Progressives: Your safety is their... fifth concern

During my morning browsing of news and information sites, I came across this article on The Blaze:
This Colorado Democrat Thinks Women Shouldn’t Have Guns on College Campuses — The Reason Why Is Causing a Stir
The list I refer to is further down the page where the University of Colorado - Colorado Springs put forth a list on what to do if you're attacked. Oh it's rich...

1.    Be realistic about your ability to protect yourself.
2.    Your instinct may be to scream, go ahead!  It may startle your attacker and give you an opportunity to run away.
3.    Kick off your shoes if you have time and can’t run in them.
4.    Don’t take time to look back; just get away.
5.    If your life is in danger, passive resistance may be your best defense.
6.    Tell your attacker that you have a disease or are menstruating.
7.    Vomiting or urinating may also convince the attacker to leave you alone.
8.    Yelling, hitting or biting may give you a chance to escape, do it!
9.    Understand that some actions on your part might lead to more harm.
10.    Remember, every emergency situation is different.  Only you can decide which action is most appropriate.

 I think 1 and 10 are pretty good. Everything else is laughable, if it weren't that these people are weapons grade stupid.  Obviously, these are directed at women on a college campus and being that colleges demand that you be a defenseless sheep, these are painfully the only things you can do. If someone means to do you harm, they're going to do it unless you can physically stop them; either through action or intimidation.
What I found funny was watching a video on YouTube pro concealed carry, someone commented that "I'm 6 foot 2, 250 pounds. A loud yell and a menacing look is all I need." By which the 5 foot, 120 pound 14 year old gang banger with an illegal 1911 pops him in the head and steals his wallet. Or the 6 foot 3 inch, 300 pound thief hits him in the head with a brick, steals his wallet, watch, and rings, and shoves a pipe up his ass just for the fun of it. OR... what about does the 5 foot 10, 170 pound 70 year old do when they're being harassed, threatened, or intimidated? "I'm gonna call the cops on you!" he/she shouts before they're assaulted by the thugs. Or what does my 5 foot 9, 140 pound daughter (she's older) do? Some people are as dumb as a bowl of wet mice.
"I'm a man! I don't need a gun!" You're an asshole and a 9 year old with a .22 will make you cry like a baby with diaper rash. Or the 'wimp' you step up to with your "menacing" look may be carrying a knife or pepperspray and when you yell at him, he's gonna fuck you up.

Obviously, people deserve to walk the streets without being harassed or harmed. But we live in a violent world. The human animal is a pretty shitty creature when left without a conscience or care about anyone but Itself. We (the greater) need to accept that fact that some people are scum and we need to protect ourselves from them. The young girl  who follows all the steps laid out above could still find herself raped, beaten, and possibly even dead, because she believed in The System and the defensive powers of The State. And the young girl who brings a firearm into the situation, with the training behind it? She too could still wind up raped, beaten, or dead, but she at least leveled the odds and said, "I will not comply."

It's not the video, it's the lyrics

A song from my youth.
A band from New York called S.F.A. They were part of the hardcore punk movement called "hatecore". This wasn't some white power thing at the start; it was in response to the unity movement that had been underway in the hardcore scene. Bands like S.F.A and Sheer Terror were basically just pissed off regular guys who wanted to sing about the shitty side of life, voice their opinions about societal and political bullshit without being "We should come together and love one another and sing and dance and..." They were saying "This shit is fucked up! You all suck! Eat a dick!" As a lyric from Sheer Terror's song "Just Can't Hate Enough" says:

I'm just a workin' class slob who's tired

Of getting the short end of the stick

It ain't my problem if I'm not like you

And I'm not suckin' Uncle Sam's dick

You call that negative

You think I'm out of touch

I can't stand living

I can't stand you

And I just can't hate enough.

Now like many popular movements, someone comes along and distorts the original message and the white power movement took over the term "hatecore". Typical of the seek-help crowd.

Anyways...

This song came up in a random music shuffle recently and I thought it's a powerful one. Won't say I condone it, but I understand. :-)

Lyrics below, as they can be a little tough to make out for some folks.

