Colorado conservative sanitizing history in the name of patriotism

Conservative politicians across the country have spent much of the past few years attempting to remake public education in their image. It can be seen in policies that turn teachers into free market independent contractors competing with their colleagues and counterparts at other schools because conservatives believe competition is better than collaboration in every situation. It can be seen in the multitude of efforts to integrate creationism in science classes even though this theological doctrine has zero scientific content. But most recently it can be seen in the work of Jefferson Country Colorado school board member Julie Williams.

Williams has offered a proposal that aims to sanitize the districts US History materials to "promote citizenship, patriotism, essentials and benefits of the free enterprise system, respect for authority and respect for individual rights. Materials should not encourage or condone civil disorder, social strife or disregard of the law. Instructional materials should present positive aspects of the United States and its heritage."

This idea of presenting the US as infallible has long been a conservative talking point but the reality is that patriotism is just conservative code for political correctness.

For instance, if you look at Julie Williams Facebook page you will see that she is an aggressive opponent of Colorado using the Common Core Standards. Given that these standards have been approved of at the state level, her resistance and subsequent social media activism could certainly been seen as a general disregard for the law. Her Facebook posts also reveal that she believes vaccines are responsible for some cases of autism despite the CDC reports indicating the multiple studies find no such link. Is sharing this misinformation not a form of social strife?

Our history is also full of events that are held up as glorious victories for the country even though they would clearly be classified as civil disorder. The Boston Tea party, the Revolutionary War, ending Women's Suffrage, and the Civil Rights movement are all events that a revered even though they also represent a citizenry struggling against government.

What Williams is really advocating for here is the power to manipulate public education to fit her naive idealized vision of America. There is no question that American's have accomplished many great things and those achievements should certainly be part of every students education however as the iconic saying goes "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Slavery is a shameful part of American history but glossing over slavery means ignoring the core cause of the Civil War. It means skipping over the Civil Rights movement. And it insults the memory of all the men and women that were abducted from their homes and sold like animals.

Removing Japanese American's from the homes and holding them in internment camps during WWII and the actions of Joe McCarthy during the Second Red Scare were both disgraceful actions by our government but understanding how fear can lead to terrible decisions is clearly a topic worth discussing as we face new enemies like the Islamic State and the Ebola virus.

The Great Depression is obviously a time in our history that many would prefer to forget but the massive wealth gap coupled with a severe lack of government regulations that precipitated this sudden economic crisis are lessons that if learned may have prevented the Great Recession of 2008.

The irony is that while many events in US history represent a less than perfect country taking personal responsibility is a conservative meme. Brushing all of our undesirable actions under the rug represents to polar opposite of this moral imperative.

Beyond this the idea that US History is some sort of marketable product to be promoted really misses the point of education. This is the type of narrow minded tripe commonly associated with Communist, Theocratic, and Dictatorial governments. Using the education system to indoctrinate the public with propaganda is far from our Democratic ideals.

Countless American success stories prove that the knowledge gained from failing is often paramount in achieving success. Instead of seeing every poor decision as a black eye we should view them as an opportunity to learn and grow because if education is supposed to prepare children for the real world seeing history through rose colored glasses does these kids a great disservice.

In the end the question that Julie Williams and her supporters need to ask themselves is would they still advocate for a special committee to review and sensor US history materials if that committee was appointed by liberals? If the answer to that question is no then it tells you all you need to know about the goals of this proposal.

Why are fast food workers being vilified?

The efforts of fast food workers around the country to bring attention to their low wages earlier this month have generated a lot of media attention. While having a conversation about getting a greater share of profits distributed to the average employee is a good thing there have also been quite a few arguments against this idea.

