$15/hr Dumbth on the March

You always get less of what you tax more.  Eternal Truth #461

George Rebane

For some years now RR has chronicled and mourned America’s decline in intellectual resources and critical thinking skills.  This national dash to dumbth continues (nay, accelerates) as a purposeful process by progressives who have carefully husbanded public education at ALL levels for the last half century to achieve today’s new lows in pedagogy.  Various writers and academics have observed this process for some decades now – Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind (1987) and Bork’s Slouching Towards Gomorrah (1996) are some earlier works that come to mind.

Most recently we have a comprehensive essay – ‘The Decline of Intelligence in the West’ - by educational theorist and literary critic David Solway that cites the work of many psychologists and cognitive scientists who have documented our “plummet in cognitive abilities” over the course of these years.  These assessments come from a broad range of socio-political ideologues – e.g. Gruber’s on-target assertions on “the stupidity of the American voter” that would help pass Obamacare as his next step toward socialism.

Consideration of this descent is not an idle undertaking for those who want to sustain America’s achievements and support its continuing ascent in the 21^st century as the world’s ‘shining city on a hill’.  Denying the data, as Solway points out, hastens our decline, and serves the aims of globalists yearning for a post-national America.  Science historian Morris Berman in The Twilight of American Culture (2000) observes that “a society cannot function if nearly everyone in it is stupid.”  This truth is embraced by autocratic elites everywhere, and our cynical central planners daily devise and implement stratagems to keep America maximally dysfunctional, knowing how that concentrates power in government.  Our Founders’ realization of this was summarized in Jefferson’s immortal ‘A nation ignorant and free, that never was and never shall be.’

Today we see an example of such a stratagem about to be run by the American voter one more time – the next rise in federally mandated wage controls in the imposition of the $15/hr minimum wage.  Without going through the catalog of damages this will do to the poorest already in and those seeking to enter our workforce, I want to point out that almost no one in the country knows how and when America came to accept a minimum wage.  That is one of the many parts of our history that has been wiped from our schools’ curricula in their dispensation of dumbth.

Manhattan Institute fellow Jason Riley recounts (here) the “racially discriminatory roots” of America’s minimum wage laws born in the 1930s, and of today’s Pelosi-led progressive prevarications designed to bamboozle the ignorant and free into supporting the Dems’ $15 vote buying scheme.  For openers, the minimum wage does NOT provide the breadth of economic benefit to the claimed target populations of women and the poor.  But it will kill more jobs (1.4M according to the CBO) and remove another tranche of entry-level rungs of the economic ladder from those who need it the most.

But the most politically damaging part of the governments’ minimum wages is the history of their introduction and implementation.  As Riley recounts, minimum wages were introduced to the country’s North in the attempt to stem the migration of blacks from the economically bleak agricultural South.  The North’s black-excluding unions lobbied Congress where compliant “lawmakers complained openly about the ‘superabundance’ and ‘large aggregation of Negro labor’, and cited complaints by whites of black Southerners moving north to take jobs.”  They knew that “low-income minorities stand to lose the most from lifting the wage floor because they are overrepresented among less-skilled and less-experienced workers.”  And Team Pelosi, with Bumblebrain in the wheelhouse now, have not forgotten the benefits of that policy tool.

Perhaps most damning of today’s progressive narrative would be to recall JFK’s attempt in the Senate to protect New England industry by promoting minimum wages that would price blacks out of the low end of the labor markets.  There in 1957 the young senator and soon our future president lectured a NAACP official, stating, “Having on the market a rather large source of cheap labor depresses wages outside of that group, too—the wages of the white worker who has to compete, … and when an employer can substitute a colored worker at a lower wage—and there are, as you pointed out, these hundreds of thousands looking for decent work—it affects the whole wage structure of an area, doesn’t it?”

We conclude with an apropos picture of America’s dumbth on the march.  This is the Democrats’ siren song to their incomprehensively loyal African-American constituencies with carefully cultured deficits in history and economics.

Comments

[Walt]

15 bucks and hour? Watch fast food go nearly full automation.
You can't get through ANY drive through without dumping 15 bucks now as it is.
Then watch everything go up big time. Even my pay when work starts again. 35 and hour will become 42 if not more.

LIBS will love that 15 bucks an hour, because they will tax the shit out of it.. LOOK! More revenue to piss away!

