The Canadian Government's treatment of Postal workers is unfair.
Actually the fact that the Canadian Government has anything to do with these workers is unfair. That is the only reason I can think of why an unskilled labourer (mail carrier) earns $51,466 dollars a year to deliver mail and is eligible for up to 6 weeks (30 days) of paid vacation a year. Not to mention the cushy allotment of sick, and family related leave that can be taken.
Show me a single equivalent package of entitlements for an unskilled manual labourer in the private sector...
Yup the Government's treatment of the postal workers is unfair... and in the interest of fairness they should all be fired and new ones hired at a suitable and sane market rate.
Showing posts with label value. Show all posts
Showing posts with label value. Show all posts
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Epiphany
Yesterday was my birthday, and it went by almost unnoticed. Not on the part of those around me, many wished me all the best, but rather on my part.
You see, I have taken to not celebrating my birthday. Seeing it as being a “little thing” I have largely ignored it for years, after all a birthday is just another day, you aren’t really a year older, just a day. I didn’t give it much thought at all. I went to work, didn’t mention it, came home and had a normal unremarkable day.
Then it hit me, spurred by a comment made by my Sister-in-Law who, when I remarked that I had received no birthday gifts and had no plan to celebrate at all, commented that she “hated that”, meaning the trivialization of such celebrations. At the time I didn’t think much of it, but this morning I realized just what I was doing.
The Strikers Oath states in its first sentence “I swear by my life, and my love of it”, well this apathy toward my own birthday was not showing my life (Me) the ‘love’ it/I deserve. Too easily we reduce our lives to indistinguishable days, each following in bored procession one after the other. This is the antithesis of the Objectivist philosophy. Objectivism teaches us that we should celebrate our lives, that it is the end of all our means and that it is worth and worthy of any and all tributes we can heap upon it.
Having had this sudden realization I began to see the other ways I had been trivializing my own existence. I had let others that I value, specifically my wife view her birthday in the same fashion. Thus I was robbing myself of an opportunity to express with complete selfish satisfaction how much I value her.
Hell the day itself does not need to be important at all. The mere act of living my life in my own way, however small, is worthy of complete mindfulness, a conscious joyful acknowledgement of life, my life and my living of it.
My birthday has come and gone, but its passing, as unremarked as it was, has left me with this thought… Today, and every day is the first day of the rest of your life. Live it, consciously, actively, viscerally, fully.
You see, I have taken to not celebrating my birthday. Seeing it as being a “little thing” I have largely ignored it for years, after all a birthday is just another day, you aren’t really a year older, just a day. I didn’t give it much thought at all. I went to work, didn’t mention it, came home and had a normal unremarkable day.
Then it hit me, spurred by a comment made by my Sister-in-Law who, when I remarked that I had received no birthday gifts and had no plan to celebrate at all, commented that she “hated that”, meaning the trivialization of such celebrations. At the time I didn’t think much of it, but this morning I realized just what I was doing.
The Strikers Oath states in its first sentence “I swear by my life, and my love of it”, well this apathy toward my own birthday was not showing my life (Me) the ‘love’ it/I deserve. Too easily we reduce our lives to indistinguishable days, each following in bored procession one after the other. This is the antithesis of the Objectivist philosophy. Objectivism teaches us that we should celebrate our lives, that it is the end of all our means and that it is worth and worthy of any and all tributes we can heap upon it.
Having had this sudden realization I began to see the other ways I had been trivializing my own existence. I had let others that I value, specifically my wife view her birthday in the same fashion. Thus I was robbing myself of an opportunity to express with complete selfish satisfaction how much I value her.
Hell the day itself does not need to be important at all. The mere act of living my life in my own way, however small, is worthy of complete mindfulness, a conscious joyful acknowledgement of life, my life and my living of it.
My birthday has come and gone, but its passing, as unremarked as it was, has left me with this thought… Today, and every day is the first day of the rest of your life. Live it, consciously, actively, viscerally, fully.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Values
They claim that money can’t buy happiness, and they mean that material possessions can’t make a person happy which is true.
But it isn't true for the reason that modern moralists want us to believe. It’s not because money or possessions are evil, or that they poisons us “spiritually” making it easier for “a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven”, nor is it because they somehow create inequality, or oppresses the guy that doesn’t have quite as much.
No, the actual reason is that money, or any other possession for that matter, is not the requisite end, though it can be a means to the end (happiness) if used properly. If one treats money (or any similar good) as the end product of their life they are missing the point of that life.
