Chaos is a Ladder in the Orwellianization of Sex and Gender

Look no further than the Mount Everest, peak-levels of cringe surrounding this issue in popular media and so-called science fiction and you'll see why this is increasingly becoming something worth addressing and talking about. Yes, it's lamentable that much of this has to be reiterated and more rigorously argued for, but here we are. Sex, gender, pronouns -- it's all being ripped apart and mashed together over social and popular media, with the (so-called) progressive, postmodern, CTRL-Left (the flipside of the collectivist, identitarian coin that also includes the ALT-Right) and their Social Justice Warriors increasingly latching on and doubling down, pushing for individual and institutional thought and speech control. Critical theory is their muse, which in a broad sense claims that all knowledge is historical and biased, that any claims to objective knowledge are illusory, and that it should all be maximally destabilized through various strategies and tactics. In arbitrary, subjectivist ideology, the ends justifies the means, as well -- this means that minimizing, obscuring or concealing any alleged truth up to engaging outright lies is a small price to pay to achieve a greater goal.

This is not to say that everyone who has been convinced of this mode of thought and speech is necessarily an underhanded activist (although it's relatively easy to spot the activist types). However, those who aren't are being tooled into useful idiots in doing so, and it's important to be equipped with the knowledge and integrity to avoid becoming an intellectual casualty of this ideology.

Appreciating where there are some clear, settled, and calm waters of knowledge, understanding, and communication so society can turn its focus to more pressing and important issues, it is the CTRL-Left's modus operandi to come along, dump a bunch of dirt and shit into it all, kick it up, and rub our faces in it. We might ask why they do this -- why this is their M.O. -- but to me, it seems pretty clear. Compared to trying to enact radical, social change in the face of established norms and accepted realities, it's much easier to do it amidst chaos and distraction -- especially if you can trip people up on what they think they know, their ability to understand the world around them, and how they're able to communicate.

This strikes at the heart of why the Orwellian deconstruction of knowledge and language is so effective. In the words of the infamous Lord Petyr 'Littlefinger' Baelish from Game of Thrones, "Chaos... is a ladder."

Part I: 'Sex' as an Empirical Construct and Exceptions that Prove the Rule
Part II: 'Gender' as a Social Construct and its Relative 'Elasticity'
Part III: Where Social Justice Ideologues go off the Rails on Gender
Part IV: The Increasingly Absurd Application of Transgender Ideology

Part V: The 'Pronoun Issue', By Definition

Part VI: Vanguardism and the Anti-scientific Regression of Leftist Academia

Part VII: In Conclusion

Part I: 'Sex' as an Empirical Construct and Exceptions that Prove the Rule

In the human species, sex is binary, permanent, and unchanging. This is readily, empirically observable -- male or female, man or woman, him or her, he or she -- all of these are both defined and conceptualized specifically according to an objective biological ‘sex’, identical across all times and cultures of human history. This isn't even referring to the superficial perceptions of someone's sex based on outward appearance or genitalia, this is in regards to the empirical, objective reality of an individual's DNA as genetically derived -- XX for female or XY for male.

"♪♫ 46 and 2, ahead of me. ♪♫"

When the Social Justice Warrior is confronted with the argument from the empirically observable, genetic reality surrounding sex, he will often want to point out either the development of a fetus as 'female by default' or the less than 0.01% of individuals with more complicated allosomal (referencing the sex chromosomes) profiles.

While easily dispatched, the 'female default' fetal development claim is, unfortunately, far too often one we still hear and have to put up with. The claim is partly that because a penis on an XY fetus doesn't form until about the 9th week, then that means an XY fetus prior to that time is a 'female' with a 'vagina' and 'ovaries', with the alleged implication being that XX or XY chromosomes must then not necessarily be what determine sex, and that sex is more 'biologically fluid' than is being acknowledged. Also, a quick Google search of 'female as default sex' yields quite a bit of content of people continuing to propagate this error based on decades old and very limited research in the field of fetal sex differentiation. The reality is that prior to the 9th week where sexual differentiation actually takes place, there are neither 'female sex organs' nor 'male sex organs' -- merely as-of-yet undeveloped, non-functional 'buds' that will eventually form according to allosomal profiles, ceteris paribus.

