University Of Texas Cancels Cancel Culture

Has ‘cancel culture’ gone too far? Yup. It did that a long time ago.

The ignorant have tried to cancel Dr. Seuss, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and even Mr. Potato Head.

The latest target?

The University of Texas and its well-known song “The Eyes of Texas Are Upon You”.

It’s more than that, of course, It’s a Texas institution and now, cancel culture hysterics have come for it.

But it’s very hard to cancel an institution. Knock down a few statues, erase the history books — these are easy. But the history, tradition, and sheer emotion tied up into an institution — even the barbarians will have trouble canceling that.

--snip--

Now, on the 185th anniversary of Texas independence, controversy threatens it. But the song won’t be canceled without a fight.

--snip--

Do these children really believe they’re fighting racism by canceling a song? Tearing down a monument? Scrubbing a history text? Racism is a disease of the heart and soul and isn’t cured by inflaming passions against the fight against it by attacking symbols that have nothing to do with racism unless the meaning or context in which they appear is horribly twisted by those not seeking to heal but to hurt.

At bottom, cancel culture is cruelty writ large. Symbols that have deep personal meaning to perhaps millions of people are attacked with full knowledge that they are injuring their feelings. That’s cruel and unjust.

Right now, fear of being seen as “racist” is what’s driving this effort forward. Perhaps fear of suffering financially is the antidote. Neither solution is optimal and none will be found as long as the goal isn’t ending racism, as much as it is revenge against those who perpetrated historic injustices.

Cancel culture is part and parcel of so many SJWs, pushing ‘social justice’ that so often has little or nothing to do with actual justice. You don’t right past wrongs by committing new wrongs “in the name of justice”. The new wrongs fix nothing and generate even more animosity and harsh feelings, just the opposite of what should be taking place.

But apparently those new wrongs make those participating in cancel culture feel better about themselves for having done ‘something’, even if it’s the wrong something and everyone else can go screw themselves.

Yeah, like that attitude is going to help fix things.

Yeah, We'll Wait

Ayuh.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s been a 50:50 weekend in the weather department, with snow yesterday and sun today. No complaints, at least not from me. We got about 2 inches of snow yesterday, an amount that is on the verge of the “Do I shovel this or not” amount. Since I didn’t have to go anywhere yesterday, I didn’t shovel...much. I just cleaned up what was left after clearing off the trusty RAM 1500.

Since this is the last weekend of the school vacation weeks (New Hampshire this past week and Massachusetts the week before) things will calm down a bit and we’ll see most of the ski folk only over the next few weeks. (Our local ski resort closes the first weekend of April to start prepping for the summer season.)

Thoughts of the upcoming boating season have been intruding and I have been making plans for the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout to be taken out of storage, serviced, and prepped for being returned to the water in a little over two months.

==+==

It seems that one state, Georgia, is taking the 2020 election irregularities seriously and changing its election laws to address them. Not surprisingly, the Georgia Secretary of State isn’t behind the changes and thinks they go too far. What are these ‘radical’ changes the SoS is against?

One such bill that has passed in the state senate would require all voters to present either a driver’s license number, a state identification card number, or a photocopy of some other approved form of identification in order to be allowed to cast an absentee ballot. Another bill, which has been approved by a state senate subcommittee, would force voters to provide a legitimate reason for voting by absentee ballot rather than in-person. The swath of new bills is in response to widespread allegations, backed by credible evidence, of voter fraud in the state in last November’s elections.

I wish New Hampshire’s legislature would take action to close the non-resident voting loopholes that presently allow out-of-state college students, campaign workers, and other ‘temporary’ occupants to vote in our elections. There are actual requirements that need to be met in order to be eligible to register to vote, but the same-day voter registration part of our election laws have created one heck of a loophole that allows these otherwise ineligible non-New Hampshire voters to cast ballots in our elections. I think we are the only state in the country that allows ineligible voters to vote in our elections, an abuse that must be stopped.

==+==

Another state looking deeper into election irregularities is Arizona, particularly after a Superior Court judge ruled that Maricopa County must turn over 2.1 million ballots to the Arizona State Senate as part of their investigation into ballot count irregularities during the November 2020 election.

The county fought the state senate subpoenas for the ballots, but the judge ruled “There is no question that the Senators have the power to issue legislative subpoenas. The subpoenas comply with the statutory requirements for legislative subpoenas. The Senate also has broad constitutional power to oversee elections.”

