Stupid Comments - Minimum Wage

I very rarely visit the forums or comment boards of most major news sites and this little gem here reminds me why:

As a general rule of thumb, you should be able to work part-time, and live above the poverty line. It's common sense.

Newwinner101 you are truly winning in the style of Charlie Sheen. Your economic illiteracy is a perfect example of what is wrong with America today.  Where exactly has it ever been dictated that a part time job should allow you to live above the poverty line? Never mind that our poverty line is higher than most countries GDP per capita. Why exactly should, outside of it being terribly convenient for you, a person be able to live above the poverty line on a part time job?  We aren't post-scarcity yet, so that entails that people work.

Your assertion of common sense is the classic double speak of someone who hasn't bothered to research the subject on which they are making their opinion. Because if you had, you would have realized that common sense would dictate the exact opposite! Raising wages raises the cost of goods for everyone else and, more importantly, to forcefully pay someone beyond the economic utility of their job would essentially raise the costs for everyone else.

No one has done as great a job as discrediting the democratic process as individuals like you, these people, these economic illiterates, get to have the same say who understands the difference between a million, a billion and a trillion. If I didn't buy into the fallacy of the technocracy I would advocate a mandarin style government. But that doesn't work either, so the best we can do is either hope the more Americans get their collective heads out of their asses or wait for reality to give them the mother of all spankings.

Feelings Have No Place In the Gun Control Debate

An article by forbes concerning a gun control battle that could hurt the industry sparks another comment form someone whose opinions are not informed and only motivated by fear.

I don’t like concealed carry. I feel like the very nut cases that ought to be on the mentally unstable, no gun list, for their raging paranoia are the ones out stocking up on guns and bullets right now. If youy think the government is going to enslave you then you need to look for a different government somewhere else because this ones about as safe as any could be.
I liked it when there was no concealed carry and we let the cops take care of the criminals
 

This is really frustrating and sad. Frustrating because this individual has obviously zero knowledge about conceal carry laws and the statistics behind them. If he/she had bothered to do some basic research then he/she would have realized that a) In most mentally unstable individuals are unable to acquire a ccw, and b) that statistically a person with a ccw is far less likely to commit a crime, much less a violent crime, than the populace at large.

What is sad is that this comment illustrates how the vast majority of America's populace makes their political decision. He/she feels the mentally unstable are the very ones getting concealed carry. Feelings should never factor into policy, what someone feels is irrelavent. There are plenty of things that I do not like, that give me a bad feeling, like drugs, that based on feeling alone I would ban, however, empircal evidence from the drug war shows the banning drugs would not only fail to stop drug usage, but also result in something far worse. My feelings should have no sway on my stance on the politics of an issue.  Does the law expand or restrict liberty? If it restricts liberty is there a clear and definite cause and is it narrow inscope to make it as unrestrictive as possible?  For example, food sanitation laws*, yes they are a restriction of liberty, and no I am not against them for the most part provided that they are not obscenely complex or opaque, such as example testing food for salmonella. Requiring that products be tested for salmonella is a small.

It's statements like this that make me realize why the founders were so wary of democracy. Despite my libertarian leanings I sometimes wonder if we should restrict individuals from voting for certain laws until they have displayed understanding of said issue.

*This doesn't mean I don't think that there aren't a lot of useless FDA regulations out there, or that there even has to be a Federal entity. But a state or county requiring that food be tested for safety is something I am ok with. The whole food sanitations law conepts could be a post in and off itself.

Unfair Distribution of Brains Now?

I was doing my normal Sunday morning routine, workout, breakfast, and peruse the web when I happened onto an article about the tenth man on the Root.  I read the article, which I found mildly interesting when I happened to glance at the comments. Lo and behold the first comment was anti-capitalist comment, I couldn't help but chuckle.

The myth of some deserving, yet small, portion of any population who somehow "naturally" form an elite group or deserving class, is as pervasive as capitalism. Indeed, one could insist that one situationally depends on the other. The unfair distribution of either wealth or brains is not a uniquely negro problem.

First it was the unfair distribution of wealth and now of intelligence? Amusing.