If this is how you truly see things what do you offer as a solution? The more details the better and please follow your ideas to their logical conclusions.

welcome Idy. If they're paid so little (whoever they are and wherever they word-as yet to be determined-potential straw man here) then it must surely be better to collect assistance. So, "they" must be earning more than assistance, and they must be able to find entry level positions across the country and including locations that are less expensive in which to live. an apt in new york to rent is the same as renting a decent small house in Wichita. Most corporations I know allow the least skilled of their workforce to cross-train (it's beneficial for the corp and the employee). Through cross and other types of training offered, a worker can quickly angle for a more skilled job within the company. Most companies encourage advancement and hire from within first if they can. That is not slavery. To your statement of our govt imports third world countries' cheaper labor. Each country can develop its own immigration policies. That is a govt decision and policy, not a companies'

I stand corrected. actually sitting corrected

you made my heart stop for a tiny second there, max ;)

Rob: I completely agree that any worker has the right to strive for (negotiate for) (work for) (improve skills for) (etc) a 'living wage' or even better wage. But I'm reminded of such a discussion, or negotiation attempt started by a medium skilled concrete hand several years ago with our Human Resources Manager. The worker insisted that he felt that he was worth more than the $13.50/hr (again several years ago) and 50hr/wk scale he was being paid after 30 days on the job. The HR Manager replied that he couldn't argue with what the worker felt he was worth and that the worker was welcome to go on home and wait until we could find a job at his skill level that paid him as much as he wanted.

Any negotiation of this type works best when made from a position of mutual benefit. The worker has more or improved skills and can produce more and the employer has a need for those skills or production. It can't work from the position of just 'I need more.'

Prove your worth, you can get more. Just be there with no or minimal skills, you get what you're worth.

While I agree with this, I'm curious what was to become of those who were drawing pensions? If the business fails, are they SOL because they picked a stupid company that ran themselves to the ground? I'm inclined to think yes, but then what becomes of their indigent carcas? In a perfect world it would be their problem to figure out, but in a world of idiot bleeding heart liberals, who will no doubt saddle the rest of us with the burden of care for them, might there be a way that would cost you and I less in the long run? I mean we must deal with reality, and reality says that the hypocrit liberals will enslave us with some sort of support for the Auto company, so shouldn't we make our decisions based on a proper decision analysis about what would rape us the least?

Personally I think it would have been cheapest if they kept the companies afloat, but only after busting the unions and all stupid business practices that ran them to the ground in the first place, but only because it would be cheaper than supporting all their pension recipients. I mean we have to pick the best choice right? And telling them all to kiss the tuchas wasn't an option.

I like a single payer system too. Single payer as in, I'm the on single individual responsible for paying my bills. There's no compassion in compulsion and compassion is a pretty word for obfuscating the evils of the ends justifying the means.

Which point are you referring me to/to me? If you can be specific, I can address the point directly.

I've just landed here and I've already found some excitement, hoooaah!

But I'm struck by the number of seemingly inconsistent arguments/beliefs expressed over the last several days in this thread. I didn't imagine a 'Galt's Gulch' page would attract this apparent level of collectivists thought.

I'm thoroughly familiar with and repulsed by those thought processes from a life spent struggling and even fighting for my personal individual rights and responsibilities and as an employer, for those same rights for my employees. The sheer arrogance of those that would attempt to argue for the right to take from me or to force me into some course of action, for the collective good or the benefit of those that aren't willing to work or study as hard as I, or have the personal integrity to pursue better and smarter ways and means in the face of opposition from unions and government in all directions, is analogous to the class cheater peaking over my shoulder during a test or the mugger on the sidewalk wanting my money and watch.

The lack of pride and respect in one's self almost strikes me as an insanity. How anyone can find any personal satisfaction in taking from or applying violence to another is beyond me and is so foreign to my belief system, that I wonder how I arrived on this planet.

I'll continue to watch this site with interest looking for reason and personal confidence.

you forgot the rewards of Newsletter day!

