was any appeal to the government in the NT by the apostles, it was Paul in Acts, and even he doesn`t envoke God`s law, but on… Read more »
Tony,
It is hard to continue the discussion when you do not engage with the arguments that I propound. I think that to progress, it is better to interact with my reply to you and then after that we can move forward.
I do not know if you are trying to keep moving the goalpost, but that does not keep the discussion on track.
The context is what God says.
It is actually completely on point-this discussion has centered on “should or do nations base their laws solely on God`s law, even if that nation is not christian”. You have shared many OT verses, and I have shared other verses that go against your premise-
I can engage in an argument, but not with a person who is unwilling to debate or who dismisses the others arguments
As I mentioned in another reply, all of the bible is the Word of God. Every scriptural admonition given by Jesus was from the OT.
I will say that if someone taught you that somehow the OT is not authoritative (I am not speaking of things fulfilled by Christ), then they have misled you.
Your right, all the bible is the word of God. But we also know that God works in different ways in different dispensations. That is why we don’t follow David’s example to dash our enemies heads against the stones.
Again, if Gods will was for us to change societies through legeslation, laws and cultural wars, don’t you think Jesus or the apostles would have mentioned something about it?
Tony, Tony Tony, How silly. Mom, talking to Dad: “Honey, now that Tommy is 5 years old he is really eating us out of house and home, and what with out current low income…well I think you need to take him down to the euthanasia clinic and have him killed. That way there will be more for all of us. We can just call it a retrograde abortion.” And speaking of Dad in your story… (sound of crickets)… Your argument has zero legitimacy by suggesting that murder is a moral solution to difficult financial circumstances. Those who claim that “pro-life”… Read more »
You obviously knew that wasn’t my point. How does it help when we use this kind of language when the ONLY reason this woman is getting an aborton is for financial reasons and no support system. How often do most churches reach out to the girl who is pregnancy without judgement? Not often, in my experience, and fro. The sounds of many here, I doubt they do either. And as for adoption and crisis pregnancy centers, there is nowhere near enough, and many are working on shoe string budgets. How is that readily available. And for adoption, why are so… Read more »
“…the ONLY reason this woman is getting an abortion is for financial reasons and no support system.”
That kind sir is the south-bound emission of a north-bound horse.
They are doing it for their convenience, pure and simple, and whether it is because they are naive and foolish, or evil and selfish, it is murder.
“act is American kids are not wanted, and many Christians who could adopt choose not to.”
Speak for yourself. That is not a fact for my family.
“They are doing it for their convenience, pure and simple, and whether it is because they are naive and foolish, or evil and selfish, it is murder.”
-Apperently you have never bothered to spend time with many women contemplating aan abortion……..
“Speak for yourself. That is not a fact for my family.”
-If that is in fact true and you have adopted a kid in the country you lived in, thats AMAZING. Unfortunately, that is not true in most cases……
Tony,
Your statement of “that is not true in most cases” has no intellectual integrity.
Neither you nor I know most or many of anyone or anything.
The fact is many don’t adopt in the states, and when they do they are adopting from overseas. That is fact. That can be demonstrably proven.
Thanks again for the clarity
Glad I could help friend….
You’ve just described yourself and fellow SJWs perfectly.
Though I am not a “social justice warrior” as you believe (though that term is so general, it is meaningless), many who believe in social justice don’t blindly follow a political idealology or blatantly distort and twist scripture like Doug…
And btw…you classify me as a social justice warrior when by only comments on this post was in regards to Doug twisting scripture to say it rejects raising the minimum wage when the bible says nothing about the minimum wage, or political idealology, at all…….funny…….
You’ve said plenty to earn your SJW label.
I’ll ask then-what in your mind is a social justice warrior? What have I said that marks me a “sjw”?
Is there a scriptural truth that we should tolerate abortion until no one wants one any more? Who knew?
Is it possible that this sort of enemy, either/or mentality is the reason why it is so difficult to deal with this abortion issue? Is it possible that the “you don’t agre 100%with me so you are an enemy” kind of thinking is the reason that there is a 50/50 split between those who are pro-choice and those who are pro-life?
Tony wrote:
….said the guy who thinks abortion should remain legal.
It would help if you quoted what I actually said instead of selectively twisting words. I NEVER said I want abortion to remain legal. I said we should put recources in lowering the abortion rates now, and that abortion becoming illegal is still a long way off.