If you buy a Harley Davidson for the prestige and believe that it will bring you the attention and the adoration of a certain crowd or group and therefore it will make you happy, your happiness will be a ghost; gone as soon as you step off the machine. If on the other hand you buy the Harley because you desire to ride and enjoy the particular feel of the scooter, that your value is in the quality of its craftsmanship its originality and of course the riding itself, then every time you ride you will be happy, and that happiness will spill over into other parts of your life.
The point is that life isn’t about the accumulation of physical wealth or goods. He who dies with the most toys may or may not be a winner, but it isn’t because of the toys.
The winner is the man who achieves his values, who lives by those values. But those values aren’t necessarily possessions; they are the actualization of concepts and reason, of moral and ethical choices. They are all the parts, pieces, premises and pleasures that further our lives.
But it isn't true for the reason that modern moralists want us to believe. It’s not because money or possessions are evil, or that they poisons us “spiritually” making it easier for “a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven”, nor is it because they somehow create inequality, or oppresses the guy that doesn’t have quite as much.
No, the actual reason is that money, or any other possession for that matter, is not the requisite end, though it can be a means to the end (happiness) if used properly. If one treats money (or any similar good) as the end product of their life they are missing the point of that life.
If you buy a Harley Davidson for the prestige and believe that it will bring you the attention and the adoration of a certain crowd or group and therefore it will make you happy, your happiness will be a ghost; gone as soon as you step off the machine. If on the other hand you buy the Harley because you desire to ride and enjoy the particular feel of the scooter, that your value is in the quality of its craftsmanship its originality and of course the riding itself, then every time you ride you will be happy, and that happiness will spill over into other parts of your life.
The point is that life isn’t about the accumulation of physical wealth or goods. He who dies with the most toys may or may not be a winner, but it isn’t because of the toys.
The winner is the man who achieves his values, who lives by those values. But those values aren’t necessarily possessions; they are the actualization of concepts and reason, of moral and ethical choices. They are all the parts, pieces, premises and pleasures that further our lives.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Not Neutral... Ambivalent. Not Compassionate... Evil
I will never donate another penny to the Red Cross.
The Red Cross' treatment of the Taliban in Afghanistan exemplifies the predominant philosophy of our age writ large. The Red Cross is exhibiting its altruistic roots, it is supporting people who would see it and every other vestige of "western society" completely destroyed. How wonderfully selfless.
Ayn Rand once said that "Pity for the guilty is treason to the innocent." and she was right.
That answer to the Red Cross' implicit philosophy draws some fire from "compassionate humanists" though...
"The Red Cross is just being neutral" they say just like in WW2 when they dealt with German POW's in Prison camps.
That is a good point and I hadn't thought of it before but their assistance to the Taliban now is no different than their assistance to Nazi's in WW2.
I see now that the Red Cross is not immoral for doing this but rather that it is amoral. It is designed as an organization to be unable to distinguish between right and wrong, good from evil. Which in my book puts it directly alongside the evil it is unable to recognize.
"But the Red Cross is just like Switzerland..." they cry "Neutral!"
But they miss a very important distinction between the Swiss neutrality and the Red Cross'.
The Swiss neither help nor hinder any side. They keep their hands to themselves in all matters. This isn't amoral, they have decided that it is in their self-interest as a nation to stay out of it all altogether.
The Red Cross is not neutral it is ambivalent. It doesn't care who it helps. It makes every one of the good guys fighting for the moral and right reasons, the exact same as every misogynistic, racist, ignorant, socially backward, religious fanatic and bugger Taliban on the battlefield.
In short, the Red Cross equates MMV winners, guys like Tpr Shane Dolmovic and our leaders, like General Hillier with the scum-bags who throw acid on schoolgirls and stone women to death for the crime of adultery when they have actually been raped.
There is a moral choice facing the Red Cross, it is as clear as white and black, and they are evil for failing to make that choice.
Then comes the next philosophical head fake...
"The Taliban were raised to believe what they do, their society is structured that way, their religion has taught them that they are right. So who are we to say what is moral? "
To answer a question of morality I would ask what is the purpose of existence and what position among all the positions of all religions, ideologies and cultures best upholds that purpose?
For me the purpose of existence is life, my life and my living of it. In other words living in a rationally self-interested way.
Now this does not mean living as a range of the moment hedonist. Tiger Woods was not operating in his self-interest when he was out whoring around, as evidenced by how much those actions have cost him personally and professionally.
Nor is it a blank cheque to treat people as sub-human, as disposable and worthless. After all it does not further my life to live in a society where I would need to treat every other person as a danger rather than a possible source of value to enhance and enrich my life.
