[WARNING - SATIRE]
Left wing blogger Idiot/Savant has called for teams of bum wipers to wipe bums for people not working (otherwise known as bums).
"The greatest obstacle to my freedom is that I have to brush my teeth, wash my clothes, and wipe my bum. These are all activities that severely impact on my time, and thus my freedom, and so the government needs to do something about it. Otherwise, I am not free."
Idiot was last seen negotiating with his mother to continue to wash his clothes and prepare his meals, but hadn't solved the bum wiping issue.
However, the Freedom Consulting Group, a group of beneficiaries on multiple benefits and various ACC compensation schemes video conferenced in from the third hole of the Western Pines Golf Club with some very good suggestions.
"Some of our members don't wash. This frees up a considerable amount of time, and keeps annoying social workers well away. In fact, one guy I knew used it to support a compensation claim that he suffered from incurable halitosis and a sweat disorder and can no longer engage in physical labour. It's a life time condition and leaves the field of recreational blogging wide open."
Idiot has demanded a bum wiping tax fund is established, where people that want to work, and earn high wages would pay a surcharge to employ professional bum wipers to enable his freedom.
"Of course I'm going to work, but it will be doing something I really enjoy. Quite frankly, I don't enjoy washing my clothes, brushing my teeth and wiping my bum. And if I did enjoy it, I certainly would expect to be paid a lot more money for such demeaning work. Some kind of Universal Benefit."
Sorry, Idiot. That was my immediate reaction to the general impression your post gives me. Let's see what you really said about work:
it's fundamentally about who is making the decisions: time spent doing what I want to do versus time spent doing what other people want me to do. And only during the former am I really free. Every moment I spend working to pay the rent is thus a very real intrusion on my liberty. Which is why they call it wage slavery...
and I/S adds:
and [as for paying rent], this is why most of us work. Yes, its nice if you love your job. But most of us are only in it for the money, and would much rather be doing something else.
and his solution:
Let's start with a 35-hour week. Beyond that, we should be moving to replace the benefit and pension system with a Universal Basic Income. A universal payment given to every adult regardless of circumstances. Not only would this give us time (in that people could choose to take that six months off, or even not to work if they were content to do without luxuries); it would also permanently remove the employers' boot from our neck.
Both Liberty Scott and MacDoctor debate the reality with the financial aspect of creating a society that can choose not to work and point out the differences between slaves and wage earners are far more substantial than the socialist slogans Idiot espouses. So there is little to add in that regard.
Just one brief point about Idiot's comment "Let's start with a 35 hour week": What cheek! No, that's not a start. That's a continuation. It reeks of "what ever have employers done for workers."
Last year the minimum amount of paid leave for workers rose one week to more than 5 weeks per year. That's four weeks annual leave and a swag of public holidays. Prior to that, additions to penalty rates for working on holidays added so much expense that some cafes don't bother opening on a public holiday. The ones that do typically have a service surcharge of 10 to 20%, and they are being abused for it. The minimum wage increases and abolition of the youth wage are seen as socialist victories.
So, it's not a start. The current situation is obviously not good enough for socialists, but they can at least pay heed to previous gains, because those gains are under very real threat as businesses may not survive the next year, which means jobs will not survive either. Then there will be many people on Idiot's Universal Benefit, and we will see how New Zealand prospers.
Getting distracted. Back to my main point. In this whole discussion about wage slavery is a general disdain for work, and a general belief that ones world will be better living in some kind of garden of Eden with nothing much to do, and more time on ones hands. And look where that got us.
Tied in with Socialism is a general disdain for a work ethic, and a failure to understand the redeeming value of work.
Instead of Idiot arguing to improve choice in terms of career and opportunity, he ends up arguing for freedom as being free not to work. That is not freedom. That is an enticement to sloth. It is the siren call of laziness and decadence. It is self destructive hedonism.
If we are to value people, we are to value the work they do, irrespective of the wage they earn and the fee they are paid. If we are to value ourselves, it is to undertake our duties and responsibilities in work more than in play.
Generally, the left and right wing have similar goals, just the means differ. Here is a good example of how this happens.
