Government Bullies

I started recording Stossel to watch.  Took me a while since the early show comes on at the same time something else we record is on ... and the later re-run that night ... well Dish Network doesn't have their schedule right.  But I got it figured out.  And I recorded my first one.

Which was on "Government Bullies"  (incidentally, you can catch programs older than a week or two on Hulu.com)

Village Voice writer Anya Kamenetz he had on to defend the latest labor bill’s mandate that interns must be paid – when she basically called for the government to interfere in a business deal between consenting adults.

Anya comes out of the gate defending the "Fair Labor Standards Act" (how much do you want to bet communist Andy Stern was behind that one?) with her defense of it saying

"This activity of internship has grown up in the shadows without there being much government oversight or regulation."

As if it is self-evidently true that no government oversight or regulation is inherently a bad thing. This is the core of progressive thought. Experts must oversee everything anyone does anywhere to make sure it's being done .... well ... "right". It's obvious to them. Anyone who doesn't want this must be trying to get away with something nefarious.

Next she suggests that a possible solution for interns not getting paid would be for colleges to pay them (of course, colleges are often already "paying" them in college credit, which they bestow on them for work completed). John Stossel responds "yeah, but they won't".

And this is her very, very telling response:

"Well, they will if the law is enforced."

Think about the weight of what's being said and done here. Internships (once called apprenticeships) are excellent ways one can gain experience in the field of one's choice. It's a practical education. And people pay for education. But what we're really seeing here is labor unions seeing a slice of pie they're not getting. And they want to see it stopped. In their eyes, apprenticeships take away Union jobs.

But what is happening in real life is people who want experience are being matched up with people who need help and are willing to give a newbie a chance to learn and to prove him/herself ... and a willing exchange is made. Their work for their real-world experience gained and perhaps access to your knowledge to enhance that experience. No one forces you to take an internship. You do it, or you don't. You can quit at any time. After all, you're clearly not relying on the money for a living, now, are you?

So the "experts" ... (the Unions, in this case) step in and say, "Hey. We can't have that. It's not 'fair'". Now they're saying it's not fair to the intern. But if it weren't fair to the intern, the intern wouldn't take the position. What the real driving force is ... they think it's not "fair" to their members.

Andy Stern, former SEIU president and most frequent visitor to the White House for the first 15 months of the Obama Administration.... Unions, Saul Alinsky -- the father of Community Organizing ... they were his first projects back in the 1930's ... how's this quote from him? "Workers of the World Unite? It's not just a slogan anymore!" Workers of the World Unite... where have I heard that before? [insert hammer and sickle here] ... and how about this quote from him? "We're trying to use the power of persuasion. And if that doesn't work we're going to use the persuasion of power."

Well it'll work if the law is enforced.

We have a special interest group using the coercive power of the government to enforce their rules on voluntary business deals made between consenting adults. If you don't want to do it the way Andy Stern thinks you should ... the goverment will force you to do it his way.

This is why Socialism always evolves into some form of Fascism ... the state IS the religion, and you WILL follow it.

See, actually, government isn't the enemy. Government is the tool of choice FOR the enemy(ies).

Government is the only entity that is allowed to legally use force outside of self defense (and there are those who would like to remove that caveat as well! Badly!) So when government essentially becomes a whore to special interests and disregards the constraints placed upon it by our founders, it becomes THE tool of choice for special interests to foist their wills upon us in perpetuity. Because once government passes the requisite laws and creates or expands the government agencies to enforce those laws, we typically have a self-perpetuating special interest group INSIDE the government fighting to keep itself going. Rarely are these things repealed. 250 additional "wage and hour investigators" are being hired as a result of the Fair Labor Standards Act". Long after Andy Stern is dead ... the agencies employing those investigators will continue to justify their existence.

One if his  former interns, "Ann" ... said she worked two jobs... one paying PLUS her internship, just so she could take the internship with John Stossel.

John, playing devil's advocate said yeah, but that just shows that only rich people can afford to take internships. Ann said not at all, she chose to work that second, paying job so she could afford to do the internship.

The freaking commie replied:

"Yeah, but not everybody has that choice."

True. Not everybody has any particular choice. And no matter how hard the government tries, it can't fix that, and trying to fix it will only make things less "fair".

Life's not fair.  And Government will never make it fair.