It also doesn't benefit me to treat this life like a shadow of something more "beyond the grave". Reality and the facts of it all point to this being the only existence we are going to get. Dismissing reality is the first cardinal sin against living a good, long, successful and happy life.
It also means that altruistic sacrifice (the relinquishment of a greater benefit for a lesser one) is contrary to living in this life.*
* A note here, our soldiers do not sacrifice themselves for a lesser value. They have either made a conscious decision that what they are fighting for is worth the possibility of death or they have weighed the risks and believe themselves to be skilled enough to survive where others will not. Neither of these is sacrifice.
So to get back to the deciding of what is moral or not; using these few points and many others that it would take too long to list I can, and you can, determine what is moral and what isn't, and we should.
More than that I believe that this world would be much better off if people would use the standard of their own lives to determine their morality instead of accepting someone else's definition, ideology or superstition.
Like Rand said. "The moral principle to adopt is Judge and be prepared to be Judged."
Actions can not be separated from their results, no matter if you claim compassion, humanity or neutrality as your excuse. No matter if you are an individual or a multi-national organization.
I have judged the Red Cross by their actions and I find them to be immoral, and evil.
*H/T Chris
The Red Cross' treatment of the Taliban in Afghanistan exemplifies the predominant philosophy of our age writ large. The Red Cross is exhibiting its altruistic roots, it is supporting people who would see it and every other vestige of "western society" completely destroyed. How wonderfully selfless.
Ayn Rand once said that "Pity for the guilty is treason to the innocent." and she was right.
That answer to the Red Cross' implicit philosophy draws some fire from "compassionate humanists" though...
"The Red Cross is just being neutral" they say just like in WW2 when they dealt with German POW's in Prison camps.
That is a good point and I hadn't thought of it before but their assistance to the Taliban now is no different than their assistance to Nazi's in WW2.
I see now that the Red Cross is not immoral for doing this but rather that it is amoral. It is designed as an organization to be unable to distinguish between right and wrong, good from evil. Which in my book puts it directly alongside the evil it is unable to recognize.
"But the Red Cross is just like Switzerland..." they cry "Neutral!"
But they miss a very important distinction between the Swiss neutrality and the Red Cross'.
The Swiss neither help nor hinder any side. They keep their hands to themselves in all matters. This isn't amoral, they have decided that it is in their self-interest as a nation to stay out of it all altogether.
The Red Cross is not neutral it is ambivalent. It doesn't care who it helps. It makes every one of the good guys fighting for the moral and right reasons, the exact same as every misogynistic, racist, ignorant, socially backward, religious fanatic and bugger Taliban on the battlefield.
In short, the Red Cross equates MMV winners, guys like Tpr Shane Dolmovic and our leaders, like General Hillier with the scum-bags who throw acid on schoolgirls and stone women to death for the crime of adultery when they have actually been raped.
There is a moral choice facing the Red Cross, it is as clear as white and black, and they are evil for failing to make that choice.
Then comes the next philosophical head fake...
"The Taliban were raised to believe what they do, their society is structured that way, their religion has taught them that they are right. So who are we to say what is moral? "
To answer a question of morality I would ask what is the purpose of existence and what position among all the positions of all religions, ideologies and cultures best upholds that purpose?
For me the purpose of existence is life, my life and my living of it. In other words living in a rationally self-interested way.
Now this does not mean living as a range of the moment hedonist. Tiger Woods was not operating in his self-interest when he was out whoring around, as evidenced by how much those actions have cost him personally and professionally.
Nor is it a blank cheque to treat people as sub-human, as disposable and worthless. After all it does not further my life to live in a society where I would need to treat every other person as a danger rather than a possible source of value to enhance and enrich my life.
It also doesn't benefit me to treat this life like a shadow of something more "beyond the grave". Reality and the facts of it all point to this being the only existence we are going to get. Dismissing reality is the first cardinal sin against living a good, long, successful and happy life.
It also means that altruistic sacrifice (the relinquishment of a greater benefit for a lesser one) is contrary to living in this life.*
* A note here, our soldiers do not sacrifice themselves for a lesser value. They have either made a conscious decision that what they are fighting for is worth the possibility of death or they have weighed the risks and believe themselves to be skilled enough to survive where others will not. Neither of these is sacrifice.
So to get back to the deciding of what is moral or not; using these few points and many others that it would take too long to list I can, and you can, determine what is moral and what isn't, and we should.