For example conservative writer Deborah Simmons puts voice to a common complaint among advocates of keeping wages low in her article titled "Fast-food jobs a good start, not a career". It should be noted that a few years ago, due to an exceedingly high turnover rate, McDonald's started a campaign trying to convince employees to turn their job into a career. Obviously not every employee can become a manager, but McDonald's certainly wouldn't be the first company to dangle the carrot of promotion to retain good staff at lower rates. Additionally, the fact that only 30% of McDonald's staff are teenagers suggests there is a need for fast food companies to have a certain percentage of their staff that makes "flipping burgers" at the very least a short term career, because as a pure cost consideration hiring teenagers who can work for as little as $4.25 makes far more sense.

The next question that Simmons asks is do these employees deserve $15 per hour for "slinging burgers or plopping a basket of fries into a deep fryer"? Unfortunately this flippant question completely misses the value of the average McDonald's employee. Imagine if someone did the same analysis of Mrs. Simmons job. She gets paid to have an opinion and write about it. Anyone can do that, so does she really "deserve" the wages she makes? The question isn't how many people can do the job but rather how many people can do the job well.

Yes, most anyone can take an order but how many people can take your order quickly, correctly, and provide a positive customer interaction? Do you have to have a degree from an Ivy League college to work the front of a McDonald's? Nope. But you can bet that nearly everyone currently working a McDonald's cash register can do it better than Deborah Simmons, despite her obvious educational advantage.

Having said that, neither what a McDonald's job is meant to be or how much someone deserves to sling burgers is the reason these employees are asking for a raise. They want a raise because they have helped McDonald's achieve staggering profits and they would like their fair share.

Another common concern regarding an increase in wages for fast food employees is that it would increase prices and put stores out of business. While this is certainly possible, McDonald's currently operates with a 20% profit margin. Perhaps rather than raise the cost of the Big Mac they can just cut into the nearly $1 per unit profit they make and share that with employees. It is also true that even with higher wages and only small price increases McDonald's manages to make more profit at their European locations.

Still others complain that increasing wages will result in fewer employees because these companies will automate. The reality is that companies are looking for ways to cut costs and almost none of them get panned by supporters of free market capitalism. Their sudden concern for the employment levels of low wage workers seems completely disingenuous. Farmers have eliminated vast numbers of jobs over the years due to advancements in equipment. Are there people clamoring for a return to using an ox to till the fields because it would create jobs? Think of all of increase in employment we could create if we just paid people to move products from the manufacturer to the seller using bicycles instead of those job killing semi-trucks. But even when automation does occur it doesn't necessarily lead to massive layoffs. For instance data shows the invention of ATM has not lead to the demise of bank tellers.

Rather than feigning concern about the number of people employed in the fast food industry, we should be outraged that these low wages cost taxpayers some $7 billion per year since 52% of families of fast food workers get at least one form of government assistance. The fight for $15 isn't about retaining a certain number of jobs. It is about providing a wage that a person can live on. If your starter job barely covers your basic needs how are you supposed to get that elusive college degree that proves you want to do something better with your life? If you have to work two jobs just to make ends meet when are you supposed to spend time with your family and make sure your kids have a better life? If you get low pay and little to no benefits how are you supposed to prevent an injury or illness from bankrupting you?

But perhaps the favorite talking point for those in support of low wages is the idea that raising wages would hurt the franchisees (small business owners) not the corporation. Apparently the corporation can't spare a dime of its $8.5 billion in profit to assist each store with possible wage hikes. Apparently increasing dividend payments for shareholders to $3.5 billion is better for business than rewarding employees with increased pay. Apparently McDonald's executive team feels no responsibility for a five year downward sales trend as they still managed to take home as much as $67 million in compensation.

Of course the irony is that employees aren't the only ones at McDonald's that feel they deserve a greater share of the profits. The very franchisees that talking heads claim to be so concerned about are upset with corporate for cutting into their margins with recent increases in franchise fees. Fees that are aimed at making McDonald's bottom line look better to investors at the expense of employees and franchisees. And while employees organizing to negotiate a better deal represents the worst of capitalism to some, it should be noted that franchisees are attempting to do the very same thing. Don't these franchise owners know that in the free market it is each man for himself? Don't they know that by getting together and demanding more money it will ultimately destroy McDonald's? Don't they get that McDonald's needs $8.5 billion in profit to survive? How can these small business owners be so naïve, and selfish?