[paul emery]

George, speaking of "America’s decline in intellectual resources and critical thinking skills" do you consider the election of Marjorie Taylor Greene to the House a manifestation of that thought? Here's an example of her thinkng process that attracted the voters of Georgia. From Media Matters:

Rep. Greene is a proponent of the Camp Fire laser beam conspiracy theory. She wrote a November 17, 2018, Facebook post -- which is no longer available online -- in which she said that she was speculating “because there are too many coincidences to ignore” regarding the fire, including that then-California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) wanted to build the high-speed rail project and “oddly there are all these people who have said they saw what looked like lasers or blue beams of light causing the fires.” She also speculated that a vice chairman at “Rothschild Inc, international investment banking firm” was somehow involved, and suggested the fire was caused by a beam from “space solar generators.”

Greene added: “If they are beaming the suns energy back to Earth, I’m sure they wouldn’t ever miss a transmitter receiving station right??!! I mean mistakes are never made when anything new is invented. What would that look like anyway? A laser beam or light beam coming down to Earth I guess. Could that cause a fire? Hmmm, I don’t know. I hope not! That wouldn’t look so good for PG&E, Rothschild Inc, Solaren or Jerry Brown who sure does seem fond of PG&E.”

https://www.mediamatters.org/facebook/marjorie-taylor-greene-penned-conspiracy-theory-laser-beam-space-started-deadly-2018

[George Rebane]

PaulE 336pm - Other than hoping for a simpleton gotcha question Paul, what's your point? You really don't want to go toe-to-toe comparing the cognitive powers of select politicians from either side. That would be cruel and unusual punishment.

[fish]

..... Other than hoping for a simpleton gotcha question Paul, what's your point?

Yes.....Punch is a proud member of the party of Hank “Tippy” Johnson.

Gotcha indeed.....

[paul emery]

Just noting that Marjorie Taylor Greene was elected overwealmingly by Republicans in her district and wondering if their decision to elect her was an example of what you refer to as " This national dash to dumbth "? Reasonable question since she is such an idiot and truly weird on top of that. Fair question to inquiry as to the intelligence and education of those who voted for her.

[fish]

Posted by: paul emery | 18 February 2021 at 05:38 PM

......cough.....Hank “Tippy” Johnson.... cough, cough.

[Walt]

You really want to go there Emery? With all the idiots your side has elected? AOC,, Need anymore? There are PLENTY.
Well,, you have Schiff, who see's Russians behind every piller, and has imaginary evidence...

[Walt]

Can't help it.... BIDEN!!!! You get what you rig elections for!
Beyond idiot.

[Barry Pruett]

Paul wants us to consider the “intelligence and education” of one’s electorate. I literally can’t stop laughing. Typical liberal who thinks that they are very well read when in fact know very little besides rhetoric and what they’ve been told.

[paul emery]

Barry
I was referring to the voters in the Congressional District whose collective intelligence elected Marjorie Taylor Greene to the Congress. Just curious if they are examples of what George refers to when he talks about "America’s decline in intellectual resources and critical thinking skills."

[Walt]

LOL Emery,, the same can be said for the voters of Nevada City.
Plenty of dope smokers Yup, that really helps cognitive intelligence.

[Scott O]

Actually Paul, George was referring to people like you but he was too polite to say so.
Pitting the one example of Ms Green against a plethora of Dems that have been elected to office who are either crooked or butt-stupid is not really a winning strategy for you.
It could very well be that the voters in her district took one look at who was running against her and decided she was the better choice.
I rather think this conversation should center more on the Dems efforts to produce one generation after another of illiterate and uneducated children. Standardized testing bears this out.
You leftys are always strangely absent when examples of lefty school officials turning the educational system into a mind-washing camp for little tykes are brought to light here.
Why is that, Paul?

[Walt]

AAHHH Yes.. That elected official who wanted to ban the manufacture of high capacity magazines on the pretence that "eventually they would all be used up".. The Mensa graduate never understood they could be RELOADED.
You mean that kind Emery? What was the collective intelligence of those that voted her in?

Nevada City has had their share of "winners" elected as well.
And who voted those butt stupid individuals in Emery?

[paul emery]

So Scott Ms Green is okay in your book and there is no problem with the intellectual capacity of those who elected her.

[fish]

Posted by: paul emery | 18 February 2021 at 08:13 PM

So Punch “Tippy” Johnson is okay in your book and there is no problem with the intellectual capacity of those who elected him?

