"Most unmarried Somali girls who got pregnant committed suicide." - Infidel, page 169
That is one of the details of what it means to say our culture is life-affirming, and theirs is not.
The evil of marriage, as it is practiced in European countries, extends further than we have yet described. The method is, for a thoughtless and romantic youth of each sex, to come together, to see each other, for a few times, and under circumstances full of delusion, and then to vow to eternal attachment. What is the consequence of this? In almost every instance they find themselves deceived. They are reduced to make the best of an irretrievable mistake. They are led to conceive it is their wisest policy, to shut their eyes upon realities, happy, if, by any perversion of intellect, they can persuade themselves that they were right in their first crude opinion of each other. Thus the institution of marriage is made a system of fraud; and men who carefully mislead their judgments in the daily affair of their life, must be expected to have a crippled judgment in every other concern.You can read the book online here. The quote comes from this chapter.
Add to this, that marriage, as now understood, is a monopoly, and the worst of monopolies. So long as two human beings are forbidden, by positive institution, to follow the dictates of their own mind, prejudice will be alive and vigorous. So long as I seek, by despotic and artificial means, to maintain my possession of a woman, I am guilty of the most odious selfishness. Over this imaginary prize, men watch with perpetual jealousy; and one man finds his desire, and his capacity to circumvent, as much excited, as the other is excited, to traverse his projects, and frustrate his hopes. As long as this state of society continues, philanthropy will be crossed and checked in a thousand ways, and the still augmenting stream of abuse will continue to flow.
The abolition of the present system of marriage, appears to involve no evils.
Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards. With his first swallow of water, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe because some stupid commie liberal fought to ensure their safety and that they work as advertised.Steve gets up at 8 a.m. and drinks fresh orange juice delivered at 7 a.m. The juice is delicious, fresh, clean, and good because Steve pays for the best. Steve takes his medication and feels safe remembering how all the drug companies that refused to be carefully audited and regulated by a trusted third party company -- at their own expense -- went out of business as the public made the smart choice: only buying from companies they trust.
All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance -- now Joe gets it, too.Steve thinks back to the old days when his medications might have cost $10 out of pocket. He feels so much happier paying $50 for higher quality medication -- he's worth it. He laughs at the men who thought they were saving money in the past. Money doesn't come from laws. When employers pay for medicine, they offer lower wages.
Joe prepares his morning breakfast; bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.Steve eats his morning gourmet breakfast. He's glad he rarely cooks for himself anymore: he was never very good at it. Now he works an extra half hour per day (which he enjoys doing) instead of cooking. It saves him time. And he pays specialists to cook his food, and deliver it fresh. People who are actually good at it. The extra work more than pays for the cooking services because of economy of scale.
In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and the amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.In the shower, Steve reaches for the shampoo. He only uses it once a week: competition led to innovation, and now shampoos leave special residues that keep hair clean for about 10 days. The bottle is carefully labeled with a web address where Joe can read the ingredients it contains, as well as peer reviewed scientific studies about each ingredient, and about the effects of the shampoo as a whole. Joe isn't a scientist, but he can understand everything because the shampoo company hired an independent watchdog company to write explanations for the layman. Joe knows he can trust the less scientific version because the watchdog company vouches that it was not edited, and is accurate. In the past sometimes watchdog companies vouched for bad things. But they went out of business and there hasn't been a significant mistake for 50 years. They are certainly more reliable than any government agency ever was, thanks to competition and consumer choice. Big companies only hire watchdog companies that do an excellent job of demonstrating to the world their credentials and gaining public trust.
Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for the laws to stop industries from polluting our air.Steve dresses and steps outside. The air is clean because his country is so rich. Everything comes from smaller numbers of larger, more efficient factories which were only able to be built due to huge amounts of capital. And consumers are happy to pay slightly higher prices for cleaner products because they have the money to buy everything else they value more. Clean air easily makes the cut. Companies that refused to make environmentally safe products went out of business long ago.
He walks on the government-provided sidewalk to subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.Steve walks along the toll sidewalk to the subway station. Usually he works from home over the internet. When he goes to work, usually he drives or hires a driver (so he can spend the trip reading, thinking, or working on his laptop). But today Steve is in the mood to meet someone new, so he rides the subway and chats with other passengers. Steve's GPS-enabled watch pays for the sidewalk use, and he briefly holds it in front of a scanner to use the subway station. Steve pays more money for transportation than he would have in the past. He's glad to. The subway company is fast, efficient, and courteous due to competition with other private transportation companies. The sidewalks are kept in good repair at a low price, also due to competition. In the old days when the Government subsidized these things the quality was lower because consumers had no choices. And no one really saved any money because the Government paid for these things with tax money. Now that taxes are so much lower, Steve actually comes out well ahead of Joe even though he pays more money out of his wallet.
Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe's employer pays these standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union.Steve begins his day at work. He has a good job with excellent pay: about 10 times what Joe used to make. The reason Steve is paid so well is that he receives no medical benefits, paid holidays, or retirement benefits. Steve pays no union fees. After buying the top quality medical care of his choice, paying for his own holidays, and saving for retirement, Steve still makes more money than Joe. And his taxes are much lower, so he keeps a larger proportion of his salary. And prices on private goods are lower due to increased competition and decreased Government regulation. And the goods are all higher quality than the Government used to regulate they be, and they are now regulated more carefully and safer by private organizations. Governments never did anything efficiently. Steve has no need for a union. If his employer treated him poorly he would just work for himself, or work for a competitor. Competition for labor improves working conditions.
If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.If Steve is hurt he'll receive insurance money. This is because he has purchased personal injury insurance. Steve is glad that his employer only pays him when he does work. He would feel bad to take money for nothing. But he realizes it isn't for nothing: if his employer had to offer worker compensation or unemployment checks, then his wages would be lower. And if there were Government unemployment benefits, his taxes would be higher. Overall Steve comes out richer buying his own insurance. And competition insures the insurance company is reliable, and run efficiently, and has very low profit margins. Steve couldn't ask for a better deal.
It is noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FDIC (or the NCUA, if he's part of a credit union) because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.At noon Steve makes a bank deposit. His bank has purchased insurance from five of the most reliable insurance companies. If things go wrong, they actually stand to be paid 3 or 4 times the cost of the problem. This is just in case an insurance company were to go out of business. It reduces risk. Due to choices by people like Steve to pay more for lower risk, banks are more reliable and dependable than ever in history.
Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime. Joe also forgets that his in addition to his federally subsidized student loans, he attended a state funded university.Steve pays his mortgage and student loan bills. He pays market rate for them. Interest rates are high because the demand for money today is high: everyone wants to create productive enterprises and this effect is even larger than the large supply of money and capital. Steve doesn't mind because he can afford it. And he knows he isn't getting a bad deal: due to competition, profit margins are low, and loan companies are run economically.
Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards to go along with the tax-payer funded roads.After work, Steve drives to visit his father at his farm home in the country. His car is among the safest in the world because customers have valued safety for the last century, and car companies have had intense competition to provide the best safety backed up by the most reliable oversight by independent companies, and the most persuasive scientific tests, with the most publicly accessible and readable documentation and explanation of the evidence behind the claims of safety.
He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans.Steve arrives at his boyhood home. It was purchased with the help of capitalists who loaned his father money for the home. They were happy to take a somewhat higher risk on a rural house because they charged higher rates to make up for it, and they used the extra money to buy insurance to reduce their own risk. Companies offering rural loans made more profit than those that didn't and soon they all did.
The house didn't have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification.The house didn't have electricity until Steve's father paid for electrical lines. Now that there are more neighbors, they pay Steve's father for the use of his electrical lines. Or at least they used to until Steve's father sold the lines to an electric company. The electric company paid Steve's father more than the lines were worth to him, because they are more profitable when run by a larger company that already has maintenance crews and all the knowledge of how to deal with electrical lines. It also already has convenient billing systems, customer support, and safety standards.
He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to.Steve's father lives on his savings. Parts of his savings are in three different commercial retirement plans. The rest is invested. Steve's father chose the retirement plans and investments that were best for him. He is proud to take care of himself; Steve doesn't have to.
Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day. Joe agrees: "We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have."Steve is a self-made man who takes care of himself.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statisticsin real life, we are a hell of a lot richer than we used to be. you can work at McDonalds and buy a computer now that is far better than computers only the very rich could afford 30 years ago.
Because people's buying habits had changed substantially, a new study was made covering expenditures in the years 1934-1936, which provided the basis for a comprehensively revised index introduced in 1940. During World War II, when many commodities were scarce and goods were rationed, the index weights were adjusted temporarily to reflect these shortages. In 1951, the BLS again made interim adjustments, based on surveys of consumer expenditures in seven cities between 1947 and 1949, to reflect the most important effects of immediate postwar changes in buying patterns. The index was again revised in 1953 and 1964.wait? they changed what"s in the basket. if ppl start buying stuff that is more valuable, they put that in the basket and call that the new cost of living. it's the cost of living a new and richer life style. so saying that real wages decreased when you update the "cost of living" to include a richer life style is totally missing the point. it's a bit like saying people keep spending the same proportion of their money, and therefore life isn't cheaper.
In 1978, the index was revised to reflect the spending patterns based upon the surveys of consumer expenditures conducted in 1972-1974.