The "P" word

I've been noticing an odd little trend lately... It's made its way through our culture, bleeding out of the mouths of reporters and through the keyboards of bloggers everywhere. We've become obsessed with hatred for those that obtain profits in any venture. If a company (especially a large one) posts a profit for the year, people react as if genocide has occurred. It's ridiculous.

Well, maybe I exaggerated a bit there, but it still is silly. I mean, what's wrong with profits? I can hardly think of anything.

Profits are not made without the consumer's consent.
Obviously, the consumer had to feel as if the product being sold benefited him/her at least as much as he/she paid for it (if not more). It's not as if someone holds a gun to your head and forces you to buy a product. That's illegal. How can a consumer contribute to profits and still be so against them?

The public benefits from profits immensely.
Who really owns a company? (I'll give you a hint; if it's a publicly traded company in the stock market, it's probably owned by the stockholders!)
In many cases, profits are distributed to the investors in a company through
dividends as a reward for their investment. This means, if you own stock in a certain company, and they post profits, you could be rolling in some coin. Or, if you're preparing your retirement and you turn to the stock markets for investment, you could collect a little extra for yourself on the side. Sounds like a pretty decent deal, right?
That isn't the only way you can benefit from a profit. If a company doesn't put profits out through dividends, the money has to go somewhere, right? It generally goes straight back into the company. This allows for growth and expansion, which leads to job creation. That is definitely not a bad thing, now is it?

Profits provide an optimal environment to technological advancement.
In the last little bit, I mentioned profits going back into a company. If a company doesn't put the spare cash toward building a larger business, they generally put it into research and development. The extra R&D can help bring about new products, which in turn benefits the consumer more. This doesn't sound that bad either, right?


So, why are profits looked down upon? What about the word spurs such a negative reaction?

I really don't know. If you do, tell me.

So, now when you hear a politician talk about increasing taxes on a highly profitable industry, you'll know some of the negative implications of the act, right? Hopefully...
Just think what we could be doing if we didn't have a nearly 40% business tax (that your president-elect and his Congress want to raise!)!

eHarmony sued for excluding homosexual options

This article confused the hell out of me...

I cannot even begin to think of why this suit would have come about. Why would someone spend their time suing a service like this instead of just going to a business that would have catered to them? Why didn't the courts throw this out immediately?

For those that do not know, eHarmony was founded by Dr. Neil Clark Warren, a devout evangelical Christian (sounds like the kind of guy I would consent with for advice on a same-sex date!) and psychologist. According to eHarmony, by way of the Wall Street Journal article linked above, the matching system is based upon analysis of opposite-sex couples. They did not offer dating services for same sex couples.

The alleged crime was discrimination. This is what I don't understand.

The website offered an opposite-sex matching service. This was well advertised. If you were a homsexual man or woman, you could still participate in the matching service offered if you would like. The results may be a little less satisfactory, since you wouldn't be paired with people of your preferred gender, but you could participate nonetheless.

In short, this means they wouldn't turn you away. You can only purchase the services offered, but you wouldn't be turned away.

Just for the hell of it all, I looked at a same-sex dating website. Did you know that I couldn't browse through profiles of straight women? I doubt straight women could browse through profiles of straight men either. Point being, according to this lawsuit, I am being discriminated against.

And what will become of the other specialty matching websites? They currently have them for people of certain races and religions. What will become of those?

If I visited a website that sold women's clothing and found absolutely no men's clothing, would I have a case for discrimination?

Proposition 8 and natural rights

So, there was a huge protest against the recent passage of Proposition 8 yesterday... There were stories all over the web, pictures on the news after the football game, and a rather large amount of buzz generated on social networking sites. All in all, it was quite a show. They got a lot of people out there.

I'm not here to take sides on this issue, but I did notice something rather peculiar about the people that oppose this law...

Did anyone else notice that many of the people against the passage of Proposition 8 are the same people that are against protecting property rights/personal rights regarding money?

I find it very odd that one person can be for natural and "unalienable" rights, and against natural and "unalienable" rights at the same time.

But, as I've heard many times from people that have voted to restrict rights regarding property, the people have spoken. I mean, that makes sense, right? If someone decrees that the "mob rules," then they shouldn't really fight against it, should they? That's the danger in a "democratic" society.

If you vote on other people's rights, they're probably going to vote on yours.

Just a thought, really...

Discrimination in the public education system

Wow, I really haven't kept up with this thing. School, work, and everything else has just taken way too much time. I wouldn't even be up writing this if I had anything else to do; I had my wisdom teeth out last week, and it's causing more pain right now than it did on the second day. It literally just started tonight too. Weird. At least I have my Percocet, right?

Anyway, I have an issue I've wanted to write about for months.

I'm gonna give a fair warning on this one; this is not a feel good article. The problem I'm writing about is not exactly "politically correct." Also, keep in mind, the numbers only apply to Oklahoma, but the same problem with similar numbers apply to all the states.

How does discrimination affect the direction of funds in the state school system?

Here's a fun fact you probably didn't know:
30% of Oklahoma's education funding goes to less than 5% of the students. Why is this?

Now, if this were any other issue, it would have been stopped immediately. If it were discrimination based on race, gender, a student's financial standing, or a student's grades, it wouldn't have lasted a second without some sort of lawsuit from the ACLU. So, what could it be?

This discrimination is based on IQ.

Now, before you draw any conclusions, you should know that the naturally gifted do not receive any more funding than the average. So, that leaves one group.

The special needs students in Oklahoma receive 30% of the funding. How is that remotely justifiable?

Now, before you say or think anything, I'm not saying they don't have a right to school. I'm not saying they aren't human beings. I'm not advocating eugenics.

In order to come to any logical conclusion, we have to take a step back and look at the whole picture. From there, we can answer some vital questions.
What is the purpose of school?
What skill sets do special needs children acquire in public schooling?
Why are we allocating so much of our resources to this one group?

The widely accepted purpose for public schooling is to provide an affordable means for children to acquire the skill sets they need for adult life. I think that's fairly reasonable.

What skill sets do special needs children acquire in schools? Absolutely none. There isn't much of an educational environment in a special needs class. It's more or less just a place they go for socializing. I mean, sure, they do learn things, but how many of these things are pertinent to everyday life outside of school?

Why do we allocate so much of our resources to this group? I don't really know. What gains do we get from it? What is the return on investment? We teach most children so they can become functioning members of society, meaning people that work and contribute to the economy. If we aren't teaching special needs children to contribute, why are they getting so much of the school's funding?

Now for the question: What do I suppose we should do?

As I said before, I'm not for eugenics. I don't believe that pushing someone out of society is really going to help us enough to forget the moral implications, but I don't believe in giving alms either.

We should cut the funding for special needs children down to where it is exactly proportional to the rest of the students. Everyone should have an equal chance (at least from the state's perspective) in a public school from a financial standpoint, right?

And we wonder why schools are underfunded...