It`s funny, you don`t actually answer my critique just throw a character assasination………interesting…
Tony has repeatedly scolded anyone who would dare to make abortion illegal. Tony is so aggressive in his denouncements that he declares that anyone who seeks to make abortion illegal is just an anti-abortionist and not even pro-life. Tony argues that making abortion illegal is just, “sweeping abortion under the rug so you don`t have to see it”. Tony argues that science can’t say when consciousness begins, and that all we have are our faith commitments, and we can’t use those to argue for making abortion illegal. Tony said: “we should not call or even imply that PP [Planned Parenthood]… Read more »
“Tony has repeatedly scolded anyone who would dare to make abortion illegal. Tony is so aggressive in his denouncements that he declares that anyone who seeks to make abortion illegal is just an anti-abortionist and not even pro-life.” -You have quite the selective memory. Again, I never said that I am against anyone who wants to fight to make abortion ilegal. I HAVE stated that for every dollar we give to a pro-life lobby group, we should give a dollar for inistries, programs and crisis pregnancy centers that are doing something NOW to lower abortions and give women options. I… Read more »
Tony is trying to backpedal from his rhetoric now. He expressly denounced Wilson as not even being pro-life simply because Wilson would actually seek to have abortion made illegal. Those who seek to make abortion illegal now are castigated by Tony as merely “anti-abortion”, and not pro-life. Tony thinks making abortion illegal now would be a setback, and he opposes such a move using most of the same reasoning as abortionists. Tony has set himself as an opponent to anyone who would make abortion illegal now. Thus he believes that abortion should remain legal for the foreseeable future.
There is no back peddling there. You stated I said that “anyone who seeks to make abortion illegal and not help lower abortion rates now is just an anti-abortionist and not pro-life”, which is false. Do I believe Doug is just an anti-abortionist and not pro-life-yes. Big difference there, unless you believe Doug is the totality of the “pro-life”movement. “Tony thinks making abortion illegal now would be a setback, and he opposes such a move using most of the same reasoning as abortionists. Tony has set himself as an opponent to anyone who would make abortion illegal now. Thus he… Read more »
I’m glad to see that Tony wants to distance himself from his prior rhetoric. Does this mean he will stop attacking and denouncing those who want to see abortion immediately made illegal, or will he keep suggesting that such arguments are counterproductive and that we should leave abortion legal for now?
It would help if you actually read what I wrote and not cherry pick
Here’s another statement from Tony’s prior rhetoric: So, we can put our energies on forcing a law that will not end abortions, or we can work at giving options to moms who are contemplating abortions and creating a culture that embraces ALL life. Notice that Tony doesn’t accept that we can do both of these. He says we can do one or the other, and he tells us which one we should do. He backpedals now, but he certainly wasn’t saying we should split our efforts 50/50. Tony denounced those who would try to make abortion illegal now. He says… Read more »
Interesting that you pull one selected quote while ignoreing all the other places where I have said that I want abortion to be illegal, that in the best case senario it will take 10 years for that to happen, that I don’t want to sit on my hands while we can do something practical NOW. I have also said I am against those who just push to make abortion illegal without any effort to help women here and now. That is a small group. I am not sure why that is so terrible? And when Doug says that a verse… Read more »
Being consistent is the last thing that I would accuse Tony of. He bounces from rail to rail in his defense of abortionists, and his claim to be pro-life. He scorns those who he pre-judges to not be doing enough to change the culture of abortion, while he employs all of the abortionist talking points to reject making abortion illegal now. Sure, he claims to be pro-life, and that he would some day want to see abortion made illegal, but with friends like him, who needs enemies? By the way, Wilson never said the verse from Proverbs was talking about… Read more »
Just because you read into peoples comments to attack someone does not mean I have not been consistant. Take everything I have written in these posts, I have been incredibly consistant.
And for your defense of Doug-the title of the post is “A BIBLICAL CASE AGAINST THE MINIMUM WAGE”. You usually don`t write a title like that when you are using a verse as a jumping off point into a subject that the bible is silent on….
I gave up arguing this with you a couple of weeks ago because I saw no prospect of ever changing your mind. But, against my better judgment, I have to say that you seem to have little concept of how abortion strikes the average person here. Not as a regrettable necessity, not as a terrible deed that some women have no means to avoid, not as an opportunity for a philosophical debate about the nature of consciousness–but as a cold-blooded killing of someone whose right to life is as absolute as yours is or mine. When a person realizes that… Read more »
Excellent response to Tony. Well said.