In addition, this whole 'female is the default sex' claim was completely debunked, as expressed by a Stanford paper on The Genetics of Sex Determination. In a nutshell,

Research on sex determination (the differentiation of the embryonic bipotential gonad into a testis or an ovary) traditionally focused on testis development. Andrew Sinclair’s 1990 Nature paper famously identified a Y-chromosome gene as the Sex-Determining Region Y (SRY). Female sexual development, by contrast, was thought to proceed as a "default" in the absence of Sry. In the case of sex determination, "default" became the prevailing concept for female pathways—i.e., an ovary results in the absence of other action. The active processes controlling ovarian development remained a blind spot. The notion of a "passive" female fit with current scientific theories and gender assumptions in the broader society. 

Around 2010, questioning the notion of "default" led to the discovery of a cohort of genes required for ovarian function. Gender analysis led to three innovations in this field: 

1. Recognition of ovarian determination as an active process. These investigations have also enhanced knowledge about testis development, and how the ovarian and testicular pathways interact (see chart).
2. Discovery of ongoing ovarian and testis maintenance. Research into the ovarian pathway revealed that the transcriptional regulator FOXL2 must be expressed in adult ovarian follicles to prevent "transdifferentiation of an adult ovary to a testis." Subsequently, researchers found that the transcription factor DMRT1 is needed to prevent reprogramming of testicular Sertoli cells into ovarian granulosa cells.
3. New language to describe gonadal differentiation. Researchers have dismissed the concept of "default" and emphasize that, while female and male developmental pathways are divergent, the construction of an ovary (like the construction of a testis or any other organ) is an active process. Each pathway requires complex cascades of gene products in proper dosages and at precise times. [1]

Further, in fewer than 0.00001% of XX and XY fetuses, the sex organs may fail to develop, leading always to infertility and what are called 'streak gonads' (non-functional, usually cancerous, fibrous tissue) as well as a failure of secondary sex characteristics to develop during puberty. This is called gonadal dysgenesis and, depending on the form, can include complications such as deafness, eye disorders, and cancer (at the site of the streak gonads during infancy).

The counter-argument regarding more complicated allosomal profiles is far more interesting and more important. Notable examples include combinations such as XXXXY, XXXY, XXYY, XX/XY Chimerism, XXY (Klinefelter Syndrome), XXX (Triple-X Syndrome), XYY, XX Male (de la Chapelle Syndrome), X (Turner Syndrome), and more. These are all extremely rare, and apart from one or two non-intersex profiles, they're all very unfortunate disorders that have complications ranging from sterility, to deafness, to eye disorders, to deformalities, to cognitive or physical developmental disorders, and in many cases shorter to much shorter lifespans and cancer. Most often, you'll find a combination of these unfortunate complications.

While still extremely rare, other intersex individuals often referenced are those historically known as true hermaphrodites, and more clinically referred to these days as having ovotesticular disorder of sex development. While their external genitalia are often ambiguous and they usually grow up sterile, these individuals typically have far less severe complications than the previously mentioned syndromes and can usually live normal lives. 

The 3 Primary Karyotypes for True Hermaphroditism are XX with genetic defects (55-70% of cases), XX/XY (20-30% of cases) & XY (5-15% of cases) with the remainder being a variety of other Chromosomal abnormalities and Mosaicisms.[2]

It's important to bring up true hermaphroditism, since at first glance, this seems to possibly propose a problem for the idea of the empiricism of binary, clear-cut sexes. However, reality still reaffirms this. In the cases where true hermaphroditism isn't expressed through one of the previously mentioned severe syndromes, most are simply cases of the XX/XY chimerism -- being that what was initially to be separate twins actually ended up with one XX or XY twin absorbing the opposite sex twin at a very early stage of development. Where there would have been two clear-cut opposite-sexed individuals -- an extremely rare, developmental fluke took place, instead. 

In consideration of all of this, how does it follow, then, that 'more than two sexes actually exist', or that this justifies genetically healthy and normal folks to claim that sex isn't based on one's chromosomes? If over 99.99% of individuals follow the standard genetic profile of sex as 'male' or 'female', and the further an individual unfortunately genetically drifts away from the standard blueprint of a healthy, fully functional individual brings more and increasingly severe complications, then it would actually follow that our conclusion should be the exact opposite. Simply put -- there are two sexes, and the more genetically intersex an individual is, the worse off he or she will be.

