Some time ago, I read in National Geographic that about 90% of the scientific community accepts the Theory of Evolution and about 10% of it doesn't. I don't remember if it was the global scientific community or just the American one, but that's not the point. The point is that, among the general population, those numbers are reversed. Now, if you want to rule the world, you're going to have to find some effective way of dealing with that other 90%. I'm sure you don't want to rule by force of arms but, even if you did, you would still need more than 10% of the general public on your side. If you want to get elected fair and square, you're going to need more than 50% on your side. Unless you know something about it that I don't, you're not going to win over a majority of the electorate by logic alone. Logical argument is a good place to start but, unless you mix it with a little bull shit, the public won't buy it. It's like that old song: "A little bit of sugar makes the medicine go down...." They had to say "sugar" because, in those days, you couldn't say "bull shit" on television, but you get my drift.
People have been telling stories since way before the advent of modern science, and there's probably a reason for that. You know how little kids are always asking dumb questions like "Why is the sky blue?" Well, I think that early man developed story telling skills so that he could answer questions like that. It may not be the correct answer, but it's the best one you can come up with at the moment, and it will likely satisfy the little bastard for awhile so that you can go back to sharpening your spear. As a former teacher, you must know that even precise stuff like mathematics goes down a little easier if you can frame it with an interesting story, especially with the younger students.
Don't get me wrong, I've got nothing against science or logic, but it's not the only way you can understand the world you live in. Sometimes you don't have enough information to make an intelligent choice, so you've got to go with your gut, or don't go at all. When I bring something off the wall into our conversations, it's usually because I want to make a contribution, and that's all I've got at the moment. I don't expect my comment to be the last word on the issue, just something of interest that might lead us into something else, which keeps the conversation going. If the conversation doesn't keep going, it brings us to a dead end, and we ain't going nowhere from there.
Okay, back to minimum wage for awhile: Of course the idea of raising the minimum wage, or any wage for that matter, is to put more food on the table, but you still have to figure out where the money's coming from. There's an old saying, "The government cannot give you anything without first taking it away from someone else." When you think about it, all money comes from other people, not that it's a bad thing, it's just one of those things. Well, the money actually originates with the government, but the money is just a medium of exchange that represents true wealth. The only way to acquire true wealth, like potatoes or crude oil, is to either produce it yourself or get it from somebody else. That stuff doesn't fall from the sky, you know.
Anyway, at this point, I am inclined to vote for the minimum wage increase. Since I'm going to be paying for it either way, I'd rather make my payments to a corporation than to the government. Not that corporations are any more virtuous than the government, it's just that it's more efficient to cut out the middle man. If the government handles it, some of the money is going to get siphoned off along the way. Well, I guess that happens with corporations too, but I don't think it happens as much. It's like I've always said about health care: We don't need both the government and the insurance companies taking their cut before the money even gets to the doctors. One or the other, but not both. Anyway, that's where I'm at right now, but I could change my mind before election time if I come across new information or an opinion that makes more sense to me than mine.
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