[paul emery]

Lets up the stakes a bit here fisn and Scott. Do you think the election of Trump represents a great level of intellectual and educational ability in those who voted for him and continue to support him?

[fish]

Posted by: paul emery | 18 February 2021 at 08:37 PM

Your going to make me plagiarize more of your nonsense aren’t you Punch?

[George Rebane]

PaulE 837pm - When you play these election choice games, you have to consider that the selection of candidates was not made in a vacuum, there were other alternatives available. So the quality of the choice always has to be evaluated with respect to the alternatives available and the voters' ideological orientation or political utility. For those who are of the conservetarian bent, the 2016 and 2020 elections were a slam dunk for Trump (mouth and all) when compared to Hillary or Bumblebrain.

It always pays to recall that our Left and Right today have totally different/opposite worldviews (or ontologies). Ask better questions.

[paul emery]

George

Well George Trump ended up beng a total loser as President losing the farm so to speak. Now he's going to be a wrecking ball for what's left of the Republican party so I guess that verifies the age old saying that a community has as much deviant behavior as it deserves. The election of Trump is exhibit number one. I mean how can he have any supporters after the dismal job he did handling the virus and wrecking the solid economy that Obama left him?

[Scott O]

Paul 8:13 - "So Scott Ms Green is okay in your book..."
So Paul, you like to beat kittens to death with a hammer?
"...and there is no problem with the intellectual capacity of those who elected her."
Paul, how in the world would I know anything about the intellectual capacity of all the people that voted for Ms Green?
George's theme of this chapter of RR is about the increasing lack of critical thinking skills of the American public.
You're providing a cracker-jack example all on your lonesome.

And - 8:37 "Do you think the election of Trump represents a great level of intellectual and educational ability in those who voted for him and continue to support him?"
No, of course not. It takes no great intelligence whatever to see that Trump was a far better choice for POTUS compared to Clinton or Bumble-Brain.
It all boiled down to whether you wanted to vote for a man who loved his country and tried to make America a freer and more prosperous place or vote for a senile old hack who is proving that he is and will do as America's enemies tell him to do.
Now - do you wish to discuss America's govt-run educational system failures?
Or just keep beating a dead horse?

[Don Bessee]

I mean how can he have any supporters after the dismal job he did handling the virus and wrecking the solid economy that Obama left him?

Talk about drowning in the barrel of koolaide oh great pony tail of ignorance. Just a po' ol' putin party parrot. ROFLOL!!

;-)

[Scott O]

Paul -"...after the dismal job he did handling the virus and wrecking the solid economy that Obama left him?"
The horse is dead, Paul.

[fish]

“I mean how can he have any supporters after the dismal job he did handling the virus and wrecking the solid economy that Obama left him?”

Tragic.....when a mind is lost to time.

[Walt]

WOW... That sundowner's syndrome Paul now suffers from is getting worse.
Hate to break it to you Emery,, but reality just ain't how you remember it. Four years,, you rewrote plenty in that withering melon.
I can make that call. I witnessed it first hand. Day in, day out. Get your affairs in order. Find the proper nursing home.
Like I said. TDS is terminal.

[Gregory]

"You're providing a cracker-jack example all on your lonesome"

Ding ding Ding ding Ding ding Ding ding

Greene is a character who I'd not vote for under normal circumstances, but could, depending on the other choices.

Sometimes, if you don't vote for a lizard, the wrong lizard will win.

[Walt]

Emery wants to try and belittle Repubs smarts, yet his "people" (supposedly) elected Biden?
Yes, Emery, you and yours voted "stupidly". Yup,, you go right ahead and try and question Repub. voter "smarts".
It's great fun to back you into a corner of your own making.

[Nevada County Right Wing Watch]

Well, well, well. We find ourselves back at the Home of Nevada County White Nationalism!

Don't wanna hear any more bullshit about the benefits of Californians moving to Texas. The worst statewide disaster in Texas history, orchestrated by the GOP mindless mantra of deregulation and cutting costs. Any Cali residents moving to Texas while the GOP holds every statewide elected seat in that state are MORONS. Idiots. Suckers. Tools. Texas is now a fcking third world country run by idiots in the GOP.
What a fcking embarrassment to the good people of Austin and such. A disaster of unimaginable depth, all created by the GOP. One Hundred Percent. You own it boys, your brothers in arms.

Oh and the boys at our regional monitoring site continue to laugh and talk about you, Walt. You are fairly famous in Right Wing Watch circles. Be proud boy, be proud!