In the end McDonald's, their franchisees, and their employees all want the same thing - more money. The problem is that unless they all work together to find a way to increase earnings the current model only provides so much profit and for one party to make more it means another party has to accept less. History shows that Henry Ford doubled wages and still managed to increase profits. Are we really supposed to believe McDonald's can't spend a single penny more on workers without going bankrupt or ruining the US economy?

What's wrong with fast food workers earning a living wage?

Last week fast food employees across the nation took to the streets to protest low wages. As one of the largest fast food chains in the world McDonalds is often the target of these protests. Of course given that the average McDonald's employee receives some of the lowest wages in the industry at around $7.73 per hour it should as no surprise that McDonalds often takes center stage in the “fight for 15” campaign.

As with any good protest the idea is to bring attention to issue and sway public opinion. If the protesters can generate enough bad press and consumer pressure the corporations may be compelled to change their habits.

The goal of $15 per hour is likely a pipedream but with around $8.5 billion in income, $3.5 billion in dividend payments, and another $67 million in executive compensation it seems McDonald’s can afford to increase wages some. Asking for more than you expect to receive is standard practice in any sort of negotiations so starting at $15 per hour makes sense as an initial offer.

The problem for workers is that unless management at McDonalds decides to raise wages or improve benefits they will need their own team of negotiators to represent them. They will also need a structure to approve any agreement. Without this, each employee will be left to fend for themselves – a situation that clearly has and will continue to favor the multi-billion dollar corporation.

Unfortunately as soon as employees retain the services of an organization that can help them negotiate better compensation they will also make enemies of those who believe such organizations are "evil".

My colleague Kathryn Hoekstra offers a couple examples of this mentality. Kathy sees the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) working with fast food employees and thinks their motives are anything but altruistic. To her they are nothing but a greedy, self-serving, power hungry organization.

But how is that different than McDonalds? If spending money trying to gain more members makes the SEIU power hungry then the $1 billion in advertising McDonalds spends each year should be a concern as well. If the SEIU executive compensation of around $3 per member shows how greedy unions bosses are then the $77 per employee being paid to McDonalds executives should be much more troubling. If the 6% profit margin average for the fast food industry is meant to illustrate that these companies commitment to their employees what does that say for the SEIU's 5.9% profit margin? More over what does that say about McDonald's with its 19.8% margin?

The reality is both of McDonald's and the SEIU are free market, capitalist entities. Their goals of increasing income and users of their product are the same. Suggesting that the one that benefits the average worker is nefarious and immoral while the one that benefits shareholders and the wealthy is the epitome of American ideals and should be revered is an odd double standard.

Another peculiar argument is that raising employee wages will mean a more expensive Big Mac. Given the current problem with obesity in this country making a Big Mac less affordable certainly doesn't seems like a national catastrophe but it should be noted that taxpayers already contribute around $1.2 billion each year in public assistance to McDonald's employees. It certainly doesn't seem very moral to ask taxpayers to subsidize McDonald's workforce while they shell out billions to shareholders and keep billions more in profit.

Of course even the scariest of predictions leaves McDonalds with around $400 million in profit without touching a single dime of shareholders earnings or raising the price of a single menu item. Clearly that would fall short of McDonald's typical earnings but how many billions of dollars does a company really need to be comfortable?

In the end the data shows that fast food workers would see a significant increase in wages and benefits with union membership and regardless of the doomsday rhetoric plenty of other countries do just as well if not better than the US with considerably higher unionization rate.