Thank you.
While jillybean powerfully exposes Tony’s very apparent lack of regard for the immediate loss of the lives of the unborn, after some further consideration, I would offer a caution about the analogy to slavery in the South. jillybean wrote: If I had said, “Yes, I think slavery is wrong but for every dollar you spend to free the slaves, you also need to collect a dollar to compensate the slave owners,” would you have really believed I saw slavery as a great moral evil? If you were collecting money to help battered children, and I said you also have to… Read more »
Katecho, I’m with you most of the way on most things, and appreciate your aptitude at explaining the case. If you see a “however” coming you are correct; However, I object to your regular mischaracterization of the civil war as “Lincoln’s violent abolition of slavery”, as if abolition had been the point from Lincoln’s perspective from the start. You know it was not. On the other hand perpetuation of slavery was the point for secessionists, and the bloody affair back-fired on them, if that was what you meant, but I don’t gather that is what you meant. But this really… Read more »
JohnM wrote: However, I object to your regular mischaracterization of the civil war as “Lincoln’s violent abolition of slavery”, as if abolition had been the point from Lincoln’s perspective from the start. You know it was not. Yes, I am aware that Lincoln did not start out as an abolitionist, and he was very clear that if he could keep the union together without ending slavery, he would do it. I agree that abolishing slavery was not his primary goal, and I don’t believe that I have suggested or characterized the war as if it was his main goal. However,… Read more »
Off-topic, but do you think Doug will post today about Trump’s abortion remarks? Methinks that the coordinated pro-life response is more #NeverTrump than anything.
“I gave up arguing this with you a couple of weeks ago because I saw no prospect of ever changing your mind. ” -your trying to change my mind from being pro-life to what exactly? “I have to say that you seem to have little concept of how abortion strikes the average person here. Not as a regrettable necessity, not as a terrible deed that some women have no means to avoid, not as an opportunity for a philosophical debate about the nature of consciousness–but as a cold-blooded killing of someone whose right to life is as absolute as yours… Read more »
Price controls on labor (min wage), price controls on currency (fed funds rate), price controls on healthcare (ACA)…land of the free…home of the brave
(Sacred Cow warning)
Fraud is the US financial system:
http://tinyurl.com/jkyl7lk
http://tinyurl.com/hlpy6qd
http://tinyurl.com/zu75smv
Written almost as well as Walter Williams….thank you!
I can live with the biased opinions and misinformation (12 states have raised the minimum wage since 2012 and most experienced growth), and the misconceptions that run rampant in some of these comments. However, Doug using a verse in proverbs as proof that God is against the minimum wage is like me using the verse in Genesis “Esau was a Harry man” and the verse in the prophets “Jacob I have loved and Esau I have hated ” to claim God hates body hair……..its proof texting at its best…
yup
Why dont they just set a minimum wage in Bangladesh, and fix the ills of the poor there?
Let’s unionize them too…that’ll do it!
No, that will not work because the evil rich people have conspired globally; the man is holding them down, doncha know.
The Gospel is their only hope; it is the work of God that saves, and saves completely, and it is the tide that raises all boats.
And Mark Twain: “Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre but they are more deadly in the long run.”
The ignorance is dumbfounding. There IS a minimum wage in Bangladesh. It is quite low and still often cheated upon by employers who don’t care anything about their workers. In 2014 there were massive strikes and protests across the industry in order to attempt to raise the minimum wage for garment workers, and they were successful in forcing the industry to raise it to $68/month, a 70% increase over the previous wage but still ridiculously low. There is a national minimum wage for all workers too, but it is ridiculously low. And workers ARE trying to unionize themselves in Bangladesh.… Read more »
If one is gullible enough to believe the BLS, we currently enjoy an unemployment rate below 5%. Of course an overwhelming majority of jobs created since the financial crisis have been in retail and service (bartenders, restaurants, etc). In other words, there has been a shift to low wage work, completely offsetting the outlandish income gains of CEOs and banker friends of the government. But we are in a recovery, just look at the unemployment numbers!, says Obama. Meanwhile the people are howling about wage stagnation because of the wash of low-end jobs. Eager to capitalize on the felt needs… Read more »
I haven’t read all the comments so uncertain if this link posted but I think it is worth a read.