Carry on. You are on Candid Camera!

[Nevada County Right Wing Watch]

Special shout out to Scottie of Idaho,

You happened to mentioned today about the great Trump economy. What you didn't say was that Trump in his first 3 years merely matched the average growth rate under President Obama over his entire 8 year term. He got 2.5% pre-Covid, while Obama got 2.3% over his entire term. Wow. The greatest economy in American history!

Idaho was never known for its economic geniuses. Actually its not known for anything of substance.

[Walt]

"You are fairly famous in Right Wing Watch circles"
Sure thing. You and your invisible friend?
So Nevada City fats, got anymore fairy tales? The one you have from the Proggy press are real whoppers.

[Walt]

Oh.. The "green power" shows just how shitty it is.
C'mon Mannn,, Go to Texas and try and sell them more.
Dare ya'.

[Walt]

LOOK! Nevada City Fat's head Xray.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cartoons-slideshow

[Don Bessee]

You do know that your IP addresses are known left wing bull shitter above? ROFLOL!

;-)

[Bill Tozer]

Nevada County Wingnut sez:

“Don't wanna hear any more bullshit about the benefits of Californians moving to Texas.”

Lol. Tough titty, said the kitty, but the milk is still good.
If one does not want to hear about folks moving to Texas, then stop reading the news from the NYT to Bloomberg to the Poop-and-Crime City Frisco Chronicle to real estate news and commerical vacancy rates in very major city run by Democrats.

“Don't wanna hear any more bullshit about the benefits of Californians moving to Texas!!” Oh well. Who gives a fuck about what you don’t want to hear. What a Control Freak. Typical. Perhaps you should post under “My way or the highway.” ROFLMAO.

New York or CA, pick your poison. It’s all the same. New Yorkers scouting out FL say they go down to visit the area to relocate their business (or workers moving there because in the Internet age they can work from home) and it’s like a big reunion.

Every single person who is relocating to FL says the same thing and I have heard many, many stories from people a lot smarter than me or you. They say businesses are open, you can dine inside, and they run into so many people they know that they cannot believe it.

During the Great Recession, there was a year of two or that Texas singlehandly accounted for all the new job creation in the USA. Unemployment was soaring back then, every state saw adult worker participation fall....and Texas was creating jobs.

The great thing about this polar vortex is

1) the freezing cold snap showed the entire world that wind and solar are not going to take us to the promise land. They are unreliable obsolete technologies. Can’t even run a toaster. Germany, the biggest economy in Europe, found out the hard way as well. Pay way more and get way less. And wind is a net consumer of power, not a net provider.

2) Black guys are walking around at 2:00am in the middle of the freeing ass polar vortex wearing red ballcaps and carrying a soft cotton rope yelling “This is MAGA Country” . Man, it’s too cold outside to string somebody up. Fingers can’t even tie a decent noose.

[fish]

Posted by: Nevada County Right Wing Watch | 18 February 2021 at 10:00 PM

Still less annoying than “Gloria Zane”....

[Barry Pruett]

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cartoons-slideshow

Nothing more need be said but that Donald Trump is in their heads

[Scott O]

NCRWW 10:00 & 10:09 - Great! Thanks for the morning chuckle.
Especially funny: "Idaho was never known for its economic geniuses. Actually its not known for anything of substance."
Not known to you, dude - but that's OK.
I could go on and on, but let's just point out that folks around here know better than to shit on the sidewalk.

[Bill Tozer]

Yep, never seen such a mob of angry old grumpy white dudes in all my born days. Gracious, have they have no manners. Whatever manners they started with goes out the window half way their first post. Its not the TDS that I find such a fascinating, its their uncontrolabe rage that makes me concerned for their emotion and phyiscal heart. They all look like they are going to pop that swelling throbbing pulsating vein that crosses their livid temples.

Talk about seeing red. Has anyone seen or heard of one time in history that the winners got angrier and angrier and then the rage and fury gets cranked to Level 11 the longer they celebrate their hard fought victory, Not very magnaminous or neighborly.

Heavens to meritrode. Imagine what they would like if they lost. The popping heads would keep us all night.

Will Rogers never meet this bunch. And Gomer Pyle's grandma was dead ass wrong. She said, "A friend is just a stranger you haven't met yet." Imagine if she met our Lefty friends, lol. She would say bye and don't be any stranger.