More than that I believe that this world would be much better off if people would use the standard of their own lives to determine their morality instead of accepting someone else's definition, ideology or superstition.
Like Rand said. "The moral principle to adopt is Judge and be prepared to be Judged."
Actions can not be separated from their results, no matter if you claim compassion, humanity or neutrality as your excuse. No matter if you are an individual or a multi-national organization.
I have judged the Red Cross by their actions and I find them to be immoral, and evil.
*H/T Chris
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Time to Pay Up
UPDATE: Second Firm Pulls out of Greece , and the Greeks continue to evade reality...
This is the end of the road for socialized medicine.
Medicine just like bread, automobiles and bowling balls cost a certain amount to produce. That is a fact. It is not a construct of a company or a secret cabal of evil capitalists perpetrating a "brutal blackmail".
It is also not "a violation of corporate social responsibility" the company would not exist, there would be no insulin to buy, and no one to produce it if they (the company) were to ignore the realities of what it takes to produce this or any other product.
It is simply a matter of reality, things cost money, and nothing can be produced for free. Nothing can be supplied indefinitely at a loss. Yes, you might be able to supply it for a time at a loss but as less money comes in less product is produced and soon there is nothing and no company to produce it.
The decree by the Greek government that all medicine prices shall be cut by 25% (so that the government can continue to supply those medicines through the health care system) is a command divorced of reality.
There is a simple solution. Return the portion of taxes that each Greek pays into the health care scheme and allow then to pay for their own medicine at the market rate.
The Greek Government is not the only one to blame for this though. The Greeks have themselves as individuals to blame. Every time they demanded that their government give them more for less, every time they allowed another government program to supply for them something that they should have bought themselves. Every time they asked for more pay and less work, every demand to feather their social safety net led to this.
Reality can not be ignored forever, you may survive for a time while evading it but sooner or later its time to pay up.
Greece's bill is due.
This is the end of the road for socialized medicine.
Medicine just like bread, automobiles and bowling balls cost a certain amount to produce. That is a fact. It is not a construct of a company or a secret cabal of evil capitalists perpetrating a "brutal blackmail".
It is also not "a violation of corporate social responsibility" the company would not exist, there would be no insulin to buy, and no one to produce it if they (the company) were to ignore the realities of what it takes to produce this or any other product.
It is simply a matter of reality, things cost money, and nothing can be produced for free. Nothing can be supplied indefinitely at a loss. Yes, you might be able to supply it for a time at a loss but as less money comes in less product is produced and soon there is nothing and no company to produce it.
The decree by the Greek government that all medicine prices shall be cut by 25% (so that the government can continue to supply those medicines through the health care system) is a command divorced of reality.
There is a simple solution. Return the portion of taxes that each Greek pays into the health care scheme and allow then to pay for their own medicine at the market rate.
The Greek Government is not the only one to blame for this though. The Greeks have themselves as individuals to blame. Every time they demanded that their government give them more for less, every time they allowed another government program to supply for them something that they should have bought themselves. Every time they asked for more pay and less work, every demand to feather their social safety net led to this.
Reality can not be ignored forever, you may survive for a time while evading it but sooner or later its time to pay up.
Greece's bill is due.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
The End of The Beginning of the End
"This really is Act V of the fiscal welfare state, in which monetary policy becomes the shameless handmaiden of fiscal policy in order to sustain an unsustainable kind of riskless society with massive benefits for everyone paid for by a few."Read the whole thing.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Invictus
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
W.E. Henley
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
W.E. Henley
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Christmas
From the Ayn Rand Lexicon...
[In answer to the question of whether it is appropriate for an atheist to celebrate Christmas:]Yes, of course. A national holiday, in this country, cannot have an exclusively religious meaning. The secular meaning of the Christmas holiday is wider than the tenets of any particular religion: it is good will toward men—a frame of mind which is not the exclusive property (though it is supposed to be part, but is a largely unobserved part) of the Christian religion.
The charming aspect of Christmas is the fact that it expresses good will in a cheerful, happy, benevolent, non-sacrificial way. One says: “Merry Christmas”—not “Weep and Repent.” And the good will is expressed in a material, earthly form—by giving presents to one’s friends, or by sending them cards in token of remembrance . . . .
The best aspect of Christmas is the aspect usually decried by the mystics: the fact that Christmas has been commercialized. The gift-buying . . . stimulates an enormous outpouring of ingenuity in the creation of products devoted to a single purpose: to give men pleasure. And the street decorations put up by department stores and other institutions—the Christmas trees, the winking lights, the glittering colors—provide the city with a spectacular display, which only “commercial greed” could afford to give us. One would have to be terribly depressed to resist the wonderful gaiety of that spectacle.