What are the county election officials so nervous about? If everything is on the up and up there shouldn’t be any problems, right?

==+==

This says it all.

Leftists Cook Up Crazed Fever Dream to See Nazi Symbolism at CPAC.

Leftists are convinced that the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is a nefarious conclave of secret Nazis plotting an insurrection. Many activists on Twitter have seized on the shape of the CPAC stage at the Hyatt Regency in Orlando, Fla., claiming it is shaped like a secret rune to cater to Neo-Nazis. Partially for this reason, activists have demanded that Hyatt Hotels stop hosting this “hateful” confab. Hyatt rightly stood up to this absurd cancel push.

--snip--

Matt Schlapp, chair of the American Conservative Union (ACU), which organizes CPAC, definitively debunked this absurd conspiracy theory.

“Stage design conspiracies are outrageous and slanderous,” Schlapp tweeted. “We have a long standing commitment to the Jewish community. Cancel culture extremists must address antisemitism within their own ranks. CPAC proudly stands with our Jewish allies, including those speaking from this stage.”

It seems the just about anything can be called a “Nazi symbol” and used by the Left to cast conservatives as Nazis. Yet it is the Left who have the thugs who resemble the Brown Shirts of Nazi Germany. It is the Left who shelter blatantly antisemitic members of Congress from their party. It is the Left that uses eliminationist rhetoric against the Right. It is the Left that censors speech.

It comes down to this simple rule they follow: “Accuse your opponents of acts you are committing.”

==+==

From The People’s Cube:

Could Comrade Biden be our first Neuro-Proxy “President”?

I’d say the chances are even.

==+==

From the “Just When I Thought They Couldn’t Get Any Stupider” Department comes this little gem.

Two California Assembly members have proposed legislation that will fine stores for having separate boy’s and girl’s clothing sections.

WTF?

What’s next? Legislating what goods or brands will be allowed to be sold in various stores? Legislating that all foods being sold will have to be organic and farmed in a sustainable fashion (‘sustainable’ being defined by the legislature and not reality) or they can’t be sold? Making it illegal for deliveries to stores to be made by anything other than electric trucks?

I wouldn’t put it past them as they’ve done stupid things like this before.

==+==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather is trending warmer, the skiing is still great, and where Town Meeting season starts soon.

Not Just "No", But "Hell no!"

It isn’t often I post a rant, at least not here. I will occasionally rant when making a comment on one of the Wall Street Journal forums or at one of the various blog/news/opinion sites. It isn’t my usual form of commenting. But every so often a blog post, comment, Tweet, e-mail, or face-to-face discussion will trigger a rant. This is one of those times. I must warn you that this rant won’t necessarily be in logical order and will be tinged with emotion. Rants in general tend to be so, and mine are no different. Here we go...

[rant]

I was pondering a topic worthy of posting, wondering if I should delve into my being reduced to a “stick figure” judged entirely by the color of my skin, such skin color being the sole defining factor of my “beliefs, biases, and prejudices”. The content of my character doesn’t matter, just my skin color. How screwed up is that?

My life experiences no longer matter, nor do the people with whom I associate, or my political leanings, or my actions, or my work. Because I am white I am automatically a racist, a “white supremacist”, and I must atone for my supposed racism be it explicit, implicit, subconscious, or imaginary, and I must do so in a fashion someone else has decided for me. I have been judged guilty for no other reason than I am a white heterosexual male of Northern European descent. I haven’t abased myself before those who deem themselves ‘woke’, those who believe themselves of superior wisdom, knowledge, and foresight and I will not be considered worthy of them until I do.

They have a long wait ahead of them because I will not bow to the deluded visions of the willfully ignorant and indoctrinated ‘true believers’ of what has become something akin to a politically active religious cult.

I do not bow to the ‘enlightened’ when their actions are contradictory to their stated goals. None of what they want from me or anyone else ‘not them’ will eliminate or reduce racism or any other “-ism” that is their cause du jour. It doesn’t bring people together. Rather, it divides them, generates intolerance, hatred, and prejudice all in the name of correcting some wrong, real or imagined, or for some elusive and twisted idea of equality.

They seek equity which has nothing to do with equality, though you might have a tough time convincing them otherwise. Equity is nothing we want as it is nothing anyone should inflict on others.

They seek to silence those who do not bow to their beliefs. (See cancel culture.)