10 Things You Should Know About the Minimum Wage Debate. By Joe Carter.
I think point 1 is probably the most important, at least for where the debate starts.
Nice post. Very informative. Here’s a sample: 4. The primary argument against minimum wage increases is that it discriminates against those who have low-skills. Milton Friedman once described the minimum wage as a requirement that “employers must discriminate against people who have low skills.” As Anthony Davies explains, “the minimum wage prevents some of the least skilled, least educated, and least experienced workers from participating in the labor market because it discourages employers from taking a chance by hiring them. In other words, workers compete for jobs on the basis of education, skill, experience, and price. Of these factors, the… Read more »
Pastor Wilson, I just noticed the line, “But that is a small price to pay for the additional power they will acquire in harassing, controlling, and destroying the small business owners who actually supply jobs to the poor.” That claim is completely false. Most small business owners actually support a higher minimum wage, because it gives them a competitive advantage against larger factory-like businesses. The more workers are paid, the more importance that the skill/experience/stability of individual workers and a human touch have in competition. Those businesses who most take advantage of workers making a low wage are those who… Read more »
Citing a poll of a few hundred businesses is not the same as an economic impact study. Also, if higher minimum wages are so advantageous to small business, why does the Fair Labor Standards Act exempt small businesses from paying the full minimum wage if their revenue is less than $500,000 per year? Let’s hear Jonathan’s explanation for that. This poll was produced by a group that advocates for higher minimum wages. They sampled businesses with 2 to 99 employees. Why didn’t they produce a chart that shows approval of higher minimum wage based on business size? Could it be… Read more »
That’s a great goalpost shift – we’re going from claiming that the minimum wage increase is going to decimate someone to claiming that they’re exempt? The poll was conducted by Lake Research Partners, a legitimate polling organization. “Could it be because the larger a business gets, the more they desire to close the door behind them by imposing barriers to entry?” Nope. Because if you’d bothered to look at the numbers, you’d see that 70% of the businesses polled had 2-10 employees. The small businessmen who oppose a minimum wage increase are there, but at only 35% of the total,… Read more »
Jonathan wrote:
But if higher minimum wage is really so good for small business, why would these family businesses be exempt from such a glorious and wonderful thing? Jonathan didn’t actually explain that.
The exemption for businesses under $500,000 in revenue is for the entire Fair Labor Standards Act, not any sort of specific exemption for minimum wage. Tiny businesses are exempt because they were considered a different case for the whole act in general, not because anyone actually made a logical case for why such businesses need to be exempt from that one particular part of the act. Though funny you tried to use a government regulation as some sort of proof for something being a good idea. :P I’ll just let that sit there for now. And I should point out… Read more »
Jonathan wrote: One logical reason for the exemption would be that the vast majority of businesses making less money than that who actually have non-family employees will be new businesses, and 90% of new businesses fail, and most of the benefits of paying employees more are based around the fact that you have less employee turnover and can put more resources into training them and improving their skills. A few years down the road, when/if the business has succeeded and revenues have grown and the advantages of having a stable workforce actually begin to be felt, you’ll almost certainly already… Read more »
No, I didn’t say that, I said that the FLSA exemption was for the entire FLSA and not minimum wage in particular. I pointed out the new business idea as one possible reason such an exemption could be logical, but did not ever say that was the reason the exemption was made. As I said clearly, because of the very low revenue limit on top of the interstate commerce limits that virtually any modern business would fail to be exempt. If you make phone calls to or from another state Send mail out of state Handle goods that have come… Read more »
It’s so reassuring when I see Jonathan write pages of material, and yet remain completely unable to answer why it is, if minimum wage is such a good thing for small business, that small businesses are exempt. He tried to suggest they are exempt just because they are “new” and not because they are small, but that explanation failed. He tried to dismiss the problem by saying that these small businesses are exempt from other things too, not just minimum wages (which is a complete red herring and a non-answer). So what does he do next? Well, he must finally… Read more »
Small businesses aren’t exempt from the minimum wage.
A tiny subset of businesses which include some (but not all or even most) of the very smallest businesses are exempt from ALL FLSA regulation. I’ve already explained why this was likely true. There’s no specific minimum wage exception, and even the incidental exemption that is there applies to very few businesses and is almost never used. You’re tilting at windmills now.
