Mmmm, turrets.
Posted on 05/03/2005 4:44:15 AM PDT by JBW
"When I was in Alabama 13 years ago, they had no child labor law," wrote labor activist Mary Harris Jones, better known as Mother Jones, in 1908. "In Alabama 13 years ago, women ran four or five looms. Today, I find them running some 24 looms. This is the Democratic south, my friends -- this is a Democratic administration. This is what Mr. Bryan and Mr. Gompers want to uphold."
The "Gompers" that Ms. Jones judged to be insufficiently concerned about the subjugation of labor was Samuel Gompers, the 10-year-old who was taken out of school to become an apprentice shoemaker and then a cigar maker in the sweatshops of New York before becoming the first president of the American Federation of Labor.
"Mr. Bryan" was William Jennings Bryan, the Democrats' three-time candidate for president, in 1896, 1900 and 1908, and a three-time loser. Still, he was skilled at tossing around the anti-capitalist rhetoric, such as on Labor Day in Chicago in 1896 when he famously called for "putting rings in the noses of hogs," referring to how politicians should be treating people like John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie.
***
Fast-forward 100 years and the kids are at GapKids, not in the mines. Karl Marx got it wrong about the working class becoming inescapably poorer under capitalism. So much so that Mother Jones -- the magazine, not the activist -- is complaining in its March-April 2005 issue about America's increasing affluence: "Since 1970, the size of the average new home has ballooned by 50 percent. Great rooms, Viking ranges, 10-acre lots -- can moats and turrets be far behind?"
(Excerpt) Read more at pittsburghlive.com ...
If, in the 1950s for instance, you held the belief that the free market was unfair, that the poor needed government intervention to survive and that economic prosperity could be hand only through proactive public intervention in the market, you probably considered yourself a liberal Democrat.
Fast-forward fifty years. Within the past two decades the federal government has, generally speaking, lowered tax rates, decreased federal regulation of business, restricted welfare and encouraged the private ownership of capital.
The result has been an almost uninterrupted boom in prosperity.
With this history as prologue, even Democrats are forced to favor market forces. The difference between the moderate left and the moderate right, so far as macroeconomic issues are concerned, is one of degree.
If she honestly followed history, Mother Jones would be amazed.
http://www.jonathanbwilson.com/2005.05.01_arch.html#1115115979039
I subscribed to Mother Jones and The Nation when I was a kid. Everyone knows the applicable Winston Churchill quote here.
Had enough sense by the time I was 18 to *not* vote to re-elect Jimmy Carter, but didn't have enough sense yet to vote for Reagan. I voted for Ed Clark, the Libertarian candidate, in that election. Solid Rs since.
I think I sat out the 1980 election. I was right in the middle of a interstate move IIRC.
Voted proudly for Reagan, Bush I, Constitution Party twice, and lastly for W.
Though, truth to tell, I am not very happy w/ W. these days!
Which, inevitably, is followed by, "If I can't have a great room, a Viking range, and a 10-acre lot, NOBODY should have a great room, a Viking range, and a 10-acre lot!"
The enemy is as it always was, the tyrant. Tyranny always dresses itself up as an enlightened savior whose only interest is to prevent us from harming ourselves. That maximum liberty is the condition that produces the least harm is the preordained ignorance of tyranny.
Federal regulation has not decreased.
The command and control federal bureaucracy demands that businesses comply with its onerous and capricious regulations at a cost of $670 billion per year. The cost increases every year.
Here's one example -
Unelected bureaucrats made up “law” out of thin air and effectively squashed Michigan farmer John Rapanos, 69, for moving sand on his 175 acre property in Bay County. The federal bureaucrats charged him with violating the Clean Water Act because he interferred with water evaporation - the “migratory molecule” rule - on his property.
As incredible as the charge is, he faced a $13 million fine and 63 hard-time months in a federal pen. The federal pirates even demanded that Rapanos forfeit 81 acres of his land.
After reminding him of that a Democrat president once famously remarked, 'A rising tide lifts all boats', I pointed out that wealth is not a zero sum game. Companies, corporations, inventors, and entrepreneurs, who often amass great wealth, provide cars, medicines, services, and technology that improve our way of life. Wealth isn't bad, because rich people don't stuff it in the mattress. They invest it. New products are created, new companies started, and new industries created.
His response was to the effect that no one needs the kind of money that Bill Gates has, and brought up the gap between rich and poor. He didn't have a good answer when I asked him when's the last time a socialist country, where everyone is equal, invented a drug that cured any disease, produced a movie anyone wanted to see, or built a car he'd consider buying. I pointed out again that our system rewards excellence, and that benefits everyone.
Around this point he rolled his eyes, and started looking at me like I was reading aloud from a sheet labeled 'RNC Talking Points', so our discussion pretty much ended.
turrets syndrome...& 'Ma Duece' keeps barking
..and yet, child labor laws have now become oppressive. Children under 18 cannot find employment at wages which will enable them to buy cars, or learn other than fast food skills.
When I was 14 I worked for the US Army corps of engineers grinding welds on barge deck plates. That is not possible now.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.