Greetings havefaithwwjd,
I see what you are saying, but I'm sure you would agree, it is truly in the employers best interest to avoid the injuries in the first place by preventive measures. Restated: The employer has an incentive to avoid the scenario you have described by providing a healthy, safe environment.
Respectfully,
O.A.

"No, the real barrier is the low-skill worker thinking the value of their labor is higher than it actually is and being upset with this reality. So instead of getting better skills, they complain to elected representatives who try to boost the minimum wage....!"

There lies the rub!

The very representatives that you mention should do an 180, and look instead into the eyes of these unskilled workers, and challenge them to use their opportunities to improve their skills (read: value) and improve their lives.

Everyone wins!

But I think it is in the best interest of any employer to bear the cost of injured workers because if the worker gets sick he or she cannot work. If they cannot work they get fired and that would make the worker angry. The worker would tell all his or her friends about how they got fired because their employer wouldn't provide health care. After this happens a few times the word would spread and then people wouldn't want to work their because they had heard about 'some other guys problem'. After a time the company goes under because they cannot get anyone to work for them.
Not to mention that rather than it being another hold corporations have over workers it would be another hold the gov. has over the people.

I was using meaning 2a, from the following dictionary. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionar...

I could have been clearer. :)

is your voice raised? lol '
there is a difference between saying I like a universal healthcare ideal and saying I like a capitalistic ideal.
"it is a compassionate ideal." prove to me your compassion is my ideal. compassion should never be the trump card of an ideal. if you start from the premise you own yourself, then universal (fill in the blank)....
everywhere has universal healthcare, what they do not have is an arbitrarily defined level of healthcare. as soon as the govt defines and requires (as you said) one is arguing for slavery. slavery is not compassionate

Why so? Because I have a compassionate understanding but a reasoned rejection??? I like the idea of living forever too, but it isn't rational to imagine it feasible...

mouth open

I wouldn't go that far. :)
I like the idea of universal health care. It is a compassionate ideal. Unfortunately I have zero faith in a system instituted and managed by our Federal gov't. History is a good teacher. In the end it will be more expensive, add to the national debt, invade your privacy, will not be universal, will provide worse care, be fraught with fraud and hasten the next economic collapse.
It is much cheaper for an employer to provide safe conditions and avoid injuries because of lawsuits, absenteeism and training etc. Whether you buy your own insurance because your employer pays you enough to handle it yourself, your employer offers you his choice of health care options, or the government provides it, is not a factor in regards to employer costs related to unsafe working conditions.
O.A.

After about 9 seconds of searching, I have some numbers for you. Lower end of the scale is Iceland, Japan, and others with about 1.5 deaths per 100,000. The us is at about 6 deaths per 100,000. The upper end is in the third world at more than 100 deaths per 100,000.
The difference between the first and third world is hardly aven comparable.

Tho I agree with much that you say, I have to disagree EXTREMELY with your idea that "EXTREMISTS rarely get the job done."

Virtually every important "job" of human history was accomplished by extremists.

The Founding Fathers of this nation, which was the first to put certain genuinely radical, “extremist” new ideas of political and moral philosophy into practice, would have been called extremists today, and indeed were opposed by a MAJORITY of the colonists at first, not just by King George.

Galileo, who proved the earth was not flat *along with many other important things), was considered a heretic not merely by the Church, but by his peers (and competitors?) in academia. Indeed, history erroneously assigns to the Church most of the blame for Galileo's persecution when the Church really didn't give two hoots about him UNTIL a huge contingent of academia kept push, push, pushing the Church hierarchy to act against him. These academics would have no more qualifications to teach their students than the students did to teach them if Galileo's new theories were permitted to obsolete every bit of "expert" knowledge the current academics could claim as "expertise" in an area that others should be willing to pay them for imparting. Given the Church's power in those days, the academics were the equivalent of modern day “establishment, status quo” lobbyists using their great power and influence in an aggressive way to influence the political power-holders (Church authorities) to protect the lobbyists’ interests by persecuting an individual with an obviously superior product in order to prevent him from competing with them. In accord with Rob’s expressed view or philosophy, they managed to do quite a bit of damage to a real “extremist” hero of history, enabling them to continue their (now proven false) "advertising" until, finally, history gave credit where it was due. But that was long after Rob’s philosophy had inflicted massive, unmitigated injustice on yet another brilliant extremist who had nothing but good to offer mankind, while delaying and obstruction the delivery of something valuable to mankind’s progress. Galileo’s was just one more amongst many similar chapters in the long history of mankind's attempt to make progress despite obstruction by so many people who see the world the way Rob does..

