Adapt or Die
This article basically shows what I think is fundamentally wrong with the Republican party. I should make this note... I'm not a Democrat.
I'm a capitalist and I'm a realist.
I believe that everyone should be able to pursue their dream, make a good living, contribute to the creative world, and do it all with as little government involvment as possible. I run into some problems with the idea of social programs. As a small business owner, I believe that we have an ethical obligation to pay a good living wage, provide health care coverage, and retirement and savings options for our employees--BUT I think that what I do as a business owner should be dictated by my ethical ideas of what I should do... not by legislation. In the world that is in my head... everyone would do the right thing because (a) you should always do the right thing and (b) because people should support the companies that share those philosophical ideas. And I do try to live out this concept of corporate/capitalist democracy.
- I look at the HRC Equality Scorecard each year, and I avoid companies that are yellow or red. I think that it's important for me to support companies that have proactively taken a position to recognize value of the GLBT community and the diversity of their employees. This directly links my thoughts on what a business should do with what my business does do like provide complete family health coverage (I use that phrase instead of 'partner' benefits because I already have a business 'partner,' but when I have someone I'm going to spend the rest of my life with and raise children with and sit in a rocking chair on my front porch when we're 80 with... well that's a family, so I call it a family).
- I shop at Costco instead of Sam's Club because they pay their workers a living wage. good article
- I shop at Lowe's instead of Home Depot because I believe in 'value added service' and hiring people who know what they sell. good article
- I shop at Target instead of WalMart because they have cool stuff and I think that good design has more value than the mundane. good article
But to pull this post back to where it started... the Republicans have basically refused to show that they are anything except the white, Protestant party. The reality is that America has always been a country of immigrants. 100 years ago, the irish were cleaning the houses, not the Mexicans. That's what's awesome about America is that we keep changing. Everyone started as a minority and eventually blended to become 'American.' By refusing to acknowledge blacks or hispanics as an important voting demographic is just dumb. Adapt or die, because the people you think don't matter, will matter.