Some of them feel any actions they take upon the “unwoke” are justified, including violence. Some have even suggested “deprogramming” for the unwoke (Katie Couric being just one of them doing so in public). Others have gone so far as to suggesting re-education “camps” for their opponents. (We’ve seen these before. Does the Gulag Archipelago ring a bell? How about Sobibor, Dachau, Bergen Belsen, or Auschwitz? For a previous generation of willfully ignorant and indoctrinated ‘true believers’, these “camps” were a solution to a very similar problem as they saw it.)

Do I think they would go so far? Ninety-nine percent wouldn’t...but that remaining one percent wouldn’t think twice about doing so. Certainly 20^th century history has proven that more than once.

I have some very firmly held beliefs, these beliefs being derived from my upbringing and my experiences, some from those whose experiences and knowledge far exceed my own, and from a couple of thousand years of history, with a focus on the past 600 years. From those sources I have come to see what works, what doesn’t, and more importantly, why. I have seen that history does indeed show us what will come again if the lessons it teaches are not heeded.

What I see from many of our ‘woke’ brothers and sisters is nothing new, despite what they might believe. It was seen in Russia starting prior to World War I. It was seen in Italy starting in 1919 and in Weimar Germany around 1925. It was seen in China in 1949 and again in 1966. It was seen in Korea in 1950, in Vietnam in 1956, and in Cambodia prior to 1975. Nothing our present day ‘woke’ have been taught or are doing is unlike what has been done in those other times and places.

Getting back to the main theme of my rant, it seems everything is being examined by the ‘woke’ for any hint of racism, sexism, and whateverism, then denounced when ‘someone’ finds any such hints, even if they aren’t there. The subject of such scrutiny is either canceled or pressured to change into something unrecognizable. The two latest victims of this deluded scrutiny?

Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head.

I kid you not.

To quote one of my favorite politically incorrect movies, Johnny Dangerously: “This is fargin’ war!!”

This ridiculous crap must come to a stop. It serves no useful purpose, causes hate and discontent, and fixes nothing. It’s only purpose is to destroy, period.

As such, there are two questions that must be asked.

The first: Cui bono?

I know who.

The second question is: Do you know?

[/rant]

Thoughts On A Sunday

As I know many of you (all 17 of you reading this blog) may have noticed, I haven’t been posting as much as I usually do. Between a heavier workload at my primary job and additional work at my secondary job, I am generally busy 12+ hours a day, 6 days a week. On the ‘free’ day I have I am usually busy around The Gulch, helping the WP Mom clean the house, making a dump run, a Walmart run, a Tractor Supply Company run, a grocery run, or any other duties or chores needing to be done. It doesn’t leave me nearly enough time to take care of things like starting up a new business (in the works), working on my third novel, or blogging.

Once we get past mid-March I’ll be back to a normal workload (whatever ‘normal’ is these days) and I can devote more time to this...and corresponding with one of the WP Nieces with whom I have been discussing and debating the events taking place as well as politics, ideology, and history.

==+==

This must be true...or rather, it needs to be true, at least for President *, AOC, and the DNC-MSM propaganda machine.

DHS has released a statement reporting that “right-wing extremists were responsible for the majority of fatal domestic terrorist attacks last year.”

But there’s a problem with that statement, being that “It’s long on vague assertions and decidedly short on facts.” “...as Yahoo News points out, “the government has released no data on historical activity or the current threat landscape.” Apparently we’re just supposed to take their word for it.”

The attacks by antifa and BLM – hence referred to as “Burn, Loot, and Murder” – are downplayed, minimized, if not devoutly ignored by the media, local government, and bought-and-paid-for DA’s and prosecutors (elected using George Soros’s money). While some members of antifa and BLM hew to their original raison d'être, both organizations have abandoned any pretense and are openly Marxist, anti-government, anti-capitalist, and anti-constitutionalist. The leaders now come right out to say their purpose is to dismantle the country. Of course they don’t say what they’ll replace it with, but then the New Bolsheviks rarely do.

==+==

Remember this?

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

With the push to force Critical Race Theory down everyone’s throat, that dream is dead.

Under Marx’s Critical Race Theory (also used by the National Socialists in Germany), just the opposite is pushed: The color of one’s skin is the most important thing as it defines who you are. Rather than uniting people, it divides them, separates them, limits them. But to hear the proponents tell it, this racist theory is the only way to solve the racism problem.