You probably know several people (virtually everyone does, even infants) who are alive today (whether they or you realize it or not) only because of the work of Nobel Chemistry winner Dr. Bruce Merrifield, recently deceased. A true "extremist" maverick, ALL of whose peers not only disagreed with him, but actually ridiculed him. He was the first man to figure out how to synthesize an enzyme, and he "followed his truth" to win the Nobel.

Everyone knew there'd be a Nobel for whoever accomplished this feat, and all the major pharmaceutical and other biochemical research firms had TEAMS of TOP PhD research chemists 'round the world working on the problem, including previous Nobel winners. Merrifield was a true scientist, humble before nature, and respectful of the logic of truth and the truth of logic. Almost childlike in his trust of everyone he met, he actually TOLD anyone who asked, at conferences and in correspondence, exactly how he thought the feat could be accomplished -- and everyone laughed. But he continued despite the whole world laughing at him and he eventually succeeded.

Because of the specific characteristics of the new idea(s) Dr Merrifield had to invent to accomplish his feat, he (both directly and incidentally) opened up (ie, gave birth to) about 8 ENTIRELY SEPARATE branches of biochemistry research which the various aspects of the techniques he invented had made possible. Much of the outpouring of knowledge in recent decades about the details of various processes INSIDE our living cell tissues was made possible by Dr Merrifield’s EXTREME convictions and commitment to his own conclusions about what was right and wrong – and BY HIS REFUSAL TO COMPROMISE WHAT HE THOUGHT WAS RIGHT, WITH WHAT HE THOUGHT WAS WRONG, NO MATTER HOW MANY OTHERS DISAGREED. Things like EXACTLY how various nutrients work in the body, and the ratification of or disproof of much of the previous "common wisdom" about COUNTLESS aspects of nutrition, of diseases etc -- and this is from only ONE of the several DIFFERENT entirely new FIELDS of inquiry at new frontiers of knowledge which Dr Merrifield's accomplishment made possible.

This extremist not only got the job done, but he got COUNTLESS jobs done, while the non-extremists of the status quo of current thinking were NOT ONLY total failures at accomplishing even one of the thousands of invaluable tasks the extremist performed, but they actually rejected the solution that Dr Merrifield had freely handed them on a silver platter.

So much for the extremists versus the compromisers of the status quo.

Study history. Such stories are not unusual, but actually closer to the norm in the case of the most fundamental and most valuable contributions to mankind throughout history.

MOST of the greatest advances in MOST fields of endeavor in human history have been made by "extremist" individuals with views opposed to the views then currently popular amongst the status quo of "recognized experts" of the day. At any specific time in human history, there existed a particular state of human knowledge, technological capabilities, etc. ALMOST BY DEFINITION, it REQUIRED an extremist to come along and lift mankind upward to the next rung on the ladder of progress. Progress is an advance from the previous state of things, and if the knowledge to move to the next higher rung had been common wisdom, that step would already have been attained. The fact that it was a new addition to the status quo, means that someone somewhere had to come up with something that was DIFFERENT from what EVERYONE else was thinking or using or doing. A man with a “maverick” idea. A man who stood apart from everyone else on earth for a moment in history, regarding a certain piece of knowledge that he alone had uncovered or developed. He was, in at least some small respect, EXTREMELY alone and unique amongst men, for at least a while.

This applies not only to technological advances but in politics, moral philosophy, and every other area of human endeavor. For instance: as Barry Goldwater said in his acceptance speech at the 1964 Republican convention: "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice; moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." Even in political and moral philosophy, extremism is often the highest virtue, and the ONLY means for getting the job done right..

INTEGRITY is nothing more than an EXTREMELY principled, uncompromising, and incorruptible commitment to ones own beliefs about what's right, or about what is the right way to act.