Jonathan wrote: The poll was conducted by Lake Research Partners, a legitimate polling organization. But the poll was apparently produced in part by a group called “Business for a Fair Minimum Wage”. One could be led to wonder if they would have published the results if they didn’t confirm the goal they were seeking. Is Jonathan aware that the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, which pushed for the minimum wage increase, then moved to exempt itself from paying the new wage? See the scathing LA Times editorial: It’s stunning that after leading the fight for a $15 citywide minimum… Read more »
The union leaders say the want that leverage because of the extra bargaining power it would give them. Really, they’re looking for a tool that would make businesses more likely to negotiate with the union than with non-union workers – in other words, purely selfish interests. Flash News Update! Labor union management makes a short-sighted and stupid decision that isn’t really in their workers’ best interest! Is that really your argument now? And I should note that even that argument is not universal. LACFL wanted to keep the loophole in order to gain a competitive edge in bargaining. SEIU-UHW specifically… Read more »
Jonathan wrote;
Part of Wilson’s point has been that these minimum wage laws are power plays for control, and are therefore fraudulent and ultimately manipulative and oppressive of the poor. Thus Wilson referenced Scripture condemning such things.
It seems that Jonathan is finally granting Wilson’s central point. Should we just thank Jonathan now?
Trying to twist things to mean the exact opposite again? I point out that someone trying to AVOID paying the minimum wage is failing to act in their workers’ best interest, and you try to claim I’m arguing that the minimum wage is not in their workers’ best interest? Pastor Wilson didn’t just say that “some” people who advocate for a minimum wage are wrong-headed. If he did it would be meaningless, because at least some of the advocates for everything, even the spread of the Gospel, have detrimental motivations, but that doesn’t change whether the action is right or… Read more »
Jonathan wrote: Pointing out that someone with negative motives is advocating against some workers receiving a minimum wage is the exact opposite of the point you want to make. I’m so grateful that no one has put Jonathan in charge of defining the points I want to make. However, I’ve also come to wonder if Jonathan is really capable of following an argument when it doesn’t adopt his own assumptions and biases. He simply takes it as a truth of nature that imposed minimum wage increases are a universal good for everyone. From there he is unable to track why… Read more »
Why is it that every time I show you that one of your arguments is factually wrong (like your claim that it must be large businesses trying to shut the doors when I then showed they were only a tiny % of the poll), you just ignore your false argument and move on to a different one?
Have you ever, in any argument, changed your mind on a position because you found out your facts were wrong? Or are the facts basically irrelevant to the position?
Jonathan loves his pet poll, but my question had to do with why they didn’t show if there was a correlation between support for minimum wage, and business size. Jonathan thinks that he can argue that they didn’t need to report such data because the support for minimum wage was evident in the final result, which was dominated by smaller businesses in the range they sampled. Apparently I’m not even allowed to ask questions that might reveal ulterior motives in the businesses sampled. If there is nothing to hide, they should provide that information. Why is this poll suspect? First,… Read more »
Because large businesses typically have larger margin. Everything else in your comment (except the survey at the bottom) has already been responded to. I think you’re just trying to repeat yourself in the hopes that people will believe that the debate hasn’t already been had and the issue already answered. On your link, I have NEVER said that a $15 minimum wage is a good idea universally – in fact, I’ve repeatedly said the opposite. $15 wages in a big city and $15 wages in a rural area with much lower cost of living are night and day different. I… Read more »
“Most small businesses owners actually support a high minimum wage….?”
So why aren’t they paying $15/HR now, for all of those awesome advantages?
Actions speak louder than skewed ” studies”.
And it would be even better for that generous small business owner if the minimum wage WAS NOT raised to $15/hr? As it stands, he now has an advantage over the big factories AND his stupid fellow competing small business owners who pay less than $15.
But he doesn’t have a big advantage over the big companies, because of the price gouging that occurs and the way beneficial laws have allowed bigbox businesses to purposely drive small businessmen out over the last 2 decades. That’s a long conversation for another thread though. But notice how big box businesses have thrived best when average wages are lowest. I find it interesting how many people here are making up their logic as they go in order to deny what the small businessmen themselves are actually saying. There’s a real clarity here that no amount of logic, polls, or… Read more »
It’s kind of funny, we have mansplalning on the internet, where is the poll-splaining?
“Here is what I think…” No it isn’t, polls clearly indicate that is not what you think at all. ;)
“Mansplaining” a combination of overconfidence and cluelessness.
It’s good for a few yucks anyway!????????