Excuse me? The only way to solve racism is to commit racism?

This issue has become more telling when Jody Shaw, a staff member at Smith College in western Massachusetts, resigned in protest over the college’s “hostile atmosphere”.

It appears that Ms. Shaw ran afoul of critical race theory fanatics who forced her to “participate in racially prejudicial behavior as a condition” of her employment.

Shaw, being a normal, intelligent, woman rebelled. She blew the whistle on the racialists at Smith College in a scathing video she posted to YouTube.

“I ask that Smith College stop reducing my personhood to a racial category. Stop telling me what I must think and feel about myself,” she said. “Stop presuming to know who I am or what my culture is based upon my skin color. Stop asking me to project stereotypes and assumptions onto others based on their skin color.”

This is the essence of critical race theory. In order to make “progress” in “combatting racism,” everyone is reduced to a stick figure. It’s so much easier to define individuals when you identify them as members of a specific group, with specific beliefs, biases, prejudices.

In her resignation letter to the university president, she didn’t pull any punches.

Every day, I watch my colleagues manage student conflict through the lens of race, projecting rigid assumptions and stereotypes on students, thereby reducing them to the color of their skin. I am asked to do the same, as well as to support a curriculum for students that teaches them to project those same stereotypes and assumptions onto themselves and others. I believe such a curriculum is dehumanizing, prevents authentic connection, and undermines the moral agency of young people who are just beginning to find their way in the world.

It’s important that we realize that this didn’t have to happen. Small-minded, even ignorant people see salvation in controlling the minds and lives of others. Is it a mass delusion that they believe they are actually “fighting racism,” that they’re doing this for white people’s own good? Or are these the same efforts at control that have been around since humans created civilizations?

Fighting racism by committing acts of racism?

Yeah...that’ll work.

==+==

And that’s the abbreviated news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where winter weather keeps coming and going, we’re in the midst of the second week of February school vacations (Massachusetts last week, New Hampshire this week), and the ski areas are very busy.

Compare And Contrast - Outrage/No Outrage

(H/T Powerline)

Has Venezuela Finally Figured Out A Socialist Economy Doesn't Work?

Imagine that. It appears the Socialists running Venezuela have come to the conclusion that top to bottom Socialist control of the economy, particularly when it comes to the means of production, doesn’t work.

So what are the Venezuelan socialists going to do to fix this problem of their own making?

They are abandoning socialist doctrine by offloading key enterprises to private investors.

In 1998, Venezuelans voted in [Hugo] Chavez, a populist and self-described Marxist. He was re-elected in 2000 (59.8% of the vote) and in 2006 (62.8%), at which point he began to nationalize various sectors of the economy—including agriculture, the steel industry, transportation, and mining—and confiscating more than a thousand companies, farms, and properties.

At the time of Chavez’s death, his socialist policies were heralded by Salon as an “economic miracle”—but in reality the Venezuelan economy was already in a free fall.

By 2014, with the price of oil collapsing, Maduro’s government admitted it was in severe recession and Venezuela was suffering from the highest inflation in the Americas. By January 2016, the country was on the verge of “complete economic collapse.” Not long after, the Venezuelan government abandoned any pretense of being a “democratic” regime.

--snip--

The collapse of Venezuela, once the most prosperous country in Latin America, is hardly a secret. But Maduro’s pivot toward private enterprise in an attempt to stabilize the collapsing country is a new revelation.

--snip--

Maduro’s effort to quietly form private-public partnerships, a strategy that began in 2017, reveals the total failure of Venezuela’s command economy. Bloomberg points out, for example, that once-successful food processing plants have been “mostly idle” since being seized by the government, plants that could have been feeding a starving population.

This revelation is both tragic and infuriating, but it’s not surprising. By their very nature, command economies are doomed to fail because they lack the basic incentive and price structures that are present in a market economy.

But what Maduro is building is something that has been done before, something dating back to the 1930’s…in Italy and Germany: Fascism. Is Venezuela’s economy shifting to fascist economy, once described by Sheldon Richman as “socialism with a capitalist veneer”?

Time will tell.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s been colder than normal here in central New Hampshire for this time of year. It has meant the lakes have been freezing up hard, with ice thickening quickly. On most parts of the Big Lake the ice is thick enough to support vehicles, so we’ve been seeing folks pulling their bob houses out onto the lake in order to partake of ice fishing. The timing is good because the annual Meredith Rotary Club Ice Fishing Derby started Saturday and concluded today.

