Minimum Wage just went up to $11.50 in Washington State. The price of milk is $2.68 a Gallon.

[K@th]

Like I was saying, Viktor.

[Okeefenokee]

Re-cruit: verb, the act of cruiting again.

Hold on Sam. The first cruit didn't stick. I've got to recruit this thing before we can leave.

[Speaker to Animals]

A recruiter acquires new JEEPs.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Wal-mart now paying all employees a minimum of $11. We're about to find out...

[DBTrek]

That can’t possibly be because tax breaks for corporations never benefit the workers, I’m told.

[Okeefenokee]

Buncha places went straight to fifteen. Walmart needs to get it together.

[jediuser598]

Nobody here was bothering Jedi, he was the one who came on strong and started calling people out, cry me a river. /shrugs

As far as I'm concerned, you provided the initial provocation with "I've done work that would break a man like you." Where'd you see my provocation before that? If I provided one, the only one I could think of would be saying "You'd have a different tune if you were down here with me." Which, is true. People doing the same job tend to have different opinions than people not doing the job. One is sharing a common path with someone when they're working alongside them as compared to when you're not. That's all I meant.

So what's the initial provocation here?

This from me?

Smitty, be honest, you're not on labor's side, most of this board isn't for one reason or another, so talking about improving labor's conditions is like trying to convert Lucifer. You'd have a different opinion if you were here next to me.

Or this from you?

And frankly, I've done plenty of hard jobs, jobs that would break a man like you, make no mistake.

And like I said, if anyone said that to me in real life, they'd better have brought their good work boots, cause we're going to have some fun.

[Speaker to Animals]

Halting illegal immigration (or really mass immigration in general) would do more to improve working conditions than pretty much any batshit progressive idea you can possibly table.

[Montegriffo]

You mean cook.

No, Chef. As in "Yes Chef" was the response expected when I told them to do something. A line cook is beneath a Chef.

Hold on StA. TC assured me he has fed two Presidents.
Mind you, if one of them was the Donald then all it entailed was a trip to the nearest golden arches to pick up a quarter pounder, a Mc Slurry and extra ketchup.

[jediuser598]

Jedi has delineated a certain point in an oblique way: The tendency of the human mind to want to support and identify, not only with who is, but who is perceived as most likely to rise to the top of the hierarchy. It's no wonder we're that way: For most of human history it was deadly to be in the losing side's camp in leadership disputes. To paraphrase someone, we like winners, we don't like losers.

In the book of Job, Job's misfortunes are viewed by others as divine retribution for some hidden wickedness, for his friends think it axiomatic that God will raise up the righteous and cast down the wicked. Yet in reality Job's fate, like all of ours, is merely the outcome of the unfathomable relationship between chaos and order, (God dealing with the Devil)

Hard physical labor is emblematic in society of the bottom of the hierarchy, therefore, as Job must have secretly sinned to have his house burned down by God, so to be a laborer on the bottom of the totem pole you must be at fault morally, for why else would you continue to labor and do not rise out of it? The exact reason will have to do with the in-group's value system. In the forum's case the value system is intelligence, independence and industriousness. But look at how the situation of the peasant was justified in Victorian times as the natural outcome of his stupidity and brutishness. (But there were some who saw in the peasants a pure and moral existence. In Victorian times, there were social movements like Tolstoyanism which idealized the peasant and his labor. Many young noblemen took to the country to live out these ideals.)

At the same time, there are many examples of the hard working, common man being mythologized in characters like Paul Bunyan and John Henry. The culture of respecting hard work itself versus industriousness was probably always localized to the working people themselves. Peasants, slaves, coal miners, farmers, situations where the consequences of slacking at your job could mean others being worked to death.

We, as Americans, no longer value hard work. As Smitty stated, the American dream is making lots of cash with little effort. That's the American ideal.

Those people are made into heroes. Whereas someone who is putting in 65 hours a week in two jobs at minimum wage is looked at like a retard. Something must be wrong with them, they're defective.

We as Americans think being rich, and being at the top of a "cargo culture" is being at the highest state of virtue. Remember that one discussion we had a while back where I asked something along the lines of "Do you believe that people with lower credit tend to be of lower character?" And most people here said yes.

In fact, I believe some explicitly stated they believe that having a lower credit score meant you're more likely to be a criminal, as if having a low credit score meant one's more likely to engage in criminal actions.

If I told people I worked a job doing absolutely nothing, as in I come in to work, sit at my desk, and don't do anything for 8 hours, then went home, but! I made a million a year? Well they'd see that as the best thing ever, how could I be so smart, so great in virtue that'd I'd be able to pull something like that. Modern day Hercules. At the top of the social hierarchy.

American virtue is determined by how much money you make.