Ultimately, the subject of one's sex is a matter of an empirical, binary reality for 99.99% of all individuals born -- male or female. As for the remaining 0.01% of genuinely intersex individuals, it makes sense to refer to them as intersex, but not because there is a 'third sex', or no sexes, or some other arbitrary number of sexes other than 'two', but because there are two sexes. They are the extremely rare exception that proves the rule. If these weren't complications, and additional sexes were necessary or even just possible in the sexual reproduction of the human species, then intersex could be considered an additional 'sex'. Further, it's a particularly strange line of reasoning to fall on the argument of pointing out these intersex individuals and those with genetic complications as some justification for transgendered individuals to be able to claim to be the opposite sex, when they were, in fact, born genetically healthy and normal.

Part II: 'Gender' as a Social Construct and its Relative 'Elasticity'

Gender, on the other hand, is a subjective, social construct, albeit still based on a bimodal distribution of ‘masculinity’ vs ‘femininity’. It's a social construct because while expressions of gender are typically tied closely to the sexes across cultures, the cultures themselves express masculinity and femininity in sometimes wildly different ways. It's a bimodal distribution because while an individual would be on the spectrum of more or less masculine or feminine expression, there would be a peak concentration around a typical degree of masculine expression amongst the general populace, and a separate peak concentration around a typical degree of feminine expression amongst the general populace. In the middle of these peaks you'd have a very, very deep trough with a small connecting point representing essentially the androgynous, alienesque Mechanical Animals (his, ahem, best album, obviously) incarnation of Marilyn Manson, or Ziggy Stardust-esque androgyny.

Why Libertarians Should Have Absolutely Zero Sympathy for Weeping Progressive Democrats

It's definitely hard being a true-scotsman 'libertarian' in this world and I wanted to share something I read that really struck a chord with me and motivated me to slam around a bit on my keyboard...

"... I have no sympathy for weeping democrats. We libertarians live every day, every election, seeing horrible people get elected, and good ideas shot down. We are always the minority, we always lose, our rights are always trod upon. The democrats who are weeping crocodile tears because they have to live under Trump's Presidency for 4-8 years -- suck it up -- that's how it feels to be a libertarian all the time." -- N. Stephan Kinsella, author of 'Against Intellectual Property' and contributor to C4SIF

Personally, I've thoroughly enjoyed savoring the waves of salty, smug, Progressive crocodile tears. Let it be known that their melodramatic reaction is going exactly as predicted in a couple of pieces I wrote back in March ('YOUR GOD IS DEAD') and July ('A Tale of Unfathomable Triggering, Endless Tears, and the Self-induced Neutering of the Progressive Vanguard'), in addition to broadcasting their abyssal disconnection from America with constant proclamations of 'What Went Wrong?' and 'How Could This Have Happened?'.

"NOOOOOO!!!" -- Picasso's 'Weeping Woman', 1937.
Also, 'Progressive Democrats', 2016.

Of course, it's one thing to 'have no sympathy for weeping democrats' and another entirely to engage in a thorough bout of Schadenfreude, but I think it's well-deserved. Progressives have been, hands-down, one of the greatest threats to advancing and protecting liberty for as far back as libertarians can remember. During the past 8 years, SJW culture (the abominable love-child of Progressivism and political correctness), has relentlessly tried to shame and silence any and all dissent into this madness, using every social and economic tool at their disposal at both an individual and collective level. One might try to argue that they're just using social pressures to try to get their way, and 'at least they're not using the state' -- but it would be a trip into self-delusion to think that institutionalizing their ideas into the state and imposing them by the force and consequence of law is not the end-game, here.


The 'Referendum Creep' on Progressivism

Luckily, the election of Donald J. Trump as the President of the United States (no, that still hasn't quite sunk in, yet), along with the continued majorities in the House and Senate and safeguarding the SCOTUS likely for generations (along with the implications this has on past, present, and future law), has been an unbelievably devastating upset of a defeat that they may never recover from. Particularly so, when you consider the 'decimation' noted by The Washington Post regarding not just the presidency and congress, but of state legislatures and governorships throughout the country:

"We tend to focus on the loss of the presidency as the example of Democratic failure. That's blinkered. Since 2008, by our estimates, the party has shed 870 legislators and leaders at the state and federal levels -- and that estimate may be on the low side. As Donald Trump might put it, that's decimation times 50."

Stated differently, there has been an ongoing kind of 'referendum creep' on the Democratic Party for the past 8 years and it just recently culminated in the election of Donald Trump. Progressivism hasn't been in such a weakened position in many, many decades, but we can't let ourselves get too complacent and comfortable about all of this. This was a grave mistake they made and one of many reasons why they lost -- they were so easily duped by bullshit, skewed polling, smug talking heads and other political hacks, that it resulted in a thick fog over a vast rift between political reality and their delusional perspective of it.