You don't have to look far to see filth and grime
Our daily lives are filled with perversion and crime
A dealer on the corner, some whores down the block
It's an everyday sight, it comes as no shock
No arrests are made, the politicians are corrupted
This is the world they made, it's time we disrupt it
Justice can't be brought through legal demands
The only way to do it is with the law in our hands
Purge! Bring down the state
You rally and protest, your voices go unheard
You've got to change tactics
Actions speak louder than words
Democracy is a sham, it's all been prearranged
Bombs, not ballots, is the only way to bring a change
World history is approaching it's darkest hour
We can turn back the clock, we've got the power
We are the new morality, the power is in our hands
We can sweep across the nation and purge the land
Politicians and evangelists all spread the lie
For their injustice to humanity, they'll have to die
Today's robber barons must be assassinated
Drug dens and porno houses must be incinerated
We're the new morality, our numbers are vast
We can build a new future as we burn down the past
We'll show no mercy, no hesitation
Might makes right, we're gonna purge the nation
Purge! Bring down the state

More basics of economics - The Minimum Wage

I didn't watch the State Of The Union. Every time I see or hear King Barry I, I get an animalistic urge to throw poo at the electronic device spewing his voice. That aside, I heard clips and the one that made me yell "FUCK YOU!!!" to the screen was the typical Progressive line that people can't live off the minimum wage and we can't have that so we need to raise he minimum wage.

My pretty much exact phrase that night was "Fuck you, you fucking dumbass retard! You have NO CLUE how business works!"

Why does the minimum wage suck and why it does nothing positive for "the poor" and only hurts?

Pretty much all companies have jobs that need to be done that are menial, ultra-low skilled, and 'entry-level'. As a business is small, these jobs are done by the owner (as they're the only employee at the start), but then it can become a team effort: Everyone refills the coffee pot. While she's handling all the accounting tasks, Pam also orders the office supplies. Karen, who's the senior sales person (because she's the only one), sweeps the floors before heading home. Dave, who's the software programer, buys and restocks the coffee supplies weekly. You get the idea. Now, as the business expands and these people work more and more, these jobs STILL need to be done. You, as the owner, decide that you need to hire someone. So, you need someone to sweep floors, clean the toilet, order supplies, restock the coffee, and maybe even answer phones.
Question: How many people walking the Earth can do that job? Excluding young children, language barred, the retarded, infirmed, and those just physically incapable of doing it, about 95% of the people out there can do this job. Efficiencies aside, I could hire a teenage kid, still in high school to do this job.
Second question: How valuable is that work when I can hire just about anyone to do it? Shoe-level low. So why should I pay any one with ZERO experience, ZERO work history, and ZERO background on how well they work, anything more than a couple dollars an hour?
"You can't live off that!" Cries the Progressive.
You're not supposed to! These jobs that are as simple as shitting are of such low value is that I probably could hire a retard and they'd perform most of the tasks just fine.
"So why should these people take these jobs?"
To get work history. To be able to show another employer, for a higher skilled job, that you're dependable, that you've worked 40 hour weeks, showed up on time, made your employer happy, etc... The $5.00/hour  ain't pretty, but it's something. It's $200 a week you didn't have before. Want more, learn a skill and find a better job.

Now, let's add in "The Minimum Wage". Right now, it's about $7.25. I have two people coming at me for this shit job. If I have to pay them $7.25 an hour, who will I hire - Joe, who's 15, never had a job in his life beyond mowing lawns, he's still in school, he's an average student. Or Jane, who's 32 with a child at home, who worked 3 jobs successfully, growing into new positions, and only left the job market because she had a baby, and she's a college graduate. Ding, ding, ding, Jane, you have a job. Why? Even without asking anything, if Jane says she's a mom, I can generally assume she's responsible (I know, that's definitely not a guarantee, but...) because she has to care for a child. I can make an assumption that she is looking for extra money for something; why come back to work if she didn't have to? She has a history of work, so I could ask for a reference and would maybe find she's been reliable. Joe has no benefits to me, Joe gets no job. BUT... what if Joe was willing to take $6.00 an hour and Jane wasn't? Now Joe is a benefit to me. I can get the same work done for less money. I give Joe a chance. Maybe Joe thanks me by staying loyal to me and as his skill increase, maybe Joe stays with my company and grows into new jobs for me.
How many kids are working at jobs that were open to teenagers before. My first jobs were shoveling ice cream, then stocking shelves, stocking produce, cleaning a charter boat. These jobs suck. But I earned money, I got work experience, I showed my value. Look around now and who's doing these jobs? Adults!
"They deserve a fair wage!" Cries the Progressive.
That is fair. Why? Because if I can't pay the wages these people want, I just don't hire them. I still have the rest of my staff performing the jobs because they still need to be done!
"You're a greedy business owner who is keeping all the profit!"
To be considered a successful business, you have to be maintaining an 8% net profit margin. This allows you to grow in the following year(s), re-invest in the company, maybe buy a new company etc...  About 4% is considered being stagnant. Anything less, but over 0, is struggling to survive. So if I take anything out of those profits to increase the pay of my employees and don't receive any additional benefit from it or increase my revenue, I'm losing money. The business will collapse. Or...
To increase the money I'm paying my employees, I increase my prices. If I'm one business doing this, not a big deal, people can chose to do business with me or not. Maybe my products are worth the additional prices I'm charging. Maybe not. If I don't get the increased revenue, I can't afford to pay my people, people get pay cuts, get laid off, etc... Now, what if ALL businesses do this? The prices for EVERYTHING go up. The additional money that person making minimum wage got by the government mandated increase, now becomes absolutely worthless because the price of everything increased by the same percentage their wage increased. If you don't think this is happening, you've got shit between your ears because it DOES happen. Every single time the minimum wage is increased, the prices increase.