Liberty Scott on tax slavery
MacDoctor dishes out the medicine
Idiot/Savant: Time and Freedom
Left wing blogger Idiot/Savant has called for teams of bum wipers to wipe bums for people not working (otherwise known as bums).
"The greatest obstacle to my freedom is that I have to brush my teeth, wash my clothes, and wipe my bum. These are all activities that severely impact on my time, and thus my freedom, and so the government needs to do something about it. Otherwise, I am not free."
Idiot was last seen negotiating with his mother to continue to wash his clothes and prepare his meals, but hadn't solved the bum wiping issue.
However, the Freedom Consulting Group, a group of beneficiaries on multiple benefits and various ACC compensation schemes video conferenced in from the third hole of the Western Pines Golf Club with some very good suggestions.
"Some of our members don't wash. This frees up a considerable amount of time, and keeps annoying social workers well away. In fact, one guy I knew used it to support a compensation claim that he suffered from incurable halitosis and a sweat disorder and can no longer engage in physical labour. It's a life time condition and leaves the field of recreational blogging wide open."
Idiot has demanded a bum wiping tax fund is established, where people that want to work, and earn high wages would pay a surcharge to employ professional bum wipers to enable his freedom.
"Of course I'm going to work, but it will be doing something I really enjoy. Quite frankly, I don't enjoy washing my clothes, brushing my teeth and wiping my bum. And if I did enjoy it, I certainly would expect to be paid a lot more money for such demeaning work. Some kind of Universal Benefit."
Sorry, Idiot. That was my immediate reaction to the general impression your post gives me. Let's see what you really said about work:
it's fundamentally about who is making the decisions: time spent doing what I want to do versus time spent doing what other people want me to do. And only during the former am I really free. Every moment I spend working to pay the rent is thus a very real intrusion on my liberty. Which is why they call it wage slavery...
and I/S adds:
and [as for paying rent], this is why most of us work. Yes, its nice if you love your job. But most of us are only in it for the money, and would much rather be doing something else.
and his solution:
Let's start with a 35-hour week. Beyond that, we should be moving to replace the benefit and pension system with a Universal Basic Income. A universal payment given to every adult regardless of circumstances. Not only would this give us time (in that people could choose to take that six months off, or even not to work if they were content to do without luxuries); it would also permanently remove the employers' boot from our neck.
Both Liberty Scott and MacDoctor debate the reality with the financial aspect of creating a society that can choose not to work and point out the differences between slaves and wage earners are far more substantial than the socialist slogans Idiot espouses. So there is little to add in that regard.
Just one brief point about Idiot's comment "Let's start with a 35 hour week": What cheek! No, that's not a start. That's a continuation. It reeks of "what ever have employers done for workers."
Last year the minimum amount of paid leave for workers rose one week to more than 5 weeks per year. That's four weeks annual leave and a swag of public holidays. Prior to that, additions to penalty rates for working on holidays added so much expense that some cafes don't bother opening on a public holiday. The ones that do typically have a service surcharge of 10 to 20%, and they are being abused for it. The minimum wage increases and abolition of the youth wage are seen as socialist victories.
So, it's not a start. The current situation is obviously not good enough for socialists, but they can at least pay heed to previous gains, because those gains are under very real threat as businesses may not survive the next year, which means jobs will not survive either. Then there will be many people on Idiot's Universal Benefit, and we will see how New Zealand prospers.
Getting distracted. Back to my main point. In this whole discussion about wage slavery is a general disdain for work, and a general belief that ones world will be better living in some kind of garden of Eden with nothing much to do, and more time on ones hands. And look where that got us.
Tied in with Socialism is a general disdain for a work ethic, and a failure to understand the redeeming value of work.
Instead of Idiot arguing to improve choice in terms of career and opportunity, he ends up arguing for freedom as being free not to work. That is not freedom. That is an enticement to sloth. It is the siren call of laziness and decadence. It is self destructive hedonism.
If we are to value people, we are to value the work they do, irrespective of the wage they earn and the fee they are paid. If we are to value ourselves, it is to undertake our duties and responsibilities in work more than in play.
Generally, the left and right wing have similar goals, just the means differ. Here is a good example of how this happens.
Liberty Scott on tax slavery
MacDoctor dishes out the medicine
Idiot/Savant: Time and Freedom