First off, MANY do pay higher than market wages now, and they’re quite regularly very successful. But many don’t. Because the gains of paying poverty wages (less money out of the pocket) are immediate, while the gains of higher wages (more stable, better-trained, better-producing employees) take much more time to be felt. As the regular financial crises show, many businessmen will grab for short-term gains even if the longer-term consequences are worse. It’s also part of an American mentality, where workers in general have become devalued and the quarterly bottom line, immediate profits, and current stock price has attained primary… Read more »
As I’ve read through some of the comments here and thought about the minimum wage issue some more, I’ve come to a conclusion. I agree with Doug, in theory, that in an free society, a minimum wage is bad. But we don’t live in a free society. Uncle Sam has tied the invisible hand behind the back of the economy and he’s now involved at every level. Any negative effects of a higher minimum wage will be blamed on a capitalism that just barely exists anymore, and more income redistribution programs will be waiting in the wings to “solve” the… Read more »
Minimum or “living” wage law is not inherently immoral, any more than other forms of oppression should be left to the market to decide. Like all sorts of legislation, it can be abused, but even God’s law can be abused as tyranny. “Other economic illiterates” include Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Europe, Hong Kong, UK, Japan, New Zealand… Over 90% of countries have minimum wage legislation, and the laws and outcomes are different in every case, because it’s always part of a bigger picture — especially when the economy is already made artificial through other legislation, such as welfare, or through… Read more »
Just found this today. Written by a self-confessed Libertarian, but data-rich. https://panampost.com/editor/2016/03/28/history-minimum-wage-harmed-blacks/
From CNN: “It’s the latest demonstration of how little Donald has thought about any of the serious issues facing this country,” Cruz said after taping an appearance on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live” Wednesday night. “I am pro-life. Being pro-life means standing and defending the unborn,” Cruz added. “But it also means defending moms. Defending women. And defending the incredible gift women have to bring life into the world. And Donald’s comments, they were unfortunate, they were wrong and I strongly disagree with it.” … The anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List framed Trump as a candidate who is new to… Read more »
And of course, Trump’s backing away from the position is disconcerting, but the fact that he would at least think or even say it is a positive and serves to shift the conversation.
The essay appears to assume a USA labor market and a good-faith society wide discussion of fair wages and how best to attain them. The assumptions miss the forest for the trees. A global labor market forces wages down to the global mean. The oligarchs doing this to Americans did not ask ‘our’ permission or seek ‘our’ input. They just did it and are doing it and will continue to do it until stopped by politics or war. It is my opinion, not backed by any numbers, that the magnitude of the globalization of labor dwarfs the pittances being discussed… Read more »
April fools!
Yes, it’s me, formerly known as BULL CONNOR WAS A HETEROSEXUAL. Nobody seemed to get what I was driving at, so I’m changing my name. But Caitlyn Wayne Gacy was just too weird and offputting, so I went with this.
The Sacramento Bee reports on California Governor, Jerry Brown, signing the new minimum wage bill: Brown, traveling to the state’s largest media market to sign the landmark bill, remained hesitant about the economic effect of raising the minimum wage, saying, “Economically, minimum wages may not make sense.” But he said work is “not just an economic equation,” calling labor “part of living in a moral community.” “Morally and socially and politically, they (minimum wages) make every sense because it binds the community together and makes sure that parents can take care of their kids in a much more satisfactory way,”… Read more »
There is no biblical principle, or argument here against the underlying principle of the minimum wage. The principle behind the minimum wage is that the laws and institutions With underguard the Capitalist market system should be made With the interests of society as a Whole in mind, and that the workers should be paid enough to survive, and that this is the interest of society. The silly argument of: You stand for the minimum wage and you deny being cruel? Why aren’t you arguing for $50 an hour? Sounds cruel to me — you $35 an hour thief. But then… Read more »
what a dumb, uniformed article. apparently you have no idsa how the world works.
Guess what, in Ohio the minimum rises with inflation. It’s now either $8.10 or $8.15/hr. There’s no evidence that any jobs have been lost as a result of this. While I wish we could offer a minimum of $15/hr, it’s probably not practical right now. It’s probably more realistic to say maybe $0.25/hr + inflation every year for the next ten years. That would give every one a chance to adjust gradually. Truthfully, while I like Costco a little better than Sam’s Club, another factor in choosing Costco over Sam’s was the considerably higher wages and better benefits Costco paid… Read more »