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De Omnibus Dubitandum - Lux Veritas

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Answers to "The Test"!

By Rich Kozlovich

A few days ago I posted an item that I called, This is a Test, and linked another article for everyone’s perusal. The article was a perfect example of how logical fallacies and lies of omission are part and parcel of the green/left movement.

She starts out by discussing some psychiatrist’s views on why people aren’t really evil, they just lack empathy. That in itself is logical fallacy, because empathy is a personal quality, while evil requires action.   After all, couldn't there be un-empathetic people who don’t do evil things?  Couldn't there be people who are empathetic and yet do evil things?

Evil, like cruelty, requires action. In order to be evil one has to do evil. The fact that they lack empathy is merely an explanation of why some were able to perform acts of evil, but there really are evil people who do evil things and there is evil done by those who only become evil by their actions.

However, were all of the maniacs in the Soviet Union just un-empathetic when they murdered upward of fifty million of their fellow citizens? Not initially they weren't.

Bukharin, a founding member of the Soviet Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a founding leader of the Soviet Union (who became a recipient of tender mercies of his personal friend Stalin) said years later that “mass annihilation of completely defenseless men, with women and children" under forced collectivization and liquidation of kulaks as a class that dehumanized the Party members with "the profound psychological change in those communists who took part in the campaign.

Instead of going mad, they accepted terror as a normal administrative method and regarded obedience to all orders from above as a supreme virtue... They are no longer human beings. They have truly become the cogs in a terrible machine." Note….”They are no longer human beings.” They didn’t start out will little of no empathy, but they perpetrated evil non-the-less on a scale that even made Hitler seem tame.

As for his conclusions that all we need is empathy….reminds me of the Beetle’s song. “All we need is love”….Ok….I can buy into that if we can get everyone to go along. But that isn’t what the world has.

I would like to know how much empathy Neville Chamberlain could have shown to Adolph Hitler in order to avoid WWII; remember he tried…..and failed. The same is true of Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar…etc. It still comes down to this. Those with empathy don’t need to be taught it and those who don’t have it won’t be taught it.

So, if a diplomat, general, attorney, family member enjoys the torment he inflicts on others no amount of empathy by you will fix that. It takes the use of power.

And the only power that could impose that level of compassion worldwide would have to be divine force. And these people are not that divine force, and all the socialist swill in the world (which is what this is all about) cannot make it so.  It isn' t our understanding that is necessary, it is their understanding that counts.....and they don't care because they have a mission or a goal they wish to attain irrespective of how it affects others, especially if they are socialists.

But next comes the primary logical fallacy. Notice how cleverly the writer makes an irrational leap in logic. This article starts out defining crazy people, what they do, and why they do it, and then jumps to corporations so smoothly that it implies that everyone working in the companies of the world must be insane.

Just because corporations are artificial entities created by government doesn’t make them psychopaths. In point of fact; they can‘t be psychopaths because they don’t think, they don’t feel and are not self aware. They are a paper creation and don’t really exist except as a financial tool. The decisions are still made by people. And whether the owners of these companies are owners of corporations, limited liability companies, sole proprietorships, partnerships or political leaders it would be immaterial. The primary function of every company is to make profits. That is why people have jobs. That is why governments can collect taxes.

That is why countries that practice capitalism have the best life styles in the world for their people. This is base line for being in business. However, companies of every ilk have pumped untold billions into their communities to the benefit of the communities. Why isn’t that mentioned? And those decisions were made in spite of the fact that those billions would not be going to the stockholders as dividends.  It is true that companies have abandoned communities, but why was that?  Because they hate the local people?  NO!  They moved or went out of business.  Would that have made this writer happier?  It really is true; even if you make the finest buggy whip in the world; the world doesn't need that many buggy whips anymore. 

This business about chemicals and “other toxic substances’ causing horrific damage and injury to the world” is another one of those unendingly repeated lies that have become accepted by repetition, but it still remains a lie. All of these products have been vilified with unscientific horsepucky. The world has been better for all of these products.

Regarding all this talk about slave labor and all that goes with it, I don’t know about some of this either way, but I will take a stab and say that this is probably true if you compared their circumstances with the American lifestyle.

However, is it better or worse than their fellow countrymen? In point of fact, in most of these cases where these outrageous claims are made we find that they are happy to have these jobs. And when the adverse publicity forced owners to abandon production facilities in these countries these people were left without any income. As for the Firestone issue; that isn’t as cut and dry as it seems. First of all this report was based on observations from some Non Governmental Organization (NGO) labor rights organization, and that in itself makes one wonder at the truthfulness of the report.

