They may forget what you said,
but they will never forget
how you make them feel.
Carol Buchner
Chart of the Day
Image of the Day
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| via Independent Institute |
John Stossel Invites a "Progressive" Propagandist to Discuss Income/Wealth Redistribution
Pope Francis. the Seduction of Secular "Progressives", and the Failure of Christian "Progressives"
I've been toying about making this topic a one-off post, but just a taste: over the weekend, I sent out a tweet sharply critical of Pope Francis. He has increasingly gotten involved in leftist politics like climate change and the latest but long-standing propaganda talking point, pay inequality for women.
No intelligent person can seriously believe in this "vast male conspiracy", systematically exploiting and underpaying desperate women. (I'm not saying there aren't incidental examples of unfair behavior in the labor market, but information about compensation in various professions is widely available and employers who underpay or mistreat their workers find it harder to attract and keep good workers.Women are making strides in owning or managing businesses; I remember in my first academic appointment at UWM, I had an office next door to a female MIS tenured professor; she demanded to know my salary (not that she disclosed hers). I have never discussed salary with co-workers; now granted at the time it was a very good market for young talented MIS academics, and I think she was worried whether they offered me around or over her salary. (In fact, UWM's offer wasn't that generous--I knew people getting offers 15-25% higher, but for someone who had gotten around $600/month as a teaching fellow, it meant a higher standard of living. In any event, she took offense at my refusal to discuss compensation at some sort of stonewalling and a personal challenge. Apparently, salaries were public record in Wisconsin, and her obsession with my compensation eventually paid off with her rubbing my nose in it.) Women, just like men, have at will employment and negotiate compensation; if productive female workers are being paid an artificially low salary for their background, skills and productivity, there are competitors willing to bargain a fair market value for their services.
But employers are not generally out to exploit their workers; the idea that employers are knowingly underpaying female workers simply because of gender is frankly absurd. That Pope Francis actually believes this fiction is astonishingly naive and reveals his utter incompetence in all things business and economics. It's not unlike the diversity industrial complex whereby highly educated professionals and accomplished students are treated as intrinsically morally corrupt, who don't have the slightest notion of fair play and the golden rule and must be kept in line by some politically correct gestapo. I find the whole concept entirely ludicrous and incredibly presumptuous and judgmental. When Pope Francis pays lip service to politically correct talking points without the background of scholars in another discipline, he undermines his credibility and that of the Church. This philosophy of appeasement is a turnoff for principled Catholics/Christians; Francis seems to be confounding matters of politics and faith; he's utterly clueless about morally corrupt redistributionist public policy and all too willing to accept authoritarian Statist measures to strip away an individual's moral responsibility, free will and dignity. In the meanwhile, his flock continues to decline, and the Church remains largely silent in the face of a sexually obsessed culture. We see more the philosophy of Christian appeasement and surrender than leadership and the defiance of John the Baptist. Jesus said to Peter, "Feed my sheep." He's saying the same to Francis.
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of the original artist via IPI |
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| Courtesy Steve Kelley via Townhall |
Olivia Newton-John, "A Little More Love"