So while capitalist zealots will belittle fast food workers by pretending their low wages accurately reflect their "value" the reality is that if the SEIU gets involved these employees are likely to see a sudden and dramatic increase in their "value". This reality seems to be very troubling for some people but the question is why? When did the public become more protective of corporate profits than the general welfare of working Americans?

Blacks and Whites aren't having the same conversation on race

In the wake of the Michael Brown shooting and the subsequent protests, there has been a lot of talk on the airwaves about keeping the conversation going because whether you believe the incident was racially motivated it is clear that a frank discussion about race in America is needed.

Of course since the racial tension makes for good television the issue here isn't keeping the conversation going - it's getting the two sides of this coin to have the same conversation.

On one side of this discussion are those who are holding up the shooting of Michael Brown as an example of the racial inequality in this country and in the justice system in particular. To them the death of Michael Brown is just another instance of cops treating African Americans differently than their white counterparts.

They are protesting a system that saw blacks make up 92.7% of the 521 arrests in Ferguson, MO last year while whites comprise only 6.9%. Additionally 92% of the vehicle searches were that of black individuals while the few whites who were stopped and searched actually had higher rates contraband possession.

They are protesting a system where white youth are more likely to use drugs yet black youth are twice as likely to be arrested for drug use.

They are protesting a system in which Black youth were twice as likely to be arrested on weapons charges and three times as likely to be arrested for assault despite reporting similar rates of fights and weapon possession as their white counterparts.

They are protesting a system where at the peak of New York city's stop and frisk program saw blacks make up 54% of those stopped while whites accounted for only 9%.

They are protesting a system that results in blacks representing 37% of the drug arrests while only 14% of African American's were drug users.

They are protesting a system in which blacks convicted of a crime receive sentences that are 10% longer than their white counterparts. Those longer sentences and higher arrest rates lead to blacks accounting for 56% of those in prison for drug offenses.

On the other side of this discussion are those who see racism as a hoax to be disproved. To them the protests and media attention prove that anyone who doesn't agree with them is a racist race baiter, who attempts to make everything about race in order to profit from the fallacy of racism.

They comment that instead of showing up to Ferguson Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson should be in Chicago fixing the real problem of "black on black crime". Even though both men and the president are already addressing the situation in Chicago. Even though black on black crime occurs at nearly the same rate as white on white crime. Even though data shows that socioeconomic status not skin color is the most prominent factor in crime and murder rates.

They comment, like Bill O'Reilly did, we should be waiting for all the facts to come out because the reporting on Michael Brown's shooting have been awful as the "liberal" media looks for ways to portray the white guy as a murder. Even though in the same breath Bill O'Reilly managed to report complete speculation that "We also hear today that Officer Wilson has an orbital blow out fracture of his eye socket" which turns out to be false. Even though Bill tried to set a Fox News friendly narrative that cops killing citizens is rare while ignoring that blacks comprised an inordinately high 32% of those shot and killed. Even though Bill's employer made a video of a person who may or may not have been a witness to the shooting a core part of their coverage.

But perhaps the best example of how far apart the two sides are on this topic is when they comment that the killing of a white kid (Dillon Taylor) by a black cop deserves the same response and coverage. If those protesting in Ferguson were simply protesting the death of an unarmed teen by a cop to show that cops are too quick to shoot and kill then this would be a reasonable talking point. But the reality is that Michael Brown's death represents the systemic racism present in the US judicial system while Dillon Taylor is just a prop for people who have convinced themselves their fake "white oppression" meme is the biggest problem this country faces.

If people like Bill O'Reilly are furious about the coverage of Michael Brown's death and the protests that followed one can only imagine they would be absolutely beside themselves they would be if they were forced to endure the litany of inequality, injustice, and indignity the African American community deals with on a daily basis.

In the end if these people want to put an end to this perceived reporting double standard they can easily fix the issue. All they have to do is acknowledge that the deck is in fact stack against blacks in the US and quit enabling the deniers of this reality. As soon as that happens the conversation can be about how to rectify this issue instead of how these events are covered.