A Black Hole of Identity Politics

Identity politics, despite its vacuousness of actual ideas, has been a mainstay of Progressive, SJW, and Democrat strategy for a long while, now, with Hillary and her surrogates doubling-down on this, thinking it would secure the presidency. Identity politics obviously didn't secure her a win, so maybe it can excuse her loss? Van Jones, et al, want to paint an early narrative that this all was some kind of racist 'whitelash'. Ah, of course -- this is the great revenge of the slave-owning white man! Isn't that right?

"Or maybe not. The exit polls are remarkable. Would you believe that Mitt Romney won a greater percentage of the white vote than Donald Trump? Mitt took 59 percent while Trump won 58 percent. Would you believe that Trump improved the GOP’s position with black and Hispanic voters? Obama won 93 percent of the black vote. Hillary won 88 percent. Obama won 71 percent of the Latino vote. Hillary won 65 percent. Critically, millions of minority voters apparently stayed home. Trump’s total vote is likely to land somewhere between John McCain’s and Romney’s (and well short of George W. Bush’s 2004 total), while the Democrats have lost almost 10 million voters since 2008."

Okay, well... men are obviously threatened by a woman leading the country. Even though women did the right thing of voting with their vaginas, men did the wrong thing of voting with their penises, right? In the articulate words of Donald Trump, "Wrong".

"In fact, Trump beat Clinton among white women 53 percent to 43 percent, with white women without college degrees going for [Trump] two to one."

Fine, so it wasn't the 'white male patriarchy', but what about those nefarious third parties? If not for their election spoiling and the irresponsible, short-sighted, liberal non-Hillary-voters voting for them, Hillary would have dominated, correct? Nope -- Wrong again.

"CBS News' exit poll posed the hypothetical question of who third party voters would support if the race were only Clinton and Trump, and both Johnson and Stein supporters appeared to support Clinton over Trump by about 25 percent to 15 percent. But 55 percent of Johnson's supporters would have just sat out the election, as would 61 percent of Jill Stein supporters. According to New York Times exit polling, a whopping 63 percent of voters who declined to cast their ballot for the two major party candidates said they would have not voted at all in a two candidate race."

Conclusively, simply not enough people were willing to turn out to vote for Hillary and her Democratic Party, and that fact cuts across sex, race, and class. The 'referendum creep' struck in her loss and it struck again in all of the contrived excuses for her loss. Identity politics is an abject failure in every meaningful way and the people have come to recognize that -- so much so that they have handed the Republican party almost complete free reign to do as they please (remember, they still don't have a super-majority).

In light of recognizing the political reality of this 'new normal', some Progressives in the fourth and fifth estates have taken this all better than others. Some have engaged in a well-deserved deep reflection of their journalistic failures (see here, here, here, here, and here) whereas others think they should retreat further into their anti-intellectual swamp of delusion and dishonesty (here, here, here, here, and here). Even the November 11th episode of 'Real Time With Bill Maher' shows Bill actually starting to understand and articulate a part of 'what happened' and their inability or unwillingness to see it. Unfortunately, his entire panel regularly drowns him out, retreating back into their swamp, dragging him along with them. Sad!

Yet, while I'm sure there may be some genuine feeling from these kinds of folks regardless of how they're rationalizing the news, I do believe that both approaches of self-reflection and self-delusion serve different tactics of self-preservation (likely depending on the political environments they work in) and, thus, should be taken with a giant heaping of salt.

That salt, of course, should be harvested from their tears.


So Where Do We go From Here?

It's important to note that while Progressivism as an ideology may be much more 'hardy' and take a couple more knock-out hits before going down for the count, SJW culture has still been in its infancy. As such, we need to turn the tables and do what we can to strangle it in its crib while it's in such a weakened state and while we still can. It's not a serious threat (and even less so after the election), now, but if and when such a movement were to mature and place its hands on the levers of state power? The consequences and slippery slopes for protecting, let alone advancing liberty, will be dire.