At least Covid hasn’t stopped the Derby. Then again the Derby is outdoors, the participants are spread out all over the 72 square miles of the Big Lake and the temperatures are well below freezing. It certainly helps that these conditions work in favor of participants maintain social distancing.

==+==

One thing I have noticed since the first of the year has been a major change in the people commenting to various posts. Not so much the makeup as the names/ID’s people are using.

What do I mean, or in this case, who do I mean?

Trolls.

Any of you out there who have been around the ‘Net understand exactly what I mean: People commenting on posts and about other comments, such comments being basically contradictory, make false accusations about something or someone, make inflammatory statements, perform what I have seen called ‘drive-by accusations’ – drop an accusation with no corroborating links or evidence – then disappear for a while, try to present straw-man arguments, and worse, try to push outright falsehoods as ‘fact’ (think “Russia! Russia! Russia!” as one example).Many of these trolls spend hours online every day, posting dozens of comments every day, 365 days a year. One I found posted an average of 112 comments a day and did so for over nine years. That’s almost 41,000 posts a year. This one was most likely a shill, paid to post this kind of tripe and stir up trouble.

Trolls are a fact of life on the ‘Net.

But one thing started happening right after the first of the year – trolls started abandoning their IDs in large numbers and started using new ones. From my observations I’d have to say a good 75% of the trolls I am familiar with have ‘disappeared’, reappearing with new IDs.

It didn’t take long to figure out who was who, even with their new IDs because they all had their own commenting style. Some had created new IDs and within the first couple of days had posted several hundred comments. Others had ‘spare’ IDs they had created years ago, rarely used with just enough comments made to keep it active, then after they burned their old IDs their dormant IDs came to life, and again dozens, if not hundreds of comments were posted every day.

Fortunately it is usually easy to figure out someone is a troll because of the comments they post. One giveaway is those using the Disqus commenting system tend to have ‘private’ profiles which means no one can see their commenting history. They either have a very small Upvote-to-Post ratio or a very high Upvote-to-Post ratio (they will use their other IDs to up-vote themselves).

==+==

What’s worse than a sore loser?

A sore winner.

It seems the Democrats are famous for that and it’s no different this time. As Tucker Carlson has asked, “The Democrats 'Won Everything,' Why Are They So 'Crazy-Person Mad'?”

Fox News host Tucker Carlson began his opening monologue on Thursday with a simple question. “So why are the Democrats so angry?” “It doesn’t make any sense,” he said.

Setting aside the fact that liberals are, by nature, far more consumed by what angers them than by what makes them happy, Carlson noted that the Democrats “won everything” in November and now have full control of the federal government. “Winning seemed to enrage them even more,” he said — correctly so.

Why is this?

==+==

From Donald Trump after his acquittal in Impeachment 2.0, this one statement sticks out more than the rest:

It is a sad commentary on our times that one political party in America is given a free pass to denigrate the rule of law, defame law enforcement, cheer mobs, excuse rioters, and transform justice into a tool of political vengeance, and persecute, blacklist, cancel and suppress all people and viewpoints with whom or which they disagree.

From a comment made to a related post in another blog comes this:

It is as if you need to have a scorecard to keep track of the whipsawing back and forth Democrats do on what is considered allowable.

2001 - 2008 Dissent is "Patriotic".
2009 - 2016 Dissent is "Racist".
2017 - 2020 Dissent is "Fashionable" and complete with pink headgear resembling genitalia.
2021 - ? Dissent is "Treason".

Democrats in autumn of 2020: Trump is using the USPO to rig the election.
Democrats in December of 2020: Claims of rigged elections are conspiracy theories.

It seems that it depends upon whether something works for or against the Democrats whether something will or will not be allowed, and that can change from moment to moment.

That’s one good way to destroy the cohesion of a nation.

==+==

Even with Trump’s acquittal, Pelosi and Schumer have promised to continue their campaigns to destroy Donald Trump. To me, this further proves that this has nothing to do with justice and everything to do with vengeance for slights real or imagined.

They are misusing their offices to go after someone they hate. They keep pointing a finger at Trump, not understanding (or caring) that three fingers are pointing back at them. Their persecution of Trump is not playing well with the American people, even among Democrats. There are far more important things Congress has to deal with, yet the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader are wasting their time and the taxpayers’ money on something that will be more divisive than what has already occurred.