INTEGRITY, in other words, is the result of applying extremism to human character.

Perhaps the reason we seem to see such an abject LACK of integrity so much more often in public leaders, business, and throughout our culture today than in the not-too-long-past decades of our history, is the introduction of the idea that "extremism" per se is bad, which became a fad slogan about 2 or 3 generations ago amongst those who obviously (see below) were either incapable of using their own thought processes correctly, or who unfortunately did not possess even reasonable facsimiles of HUMAN brains. In fact, it was during the Goldwater campaign for the Presidency in 1964 that the use of “extremism” was first used by the moderates of the Republican party to discredit Goldwater in the public’s eyes. His ideas were overtaking their lack of anything but the monotonous, tried and failed ones of the moderates, and they were unable to answer them with better ideas OR with reasoned refutations. So they adopted “extremism,” as a smear worthy of the most unscrupulous debater who is out to win rather than to find the right answer. There were reasonable, common sense, rational arguments to explain and justify each of the Goldwater positions which were twisted by his desperate political opponents to make them appear fanatical and extremely dangerous. He was nominated anyway, but “extremism” was then adopted successfully by the opposing party in the election itself to unjustly demonize Goldwater and instill fear of him in the eyes of the electorate.

Any statement that puts a negative evaluation of any kind on "extremism" QUA EXTREMISM (IE, on extremism, per se) necessarily labels the person who consciously utters it as someone with a fatal flaw in his ability to think. That's because such a statement is automatically and irrefutably self-contradictory, so the assertion of it marks the person saying it as one whose thinking process is content to operate while consciously holding contradictions, and whose thinking and conclusions are therefore probably loaded with them, and/or follow from contradictory ideas. Why? Because such a statement places a negative EVALUATION on extremism, when extremism per se CANNOT BE EVALUATED ABSENT THE ISSUE TO WHICH IT IS BEING APPLIED. To make this self contradiction absolutely clear:

“Extremism” is ITSELF an evaluation – of SOMETHING (a thing, an idea, an action, a feeling, or a category of things, ideas, actions or feelings). It LITERALLY and ACTUALLY means that whatever it’s referring to contains an UNUSUALLY large or small degree or quantity of something, far from the typical or average or commonly found amount or degree of that quality or trait or substance. But the IMPLIED meaning of “extremist” when used as Rob uses it, is that it’s TOO much or TOO little to “to the job” or to “be acceptable” or to “be appropriate for its intended purpose” or … similar. IE, thatt it’s BEYOND any REASONABLE or ACCEPABLE limits which define a range of “what’s good” or “what’s right or proper.”

“Extreme” is an evaluation SPECIFICALLY WITH RESPECT TO QUANTITY. It means UNUSUALLY MUCH or UNUSUALLY LITTLE of something. To then place a GENERALLY APPLICABLE evaluation on ANOTHER evaluation which refers ONLY to a quantity of something WITHOUT SPECIFYING THAT SOMETHING, is just a floating assertion unattached to anything real or SPECIFIC. Such a statement can have no possible meaning because it cannot even BE related to anything specific.

If someone said “Joe’s behavior is bad” and you asked Rob why, he might answer “because it’s extreme” and he would think that’s an OK way to communicate, and that he’s actually given you an answer. But all he’s done is to repeat his original assertion with somewhat different words, which STILL convey NOTHING but an unbacked opinion relevant to NOTHING that provides you any information – other than the fact, repeated twice, that in Rob’s opinion there is something about Joe’s behavior that is not good, because there’s an unusual amount of an UNSPECIFIED SOMETHING in his behavior. What’s logically implied, is that THE MERE FACT THAT SOMETHING’S PRESENT TO AN UNUSUAL DEGREE – REGARDLESS OF WHAT IT IS – IS A LABEL OF UNDESIRABILITY. (In fact, of EXTREME undesirability – another self-contradiction inherent in this fuzzy method of pseudo-thinking.) With this “explanatory” answer to your request for elaboration he has simply added an adjective which is an EVALUATION of the DEGREE of some unspecified thing Joe is doing, WITHOUT EVEN SPECIFYING THE DEGREE OF IT, but just labeling it – whatever it might be – with an UNEXPLAINED ASSERTION that SOMETHING is present in his behavior to an unusual extent.. IE, by using “extreme” and letting it stand isolated on its own, as an implied IRREFUTABLY, SELF-EVIDENT negative merely for being unusual, all he has really said is “I think his behavior is bad because I think there’s something about it which is either too much or too little, and that’s bad in my opinion.” It sounds reasonable when it’s said, which is what’s so insidious about it. We read or hear it, it sounds kinda right, and we absorb the negative conclusion without really thinking it through, though there is almost never a shred of evidence or support for it provided.