As Sun Tzu said, 'opportunities arise as you seize them'. So how do we do this? How do we 'turn the tables' on SJWs and Progressives to maximize this opportunity? Apart from actually going out and voting (and getting as many others to vote as possible), one thing I've found that they always used much more consistently and effectively than anyone else has been shaming, ostracism, and boycotting. This has been their primary social tactic and it, all too often, has shut down debate and silenced the opposition of good ideas and counter-arguments. It's high time we put an end to it. No more having to go on the defensive from dishonest charges of 'racism', 'sexism', 'hate', and other such nonsense. It's all an intellectual retreat, and they know it. We're smarter, more knowledgeable, wittier, and we have reality on our side. We've allowed them to be shameless with their dishonest tactics for too long, having overplayed their hand and rendered toothless and virtually meaningless some very important concepts to signal legitimately bad people in society. So while we must continue to intellectually destroy their arguments, we should especially focus on helping them rediscover their shame and turn their charges around on them at any and every opportunity we find. We should take a page from their own playbook and they should be mocked, shamed, and boycotted back into that brain-dead and dishonest swamp they crawled out of.

And now, for your moment of zen...

How a Raise to $15/hr would be the Downfall of McDonald's and everyone it Employs

Just a moment ago I prepared, once again, to masochistically tease myself too close to the event horizon of the super-massive black hole of the ideology of yet another pro-regressive on the internet. Why I continue to do this to myself -- I couldn't tell you. I'm apparently a glutton for mental anguish, punishment and frustration.

As it goes.

Anyhoo, this zealous ideologue spouted a quote from an article about how "[McDonald's] chief executive, Steve Easterbrook, brought home a whopping $7.91 million last year — a 368% raise over his 2014 salary of $1.69 million —while low-wage McDonald’s workers are striking around the country for a livable income." and naturally followed up with a predictably inane, "Sure, they obviously can't afford to pay people better." Of course, in the bizarro world of a pro-regressive ideologue where basic math and common sense don't apply, this means that McDonald's can afford to pay their line-level workers $15/hr. Obviously.

Of course, Steve Easterbrook didn't merely get some kind of merit pay-raise just for being a good chap. He actually got a massive promotion from 'Chief Brand Manager' to Chief Executive Officer -- an important tidbit of information the ideologue conveniently ignored that was found within his own citation. Additionally, this doesn't tell the whole story, as it turns out that the vast majority of that $7.91 million is in stock options -- which is usually how a CEO's pay is structured for large, publicly-traded corporations. It's done this way to tie the CEO's pay very closely with the performance of the company. His base rate in 2015 was actually $1.1 million, and he received an 18% pay raise in March, 2016 to $1.3 million. If the performance under McDonald's tanked by the end of 2015, quality dropped, customers stopped coming and employees lost their jobs as a result of said tanked performance -- then he would have made far less along with probably having to step down in abject shame.

McDonald's is a company that took in $25.41 billion dollars in revenue last year. CEO Steve Easterbrook has taken on one of the most important jobs in a modern economy. This means taking on the ultimate responsibility of managing a massive entity consisting of '1.9 million employees and around 68 million customers daily in 119 countries across 36,535 outlets'. His mere words, actions, and inactions could anywhere from destroy to sustain to improve the jobs of its employees and the customers who enjoy their food -- very much so including myself. And while I'm more of a Wendy's man, I'm actually a solid fan of their 'Number 6' Crispy Chicken Club sandwich meal (hold the mayo!), add bacon, add ranch dressing, with large fries, a large Diet Coke (gotta watch my girly figure), and always add in the 4-piece chicken McNuggets... but I digress, and no I'm not a paid shill. I'm just here, calling out the bullshit.

As noted, executive pay is often tied directly to stock performance in large, publicly traded companies -- so while pro-regressive ideologues will naturally point out the increased income CEOs get, you'll never find them point out a CEO's massive drop in income for when their company doesn't perform. It's the same old story with 'speculators'. Pro-regressives absolutely love -- love, love -- to pounce on faceless 'speculators' when prices go up. But of course, you'll find them suspiciously, shamefully silent when speculators push prices down.

Now, on to the fast-food meat of the matter. Of the 1.9 million total employees, let's play super nice and give a very conservative estimate that only 1.5 million of them are primarily line-level employees making under $15/hr, whereas the remaining 400,000 could be corporate employees and managers. McDonald's ended 2015 with $4.53 billion in net profits, so let's say we were to try to make pro-regressive ideologues happy (it's impossible, btw, there's always something they feel entitled to) and eliminate all profits and turn it directly into a raise for all line-level employees -- since this is the 'extra fat' or 'surplus value' that the company has nefariously, unjustly 'stolen' from them and 'should not have' and 'should go back to the workers'. Since line-level McDonald's workers typically make anywhere from $8/hr to $10/hr, let's say they make $9/hr. Now, let's take the $4.53 billion in oppressive profits, cut it up into into 1.5 million cute, little, socially-just slices, and hand them right out so very equitably (!) to all of the line level employees.