The Objectivist Calendar, Dec. 1976.
Merry Christmas one and all!
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Altruism At The Movies: Two Thumbs Down
It was standard movie fare. A great cataclysm was about to strike, the Army was putting people onto trucks to take them to safety. The last two spots were taken by the heroine and her male companion (who has already been characterized as being something of an asshole). Suddenly out in the crowd a heavy woman, clutching a baby with another child in tow cries out to be saved.
A soldier says that there is no more room...
"But you have to save my babies" cries the woman.
There is safety 10 miles away says the soldier, you will have to walk.
But we can't walk 10 miles she cries... Save my children!
At this point the heroine jumps off of the truck. "You can have my spot" she says, in the purest spirit of altruism, giving up her safety and security for a total stranger.
The heroine then looks back at her male companion. "Come on she says..."
And that is where it happens, the companion, rightfully concerned with his own welfare refuses to give up his seat.
The result (condemnation) is nurtured in the watcher, from the earlier characterization of this companion as a coward and a jerk. So the reaction of my wife when she muttered "jerk" under her breath came as little surprise.
I looked at her and realized that she hadn't thought about the elicited reaction. So I asked her. "If you were already safe in the shelter would you want me to give up my life for some complete stranger? Is that woman's life worth more to you than mine? Think about it... I'd gladly give up my seat for you or our kids but for a stranger? What makes her life more valuable than mine?
There was no answer.
Now being as smart (and normally) as rational as my wife is I don't often win an argument with one point like that, but it was so simple this time...
Why? Because the ideal of altruism is so often shown in this way, as a remote "lifeboat scenario" with the situation completely detached from those observing it, where the hero/heroine always eventually survives and the selfish jerk almost always dies. But that isn't true to nature. It is the people who do everything that they can to save their own lives that end up surviving, not the ones that give their safety away to a stranger.
Why is the stranger important? What possible reason could there be to sacrifice your life for a complete stranger? Some might point to animals using altruistic behaviour in the wild as an admonishment that we Humans should be at least as "good" but look at what they are comparing us to.
A monkey or a beaver can not reason and operates on instinct in a range of the moment existence. There are no value judgments being made, the animal is not sacrificing itself it is operating the autopilot of instinct.
So next time you see this cinematic or literary trick used take a moment to think. Raise yourself above the level of a Rhesus monkey or Beaver and ask the important question.
What do you value, what is being asked for in sacrifice?
A soldier says that there is no more room...
"But you have to save my babies" cries the woman.
There is safety 10 miles away says the soldier, you will have to walk.
But we can't walk 10 miles she cries... Save my children!
At this point the heroine jumps off of the truck. "You can have my spot" she says, in the purest spirit of altruism, giving up her safety and security for a total stranger.
The heroine then looks back at her male companion. "Come on she says..."
And that is where it happens, the companion, rightfully concerned with his own welfare refuses to give up his seat.
The result (condemnation) is nurtured in the watcher, from the earlier characterization of this companion as a coward and a jerk. So the reaction of my wife when she muttered "jerk" under her breath came as little surprise.
I looked at her and realized that she hadn't thought about the elicited reaction. So I asked her. "If you were already safe in the shelter would you want me to give up my life for some complete stranger? Is that woman's life worth more to you than mine? Think about it... I'd gladly give up my seat for you or our kids but for a stranger? What makes her life more valuable than mine?
There was no answer.
Now being as smart (and normally) as rational as my wife is I don't often win an argument with one point like that, but it was so simple this time...
Why? Because the ideal of altruism is so often shown in this way, as a remote "lifeboat scenario" with the situation completely detached from those observing it, where the hero/heroine always eventually survives and the selfish jerk almost always dies. But that isn't true to nature. It is the people who do everything that they can to save their own lives that end up surviving, not the ones that give their safety away to a stranger.
Why is the stranger important? What possible reason could there be to sacrifice your life for a complete stranger? Some might point to animals using altruistic behaviour in the wild as an admonishment that we Humans should be at least as "good" but look at what they are comparing us to.
A monkey or a beaver can not reason and operates on instinct in a range of the moment existence. There are no value judgments being made, the animal is not sacrificing itself it is operating the autopilot of instinct.
So next time you see this cinematic or literary trick used take a moment to think. Raise yourself above the level of a Rhesus monkey or Beaver and ask the important question.
What do you value, what is being asked for in sacrifice?
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