The Lesson of That United Airlines Incident

The usual claim is that United Airlines incident proves Big Business can get away with anything. I thought the large drop in its stock price in the immediate aftermath proved that it could not actually get away with anything.

As for “What were they thinking?” … The people who set limits on payments to passengers to encourage them to leave voluntarily may have been influenced by the belief that such payments are somehow dishonorable and selecting people by lot is the fairest system. That, in turn, may have been based on the plausible theory that poor people would be more likely to let themselves be bumped as a result of payments.

In other words, this incident may have been due to the anti-market mentality.

Fearless Girl or Impatient Girl?

The Fearless Girl looks like she's saying “You're late! What took you so long?” This is obviously a protest against the fact that capitalism was rather slow to arrive and set humanity free. It might even be a protest against the fact that capitalism has not yet penetrated to every nook and cranny on Earth.

When Your Conscience Is in Thrall to Government Policy

According to bio“ethics” experts (seen via National Review):

Objection to providing patients interventions that are at the core of medical practice – interventions that the profession deems to be effective, ethical, and standard treatments – is unjustifiable (AMA Code of Medical Ethics [Opinion 11.2.2]10).28″31

Making the patient paramount means offering and providing accepted medical interventions in accordance with patients’ reasoned decisions. Thus, a health care professional cannot deny patients access to medications for mental health conditions, sexual dysfunction, or contraception on the basis of their conscience, since these drugs are professionally accepted as appropriate medical interventions.

In other words, it would be regarded as unethical for a doctor opposed to capital punishment to refuse to cooperate with the organ banks. If this becomes accepted, we might be an election away from compelling physicians to offer acupuncture. I won't more than mention this is a violation of the First, Ninth, Tenth, and Thirteenth Amendments.

By the way, if enough ethics experts disagree with this, would we be justified in censoring it?

I'm reminded of the anti-circumcision activists who appeal to “Society” while ignoring the fact that “Society” deems them crackpots.

A Note on Science March Slogans

I've been looking at poster ideas for the “March for Science” (for example, here) and I noticed a lack of assertions about science facts. Most of them are either irrelevant to science, expressing loyalty to “science,” or presumably witty slogans using science vocabulary.

The only issue where there is even an attempt at actual content is global warming. I didn't even see the anti-Creationist slogans I was expecting. Maybe those go together. It's hard to get really upset about CO₂ levels when such levels were higher millions of years ago.

Meanwhile, I've come up a few more factual slogans (earlier slogans are here):

• THE ENTROPY OF THE UNIVERSE TENDS TO A MAXIMUM!
• THE EARTH IS NOT THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE!
• ANGULAR MOMENTUM MAKES THE WORLD GO AROUND!
• THE EARTH IS BILLIONS OF YEARS OLD!

Mike Pence and William Shakespeare

The Mike Pence tempest in a teapot reminded me of the following quote from The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare:

I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so following, but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you.

Leftists, at least this week, regard that as “creepy.”

A Suggestion for President Trump

It's time for voting rights for chickens.

• Being a chicken is socially conditioned and is clearly the fault of either capitalism or neoliberalism (depending on what you're against this week).
• Even if you disagree, feathered people cannot help being chickens and should not be kept from the voting booth.
• On the other hand, if they can help being chickens, that means being a chicken is a voluntarily-chosen lifestyle that should not be penalized.
• You can even make the case that chickens have superior political skills.

Besides, this will help the Republicans. According to the latest research, conservative politicians are more attractive and chickens prefer more attractive humans. If you put those together, it is easy to see that voting rights for chickens will make the Republicans win in a landslide.

It's something that should be done today.