Dan Adomitis, President of Firestone Natural Rubber Company Liberia, stated:
“Well, in addition to the devastation that 15 years of civil war has caused, I think you need to understand another point -- during the 2003 fighting, we had thousands of refugees come to Harbel for the safety that it provided. When those people came, they occupied any open area of land that was available. They put up temporary housing made out of mud, out of bamboo, out of thatch, out of tarpaulin, out of corrugated steel. Anything that they could do to get shelter. And those conditions still exist. They are not Firestone housing, but they are on our property.”
“We have very strict policies about child labor. We do not hire anybody under 18 years of age, and we discourage parents from bringing their children to the fields with them. We have a program with the Ministry of Labor in Liberia to - and also the union that represents our employees -- to educate parents about why they should not bring children with them into the field. And if we see incidents of this, we will cancel those employees, and if necessary, ultimately discipline them over such issue.”
Wow….somehow I think that was germane to the subject….don’t you? I wonder why they left that out? The problem with greenies and the lefties is that they lie!   Lies of commission and lies of omission. These were jobs these people might love having, and most importantly, needed.

Stop comparing American wages, living conditions and circumstances with those people living in countries that are poverty stricken by our standards. That is a logical fallacy….and helps perpetuate the big lie.

As for all the accusations about murder, slave labor, etc. this would be unacceptable under any circumstances. Not one conservative pro-corporation person I know would accept that. Just because some people from some company does terrible things (and that we're just supposing that any of this actually did happened) does not justify painting all companies and their people with that same brush.

As for Chiquita giving money to right wing and left wing terrorists groups; I remembered when this happened because at one point I was following the stock. The fact is they were paying off all of these groups in order to protect their employees. I wonder if they would be under attack by these groups if the only ones they paid off were the left wing terrorists. And it's clear the local government sure couldn’t protect their employees, including the U.S. Justice Department which fined them.

Just like the mob they were extorting everyone, including Chiquita. So tell me, since the government couldn’t or wouldn’t protect their people - what were they to do to protect them? What would you do?

In the U.S. extortion is a crime by the exporter, not the extorted. If they are doing illegal things then arrest them, try them and punish them, but let’s stop this delusional claptrap, this has nothing to do with corporate empathy. Corporate empathy cannot exist because corporations aren’t real. People are real and people make those decisions. And those decisions are not always based of profit motives!

This so-called corporate machine that needs to be “put to rest” has brought more people out of dystopia than any system the world has ever known. All of this socialist horsepucky is nothing more than an outrageous diatribe against capitalism.

Socialists have failed time and time again to provide the basic needs of their people. Food shortages have been a mark of socialist states from the beginning, along with terrible living conditions, and at times they were deliberately starved to death. The death toll by socialist’s states of its own people ran up to 100 million deliberately killed by their own governments. The only group that could be held more accountable for crimes against humanity would be the environmental movement.

Furthermore, socialist’s states have been absolutely devastating to the environment. China and Russia are primary examples of environmental devastation - all done in the name of the people. Not profit. Companies who work for profit in capitalist countries do so in an environment where they can be held accountable for their actions, and often are, and rightly so. But legitimately run companies for profit are not the problem, they're the solution.

I find it interesting that the article starts out with a cry for empathy and claims that corporations are not really evil. Then the author ends with a condemnation of every businessman in the world for being evil. Typical left wing inability to be truthful or consistent. This diatribe is a logical fallacy from start to finish.

To recap my earlier points, here is the reality that they always miss. Companies are in business to do business not to do good. If they do good business they will make profits. Those profits are distributed and then everyone can take their profits and do whatever darn good they wish to do, and often do.

Even if they wish to be keep the money for their own uses exclusively….they are giving back to the community by spending that money on food, dining out, movies, clothes, houses, boats, cars, etc.

That provides “JOBS”.

And every dime goes directly back to members of the community who will then decide for themselves how to spend that money to their benefit, just as the owners of successful companies did.

This will be accomplished without having huge chunks taken out be some government bureaucrat who will then decide how the rest is to be spent. Or perhaps I should say wasted by socialist bureaucracies.

The result has been this. We are living longer, healthier, and happier lives than any time in human history because of capitalism. Period!  Get over it!

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