So what have we effectively accomplished by wiping out the profits of one of the largest companies in the world and handed it over to the 1.5 million line-level employees? What we've done is signed its death warrant. 

Here's the simple math. $4.53 billion into 1.5 million employees means that we've only given these people an additional $3,020 into their gross (that means pre-tax for you entitled folk) yearly earnings. Since the pro-regressive argument goes that it 'should be' a 'livable wage' (we'll get to the consequences of a raise to $15/hr soon enough, trust me) -- they should consider this their full-time job to live decently off of. Full-time means 40 hours per week for 52 weeks, which brings us to a massive raise of -- drum-roll, please...

... an additional $1.45/hr, bringing their new wage to $10.45/hr! Social justice secured! 

Understand -- when a company makes profits, those profits don't suddenly all go into the pockets of executives. Most of that money is either, 

a) tucked away into savings for a rainy day of bad performance so they can still pay their bills and continue employing 1.9 million people, 

b) to expand the scope of their operations by opening more locations to bring more jobs to more workers and more food to more consumers at low prices, 

c) to invest in existing infrastructure to improve working conditions and/or quality of the food and/or the experience for the customer, 

d) pay out into shareholders of various ages and classes (oftentimes including the employees themselves if they opt for 401k plans, IRA accounts for retirees, et al), or
e) some combination of these.

In the end, these profits are needed to sustain and/or expand the company -- not for some nefarious, oppressive, exploitative purpose, whatever pro-regressives dogmatically believe is considered so by attaining profits. 

So what does this all ultimately mean? What about the demand for a so-called 'livable wage' of $15/hr if wiping out their current profits only means achieving an average wage of $10.45/hr?

If, let's say, McDonald's ever caved into these destructive, economically ignorant demands (hint: they won't) and gave these employees a raise from $9/hr to $15/hr -- for a conservatively estimated 1.5 million 'line level' employees, they would need to absorb $18.72 BILLION in additional costs. We're talking a necessary revenue increase of 73.7% -- revenues they've never achieved and likely won't for many, many years into the future where other costs will continue to grow as well. If they had to suddenly absorb these costs, without a change to their prices, and with last years' performance, they would be operating at a yearly loss of OVER $14 BILLION. Not only does that mean that they would not be able to expand and add more locations and thus hire more employees around the world, but they would absolutely go out of business. To shore up revenues an additional $18.72 billion to both maintain $15/hr line-level workers as well as achieve $4.53 billion in profit to continue business as usual, they would have to raise prices significantly and somehow manage, with said prices, in the face of serious competition, to achieve the same amount of demand for their food. No one in their right mind would put up with the massive price hikes necessary to generate $18.72 billion in additional revenue for their existing setup, and I'm even less convinced that $15/hr 'just because' workers are suddenly 67% more productive than their $9/hr former selves (which still assumes their locations would get the requisite over 67% uptick in demand). 

That's bad for everyone, all around. That means 1.9 million people out of work, and a more concentrated market share into the remaining big fast food companies. It also means less competition for both customers and employees, which translates into higher prices for customers and less negotiating power for employees at the remaining fast food companies. Less leverage for employees and less leverage for customers means everyone loses, everywhere.

Oh, and I'm not even done, yet. Believe it or not -- you thought $18.72 billion in additional costs is rough? That was actually another super-nice, extraordinarily conservative estimate, as it doesn't include significant additional costs needed for each and every employee due to the higher rate. I'm talking about Workers Compensation, Unemployment Benefits, and Tax Liabilities -- all of which are a heavy burden placed upon businesses both large and small that are charged as rates according total wages earned, risk of injury or unemployment, and other factors. These additional expenses would effectively grow by about 67%, putting another nail into the coffin of the $15/hr minimum wage.

They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but I don't think this analogy is entirely accurate with pro-regressives. The pro-regressive road to hell is paved with a hack-job, fly-by-night, scummy operation built on willful economic ignorance and dogmatic ideology -- and it uses the livelihood and dreams of the poor as the asphalt.