Whether I own a controlling share in a Fortune 500 corporation or whether I have never run a business of any kind doesn't let you escape a basic fact of life: if you believe I am wrong, the only way to correct me is to explain to me why I am wrong and why your point of view is closer to reality than mine.

Sometimes on this site I encounter someone with the intellectual honesty and the emotional maturity to do so. When that happens, I admit I was mistaken, I change my mind, and you don't hear the old viewpoint from me again. I have no problem doing that because I don't entertain some silly fantasy about always being right and always knowing everything. When I encounter someone who clearly has more knowledge than I do, I listen and learn for my own edification. It's called humility and it must be consciously practiced if you wish to develop it and enjoy its virtues.

The only real losers here are those who are clearly wrong but are too prideful to admit it, so they bicker and quibble, usually try to make it personal, and pretend like they're fooling anyone. It's childish behavior that harms the signal-to-noise ratio of the site and makes adult conversation more difficult to enjoy. I say if you really like being right so much, then you have an obligation to correct your wrongs.

You're getting all excited and you appear a bit frustrated because you are choosing to bicker about which of us owns a business and which of us has a deeper grasp and other PERSONAL MATTERS rather than fulfill the criteria in the first paragraph of this post. There is a difference between stubborn and tenacious.

It's a transparent attempt to change an abstract discussion about labor relations into a personal matter. This is the kind of tactic used by someone who dislikes the point that was made but acknowledges that he has no real counter-point. It is strongly indicative of a weak position on your part. That you are at least being polite about it does not change this.

There is a reason you're catching flak for it in several other comments. Rhywden explained it succinctly.

So then, do you have a solid reason why you disagree with what I said?

The idea sadly is like this: when government and corporations exercise market power, that's the free market. When workers or average customers exercise market power, it's hippy pinko communism.

The fact is, an employer and an employee inherently have competing interests. Negotiating is a perfectly valid way to resolve competing interests by seeking a middle ground acceptable to both.

The flip side is that without unions and the real threat of losses caused by strikes, the next employer in that line of work will merely do the exact same thing. Consider the way that the major cell networks all charge similar rates (including overcharging in many cases for texting) when they are ostensibly competing with each other for customers. If it's not actual collusion it's similar in effect because it's based on a "market rate" which is merely a look at what everyone else is doing.

Now maybe other employers should do the same thing, I'm not giving an opinion there (for those reactive types who can't plainly see that I didn't), just that such an effect is something to consider.

Actually listening to what other people are saying and trying to comprehend what they do and (and most importantly) don't mean just isn't a valued part of American culture.

When you were younger, did you ever work an entry-level customer service type of job? Then you know all about it. You see this behavior even in people who are actively seeking and truly do need your advice. I think it's a form of puerile impatience (that ends up costing more time ironically enough). It could also be an attempt to show a false superiority and independence, since it is most often seen in helpless people who are unable to perform even the most basic observation and problem-solving (think Freudian projection).

If you really think so, it's because you don't appreciate the (massive) distinction between cleverness and wisdom.

The way I like to explain it: if you take a childish, annoying, malicious, aggressive asshole and give him greater intelligence, do you know what happens? He becomes more effective at being a childish, annoying, malicious, aggressive asshole.

The problem with having them involved in government is that I can't decide not to sit in the pews of, or do business with, or adhere to the government. Government is founded on two related things: force and threat of force. You can't just ignore those.

Thank you. One definition of "psychotic" is "out of contact with reality". There are many psychotic people. In fact, I would venture that the majority of people in Western societies are psychotic. I believe forced ("public") schooling and mass media to be the two primary causes, with an almost hypnotic reverence for authority as an enabling factor.

There is a funny thing about compulsory education. Since ancient times, particularly ancient Greece and Rome, compulsory training was only for slaves. In fact the word "pedagogy" comes from an ancient word for "slave".

No shit. If we are going to have a system designed to restrict the availability of drugs, one would think it would be used to prevent the over-use of antibiotics so we can stop creating these "superbugs". But no one can get high on antibiotics, and that's all government seems concerned with, so their overuse continues...

Although I can predict its moves and articulate its faults, I will never truly understand this Puritannical need to meddle in the affairs of other adults, tell them how to live, and especially to get power-hungry government into that business. It must come from completely empty, desperate lives devoid of all purpose and joy, trying so hard to fill the vacuum within themselves by feeling powerful since they couldn't do it by feeling compassion.

That is a decent summary of what I stated, yes.

Heroin is just a form of morphine modified to more easily cross the blood-brain barrier. Thus if morphine has a medical use in pain management (and it does), one would expect heroin to have a similar use (as an aside, the hilarious part is that heroin was invented in an attempt to treat morphine addiction - they were trying to produce something like modern methadone but ended up creating a harder drug).

In our litigious society I feel a need to say that I am not a doctor, this is not medical advice, and if you thought it was medical advice you're a fuckin' moron. It's sad that saying such a thing would ever even cross my mind but there you have it. I am weary of this idea that anyone should disclaim things that were never claimed. The fact that they were not claimed is disclaimer enough.

It's not just government itself. The phenomenon I described above also explains why issues that should be factual/scientific are instead political. I'll give an example: marijuana is a Schedule I substance. Schedule I means "no medical use". Yet we have doctors prescribing it and patients using it who report relief of symptoms. We have lots of laws like this which directly contradict the available facts. It's because so many people aren't concerned with facts. They are concerned with their feelings, their fears, and with what offends them.

Don't worry. The next time you see it coming because you understand this concept of a "track record" or have read a little history, you'll still be called a tin-foil hatter.

There are large numbers of people who never really grew up emotionally and are unable to cope with reality despite possibly having high intelligence. It's not that they have any solid reason to doubt you (in fact it's the opposite if they bothered to look). It's that they want so badly to believe their government is not out-of-control that they're personally offended you would suggest otherwise. Of course anything that offends them must be wrong, right?

This is actually how the average person perceives reality. Yes it's scary. It's why so little effort is put towards prevention.

The US badly needs a loser-pays system for civil cases. Also, if you are accused of a crime and are found not guilty, the government (local, state, or federal) which tried to prosecute you should pay in full all the costs you sustained, including legal fees, time lost from work, time away from family and loved ones if jailed, and travel expenses. This money should come out of the prosecutor's budget in the case of criminal trials.

... which, unless you go to considerable time, effort, expense and maybe also some luck to change it, is in fact based on national origin. Think of national origin as the default state. It can be overcome, but otherwise, it is the default setting. For most people most of the time, they are a citizen of a nation because that is where they were born.