There IS of course a proper way to use “extreme,” but this isn’t it. For instance, he might have answered “Joe spends 18 hours a day at work, which is obviously so extreme that it has many bad consequences. His health has obviously declined from lack of sleep and his moods are destroying his family life and his relations with former friends, and ironically his work is itself actually suffering because of his chronic exhaustion from trying to do good work. He has taken the value of conscientious work to an excessive extreme.” This DOES explain WHAT was extreme, and WHY it was extreme, and WHY its extremism’s consequences were bad. Nothing wrong with this. But to condemn “extreme” just for being extreme, is flat out false and “extremism” has been used to get away with creating false negative impressions in people’s minds ever since this trick was first used in 1964.

That’s my EXPLANATION of WHY saying “because it’s extreme (or extremist) tells you NOTHING more and is NOT a sentence with any meaning in this example. But you can also see why DIRECTLY by realizing that THE SAME ANSWER COULD HAVE BEEN GIVEN to a request for elaboration on why Joe’s behavior was GOOD:

I might have said “because it’s extreme,” to elaborate on my assertion that Joe’s behavior was GOOD, and thus say nothing at all just as easily as I did when asked to explain why his behavior was bad. What I might have PROPERLY answered instead, in this OPPOSITE case, might have been “Joe is EXTREMELY attentive in class – he never misses a word the Professor says, and he is EXTREMELY conscientious about asking questions when he doesn’t fully understand. This enables him to get a REALLY GOOD understanding of the subject and to earn REALLY GOOD grades on his tests, and by becoming so thoroughly knowledgeable on the subject, he will probably end up doing a VERY GOOD job in his profession and accomplish a lot of GOOD things for himself and others who deal with him in a professional capacity.”

In every case where ‘extreme’ is used without a context and/or without specifics, it by itself says nothing about the goodness or badness, or the desirability or undesirability of whatever’s being described as “extreme.” But when you turn it into a PERSONAL statement about someone as an “extremist” it becomes a slur. It is a way to say “he does something unusual, or is somebody unusual” IN A WAY THAT SOUNDS VERY VERY UNDESIRABLE.

“Extremist” is thus a means for the unscrupulous to instill a very negative impression of someone else without supplying any evidence, or making himself the target of a slander suit. It is a way of convincing the fuzzy thinkers, who will almost always find this word amongst others which are critical, that it is meant to be critical too, and create in their minds an image of a wild man unrestrained by the bounds of normal behavior or thinking – a fanatic, or a bully, or a liar, or a crook, or SOMETHING very EXTREME or OUTSIDE THE NORM which is VERY BAD.

It is, thus, a handy device for cowards who have no valid criticisms of the person or thing or group or event they wish to criticize or defeat. When I hear “extremist” used to describe someone in politics, my own reaction nowadays is to suspect the person using the word of having some despicable traits with more likelihood than the person he’s trying to label as despicable in such a cowardly and sleazy way.

So… to say “extremism is good” or “extremism is bad” would be a meaningless statement in either case, conveying zero information UNTIL THE CONTEXT is supplied. “Extremism” is NOT some stand-alone, specific thing which can be absolutely evaluated as being good or bad. It is merely a rough measure of quantity, meaning the presence of a VERY UNUSUAL quantity or degree of something, either a lot MORE than usual or a lot LESS..