The only way a person making a shit wage can increase their pay is to increase their skills, increase their worth to the person/people who have or are willing to hire them . If you're making $8.00/hr at Walmart, then A) Find a better job than stocking shelves at Walmart or B) Show you're more valuable to Walmart so they can put you into a job that is commiserate with your work.

I support the Second Amendment, but...

How many times have you heard that one? Especially as of late. Or "I'm all for freedom of speech, but..." That one's surprisingly popular as well.
If you say you're for freedom and then add "...but,..." then you're not. In truth, when you make a statement and through in a "But" in the middle, whatever you said before the 'but' is bullshit.
"I think you're a great guy, Tom, but I've heard you can be a cunt sometimes." = "Tom, you're a cunt."
"I don't have a problem with black people, but they do cause the majority of crimes." = "Black people cause the majority of crimes and I don't like them."
"I believe in the Second Amendment, but we should ban assault rifles." = "I believe we should ban guns."
"I'm all for freedom of speech, but we shouldn't allow hate speech." = "I want to restrict speech."

Freedom is painful. The movie is mainly filled with Progressive tripe, but Michael Douglas' soliloquy at the end of "American President" has some truth to it.
"America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country can't just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then, you can stand up and sing about the "land of the free"."
What freedom means is suffering the consequences of your failures. If you want to be free to ride your motorcycle without a helmet, then when you wreck and crack your skull, the bills are on you. Your family can't sue the motorcycle company or the city or the state. You're the one responsible for it.
The same for businesses. Right now, we're living through the results of "shared liability, private profits." GM, Citibank, Bank Of America, Solyndra, and probably thousands of others who, thanks to politicians, hoist their failures upon the American taxpayer, but when they make a profit, that's all for them, their unions, etc... FUCK YOU!!! If you want to be free from government regulations (Trust me, these large government connected companies LOVE regulations. They help write them to keep away the competition) then you are solely responsible for the actions of your business.
As a gun owner, you are responsible for the control of that weapon. If someone gets killed because of a 'misfire', "I thought it was unloaded", "It was an accident", it gets stolen, then it's on you. Yes, you can do your best to secure it and these things can happen, but YOU are responsible for it. If it's stolen, then report it as such. Welcome to reality.
But the same goes for the people around us.
If you've agreed to the terms of a drivers license, then you've agreed to be responsible for the rolling mass of death thundering down the road, with you behind the wheel. If you crash into a motorcyclist while texting, you're the asshole and no amount of helmet laws will have cured your stupidity.
If you're continuing to buy the products produced by a company who you feel has shitty business practices (Apple, Bank Of America, Levi Strauss, etc...) then guess who's responsible for that company staying in business? Yup, you guessed it, you're the cocksucker. How's it taste?
I could go on, but hopefully, you get the point.

We (The Collective) have all but agreed that We can't deal with freedom. Sure, there's some of us who understand that our actions have reprecussions and we're ready to deal with that, but the greater populace of the US has determined that it just can't handle their own lives and has turned to The State for care and feeding. It shouldn't come as a surprise as this is the way most of the world has gone and, being an open immigration country (unlike the rest of the world), we get these ideas imported and they begin to fester. It's like my current state, North Carolina. Entry way to The South. However, there's been such an influx of "Northerners" here, fleeing their high-tax, high-regulation states, that the politics are beginning o reflect that. Hell, there's a town down here called "Cary", which the locals refer to as Containment Area for Relocated Yankees. It has higher property taxes than the surrounding communities. There's tons of ordinances restricting business facades, what signs you can have in your yards, etc... Progressives are like cancer, aren't they? They pick a place, attack it, ruin it, move on, do it all over again.

There is a sliver of hope that people are beginning to realize that the chains of The State are heavy and are trying to shrug them off. But if the "Freedom Movement" has any chance of growing, people need to be ready to accept some pain; mainly mental, but there could be some physical hardship. But it's the only way it can happen. If We keep trying to deaden the pain, we'll continue to be asleep and be subservient to The State.