ROFLMAO---BIDEN SENDING FLEETS OF TRUCKS HAULING BIG ASS DIRTY DISEIL GENERATORS. PROBLEM SOLVED.

[paul emery]

Scott

You characterize Trump as "A man who loved his country." A man who truly loved his country wouldn't encourage and support mobs who invade our capital planning to hang our Vice President while chanting "where's Nancy" while looting her office and beating police officers. Trumps response HOURS after they invaded the Capital? ""So go home. We love you; you're very special," later saying: "But go home, and go home in peace." That was hours after the insurrection and the damage was done and 5 people were dead.

How can you claim Trump is a man who loves his country?

[I played for the Queen.]

Grab the popcorn and watch paul emery prove George’s point to perfection.

[George Rebane]

Right Wing Watch 1000pm – There’s no denying it, you guys sure are a scary bunch. The way you keep your eyes on all the nation’s wrong thinkers from your “regional monitoring sites” tells everyone that you have much more in mind than just keeping tabs on us.

But I and, I’m sure others, would be interested to know how you view your organization. Do you see yourselves modeled after Hitler’s extra-governmental Nazi Brown Shirts ready for action in the streets? Or are you more like communist East Germany’s Stasi civilian corps that was organized to keep an eye on fellow citizens and report regularly on their activities? Both were very effective in preventing wrong thought and crushing wrong thinkers.

Please let us know what kind of an organization we now have in America that is regionally structured with “Right Wing Watch circles” manned by eager stalwarts (the “boys”) doing their duty to keep the country on the right track. If we wanted RR to become a leftwing compliant outlet, do you have any literature that would guide us in how we should reformulate our thoughts and expressions so as to blend in to be more like the other progressive blogs hereabouts? Team Biden is contemplating a cabinet level Ministry of Truth to suppress ‘fake news’ and ‘disinformation’, have you been tagged to become their eyes and ears across the land?

[Walt]

We saw how you LIBS "loved this country", Seattle? Portland?
downtown D.C.? The streets of Frisco? The streets on Minnesota?
" We gonna burn the shit DOWN!" " FUCK the COPS!!"
And you march with the COP HATERS Emery, and still make excuses for them.

[fish]

Posted by: paul emery | 19 February 2021 at 08:37 AM

Awwww..... Concern Troll is concerned.

[Walt]

You want scarry?
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/russel-honore-pelosi-pick-capitol-security-police-complicit-riot
Sen. Josh Hawley responds to Lt. Gen. Russel Honore comments: ‘Disturbing, downright crazy’
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., reacts to Lt. Gen. Russel Honore’s comments on ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight.’

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré claimed U.S. Capitol Police and the House and Senate sergeants at arms were "complicit" in the Capitol riot last month.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., tapped Honoré to lead the investigation into the security of the U.S. Capitol after the Jan. 6 attack.

But days after the attack, Honoré slammed the Capitol Police and the House and Senate sergeants at arms, claiming "complicity."

[Scott O]

Hey George - could you check the spam folder? My last post just went AWOL. Thanks

[paul emery]

Didn't march with anyone Walt. (8:48)
And you throw puppies off the Broad Street Bridge Walt. Prove you didn't

[George Rebane]

ScottO 911am - Found it and posted it; thanks.

[Walt]

No Emery, you claimed to have posted your denial way back when.
YOU prove it. YOUR the one making excuses for BLM.
I stay the hell out of the NC shithole. So it's one of your own that tossing puppies.

[Walt]

So LIBS want to claim inserection by the Right?
OK,, what about the years of inserection by LIBS looking to overthrow the Trump administration?
Here is a reminder.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/02/19/blue-state-blues-the-whole-of-2020-was-a-left-wing-insurrection/

[paul emery]

Nope Walt, prove that you didn't throw puppies off the bridge just like you want me to prove I didn't march with BLM in Nevada City.

[George Rebane]

I note that no leftwinger has stepped up to defend/promote the glories of the $15/hr minimum wage. This leftwing initiative joins all the others that qualify for no apologetics from the progressives. Among these are border security ('walls don't work'), amnesty cum citizenship to illegals, and abrogating the Second Amendment so that only the state and criminals are left with guns. (Totalitarian states never fear the criminals, since these pose no threat to its power, and do provide the surreptitious means to silence the grumblers and confidentially obtain contraband of the good life for the power elites. The autocrat and criminal have always had a very symbiotic and profitable relationship.)