What the sleazy amongst us have tried to do is equate EXTREMISM with FANATICISM in our minds, and erase from our minds any other possible meaning of the word, in order to pull a fast one on vague thinkers or cursory readers. The intent of those who intentionally turned this term into a pejorative one, was to enable them to dismiss out of hand ANYONE who sticks to his guns with INTEGRITY, thereby enabling them to disparage their most vocal, consistent, and impassioned opponents.

Many people are fuzzy thinkers, or cursory readers, or inattentive listeners, and they go by the vague impression they get from the wording and tone in which words are spoken rather than listening carefully to exactly what they mean. This is what the sleazes amongst us are counting on when they use the term ‘extremist’ to demonize someone whose actual arguments or personality or character are unimpeachable.

Furthermore, by conflating EXTREME with FANATIC, we lose the use of the REAL concept of “extreme” and gain an UN-NEEDED extra synonym for a concept we already have. We already know what a “fanatic”is. We also know what a man of integrity, or of impassioned ideals, or of committed purpose, is. But these can all be reasonably called UNUSUAL men, or men with VIRTUES at the EXTREME of what we find amongst the population of all men. So . . . we could justifiably call them “extremists” and lump them all together under that label. Then, if we can FOOL people into equating “extremist” with “fanatic,” our job is done. We can now convince people that certain good men who stand in our way are actually bad without having to provide any evidence or reasoned argument, and thereby increase our chances of being able to defeat him in a contest for the approval of a majority of the voters.

This is possible because fanatics do indeed share some visible traits with the best amongst our species. They are impassioned, they are often “activists.” They are firm believers in what they think is true and seem to be glued inseparably to their beliefs. But fanatics are BIASED and CLOSE MINDED to facts and arguments against their position – their fanatic position is based mostly on emotion, and they hold their beliefs for emotional reasons. They stick to their beliefs NOT from a loyalty to truth, but from an emotional fear of giving them up. The emotions come first for them, and their strong emotional NEED for attachment to their beliefs often appears, visually and vocally, very similar to an impassioned devotion to the truth. . A good scientist or other good man might be just as impassioned and glued to his beliefs, but it’s because he HAS considered all the arguments he could find against his beliefs and has been able to refute them all. He FEELS impassioned because his THINKING has convinced him of how valuable it is to understand the truth of his conclusions. His loyalty is to the truth, and that’s WHY he is impassioned. Should someone call attention to an error, he’ll alter his conclusions accordingly, because he’s devoted to the truth. His “extremism” is a high virtue, and the “demonization” of extremism as extremism, is a vile attempt to discredit such good men and label them in the minds of many as amongst the worst of men. – by those with personal agendas who relegate truth to a lower priority.

If I believed, as Rob certainly seems to,, that "extremism is ineffective" or that it is "not a good idea" or "to be shunned" then YOU might well say to me, Rob presumably would, by saying "YES!! Extremism is all that you mention. That is an extremely correct and perceptive statement with which I fully agree -- to the utmost extreme." IE, to adopt this statement and view it as accurate and correct, is to negate it, because FULL acceptance of its absolute condemnation of extremism itself, extremism of ANY unspecified nature,, would be itself the most extremist point of view you could have on the issue. IE, it is not a moderate position, but an EXTREMIST position, to claim or to believe that examples of EXTREMISM are ALWAYS AND WITHOUT EXCEPTION UNDESIRABLE AND INEFFECTIVE. Thus, the view that extremism is unremittingly bad, is of necessity ITSELF unremittingly bad, by its OWN admission!!

In short, the more certain your belief that “extremism” in and of itself, unqualified and out of any specific context, is inherently ineffective and counter-productive, the more you should REJECT YOUR OWN BELIEF, because its own logical advice to you is that you must reject it if you believe it. As your degree of certainty in its correctness approaches 100% absolute certainty, it become closer to its absolute extreme. And extremism in the belief of any supposed truth, is still extremism. And as such, it is to be rejected, shunned, dismissed as less than worthless – as, in effect, fanaticism. (Indeed, your absolute belief in ANYTHING is sufficient reason NOT to believe it, if you accept that “extremism is bad/wrong/ineffective.”).