During the defense portion of the impeachment trial, the attorneys representing Trump presented video showing various members of Congress using inflammatory, murderous, insurrectionist, seditious, and even treasonous language aimed at the President, the GOP, and anyone with the audacity to disagree with them or get in their way. Their language egged on antifa and BLM rioters, made it seem they were all in on the rioting, burning, looting, and murder that took place over the past few years. Their language was far worse than President Trump has been accused of using (but didn’t). Where are the impeachments of those elected officials, the censure, the condemnation? What do we hear from the Speaker, the Majority Leader, and the DNC leadership instead?

Crickets.

As needs to be stated again and again and again, if Congressional Democrats didn’t have double standards, they’d have no standards at all.

==+==

It looks like we’re in for a little bit of snow today and a bunch of snow on Tuesday, something we need. (Some folks may think I’m crazy for saying so, but we need the snowpack for a proper spring thaw come April.) At the moment it looks like we’ll be in for between 6 and 10 inches here at The Gulch. I am looking forward to it!

==+==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the snow will be falling, the snowpack will be growing, and where I’ll be shoveling some of it away once it’s all done.

Coronavirus Rhapsody (With Apologies To Queen)

In light of the news of the presence of the the UK Variant of Covid-19 here in New Hampshire, I felt we needed a break from the incessant “We’re gonna DIE!” panic being pushed by much of the media. Instead, providing some levity seemed to be the correct response to this endless pandemic. (Or should we start calling Covid-19 ‘endemic’ rather than being a pandemic?)

One Business Being Proactive About $15 Minimum Wage

One national business is taking action regarding a possible increase in the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.

What business am I taking about?

Kroger.

This is the same Kroger that is closing two of its marginally performing food markets in Long Beach, California after the City Council rammed a $4/hour pay increase – so-called ‘hero pay” - down the throats of only a few selected businesses in the city. Kroger decided it was no longer worth the effort to continue doing business there because the two marginal markets, Ralph’s and Food 4 Less, were now money-losing businesses and it no longer made sense to keep them open.

What is Kroger doing to help mitigate the effects of the possible rise in the federal minimum wage?

Launch a pilot test of a 100% self-checkout store in Dallas, Texas.

I expect the “usual suspects” will scream bloody murder about “greedy capitalists” stealing from and “exploiting the poor” for profits by eliminating all of the cashier/bagger jobs. But if businesses don’t make a profit they don’t stay in business long, something these economically ignorant/delusional Social Justice Warriors choose to demonize. If the cost of labor rises to the point where a business stops making money and is now losing money, the business has only a few choices: raise prices which may cause customers to go elsewhere; reduce costs by reducing staffing, i.e. lay off employees; go out of business.

The first choice is a ‘Devil’s’ choice, meaning all it may do is delay the inevitable, but the end is still the same: going out of business.

The second choice isn’t much better because people will lose their jobs, the business owners will have to put in more hours to cover the work an employee would normally cover, and maybe the business will survive.

The third choice is the worst of the three because the business owner will reach the conclusion it’s no longer worth the time and effort needed to keep things going, or will see that the only future for the business is bankruptcy and will pull the plug. The jobs the business was providing will disappear along with the business.

The argument could be made that raising the minimum wage hasn’t caused businesses to go out of business, but there have been times when it has cost people their jobs, and even then the increase in the minimum wage was nowhere near the level being suggested, in this case more than doubling the federal minimum wage. On average, federal minimum wage increases have been between 9 and 13% since the 1960’s. The minimum wage increase being proposed is a 107% increase, something unprecedented. It will also have a much larger effect on the economy than previous minimum wage increases since for a lot of younger inexperienced workers it means the end of their jobs even of they aren’t receiving the present minimum wage. (Someone making $10/hour would also get a hell of a pay raise – 50% - something many of the $15/hour minimum wage proponents have chosen to ignore.) They may also lose their jobs if they can’t return $15.01 in economic gain to their employers.

If Kroger’s experiment works well enough, we may well see more supermarkets going the same route – no cashiers, no baggers, and fewer jobs. That could extend to other retail operations if Kroger’s experiment succeeds.

As such, we need to remind the aforementioned economically ignorant/delusional Social Justice Warriors of one simple fact that no amount of ‘feelz’ or excuses can explain away:

The actual minimum wage is $0 and always will be.

(H/T Granite Grok)