THAT is another way of demonstrating the contradiction inherent in the (couldn’t be more wrong) opinion expressed by Rob. I will generously assume he has absorbed, by osmosis, this intentionally flawed self-contradictory slogan whose purpose is to fuzz up people’s thinking and thereby permit the widespread acceptance of the demonizing of others for unscrupulous motives.

Acceptance of the pseudo-idea associated with this slogan or its variations, is to turn yourself into fodder for the worst charlatans amongst us, a sheep for them to shear, while it simultaneously insulates you from the truth espoused by the best among us: the intelligent men who are impassioned seekers of truth – men who are truly INTELLECTUAL, interested in finding the right IDEAS, and who love the truth so much that they often exhibit their love of it with a passion. Their virtue is what evil men have attempted to turn against them, by altering the common usage of language in such a way as to DESTROY the ability to distinguish INTELLECTUAL INTEGRITY from EMOTIONAL FANATICISM in the minds of many people – which means many voters – which means many votes – which means it is an attempt to gain political power by defeating truth and knowledge with larger voting numbers acquired through intentionally induced ignorance.

"Extremism" is neither an entity NOR an action. It is a MEASURE OF THE DEGREE of an action, whether a physical or mental or emotional one. The degree or extent to which someone does, believes, or feels something cannot be evaluated as an absolute, as inevitably and always good or bad thing, WITHOUT CONTEXT, ie without first considering and evaluating the action, belief, or feeling which is being carried to its extreme degree.

An extreme dedication to the pursuit of truth (an action), or to the value of knowing the truth (a belief) or to a love for the truth (a feeling) CANNOT be evaluated as good UNLESS/UNITL you have FIRST evaluated "truth" as the good. Extreme behavior in torturing innocent people to death slowly, the idea that one is so superior he has an inherent right to do so, and the pleasurable neurotic or psychotic feelings of positive personal power when inflicting such agony on other human beings, could not be evaluated as bad or evil or wrong, unless/until one FIRST understands that torture of innocents for no end but to satisfy another person's wishes and urges is wrong. IE, YOUR EVALUATION OF THE DEGREE OR AMOUNT OR EXTENT OF A PROCESS IS DEPENDENT ON YOUR EVALUATION OF THE OUTCOME WHICH THAT PROCESS IS EXPECTED TO ACHIEVE. You are not logically entitled to make the former evaluation until you have made the latter one. But this is PRECISELY what is being done with the “extremism is bad” idea.

Tibi gratias agimus. Quod ego googled. lol

So then, did you choose your current job because it was the lowest paying among your choices?
People work for money, nothing else. If you enjoy your work as well, then good on ya'. And as for power, it isn't about power to control other's lives, it is about power to control your own. And part of the machinery assembled to give someone money and power, a corporation, are employees. Each employee freely chooses to do the job in exchange for the pay. It is a very simple deal struck between free persons. Each party gives and gets an agreed value. Unions and their intervention on behalf of one party, skew the exchange of value. They coerce the employer to pay more for the same work/value.

Prosperitas iter itineris.
:)

The roads and bridges were built by you and me. We paid to have them built. Gov't didn't build them either. Govt simply handled the money from me to the builders themselves. The builders are private enterprises. They are in the business of building because they are good at it. And because they can make a profit, too.
The tire supplier is also a private enterprise founded by some person risking all they owned to build a business. They are in business because someone builds cars and needs tires. Same with the steel supplier, glass, upholstery, wires, spedometer cables.... All private enterprises. And what they build, a car, is sold, at a profit to you or to me. We get to use that car that we bought on roads that we paid for, and are maintained at our expense.
At most, society is a collection of specialists, specialized labor. I don't need to mine and smelt my own steel, because someone has gone through risk and hard work and the learning curve to produce steel at a reasonable cost to me, and for a profit for them.
You are a specialist, as well in whatever you do, you don't slaughter your own cows, because someone else does it do you, at a profit. Society is composed of individuals each and every one seeking their own personal satisfaction, gain, survival.
I don't spend my working life looking for ways to shift the fruits of my labor to someone else's survival. And I know they are not either.