Employers throughout the world, including Disney, American Express, Wells Fargo, and thousands more, have begun to battle their employees. Unionized shops, the battle has been waged for 50 years and shows no sign of relenting. Only recently have other employers joined the fray, not to help employees but to rid themselves of employees. These businesses are fighting employees against their employees for the company’s culture and soul. Couched in many a buzzword, political stance, and archaic practices, the employers want to rid their workforces of those they despise, and the battle is legal!
Make no mistake, what the employers are doing is immoral, unethical, and disastrous to those employees unfavored, but the actions remain perfectly legal, and this is the point we must understand. Laws have been changed against the majority for the selectivization and advancement of the minority. The fight is important because you might be next and never know your termination has been affected, but not enforced until it is too late. This article intends to raise awareness, not cover every particle in the fight or catalog every avenue an employer might take to attack an employee. Imperative to know and remember, as long as the actions are against individuals, no laws are being broken, and the employer wins when they can make the situation untenable, and the employee on the out quits or is forced out under a miasma of quasi-legal terms, so it appears that employee was treated fairly.
Never forget, a lawyer’s job is to make the illegal appear legal, and the legal appear illegal, so a judge must decide. Add in judicial activism and legislation from the judicial bench, and the trouble becomes apparent quickly. Unfortunately, the lawyers’ training has shifted, and the legal mind’s quality has slipped under the weight of many of the topics discussed herein. The vicious cycle can only be broken when the collective beliefs of the majority are re-established, not to the demise of the minority but the growth of the entire society.
Culture and Politics
As long as people have banded together into organizations, societies, governments, etc., there has been the push and pull of politics. All of recorded history bears truth to this fact. People have beliefs. They express these beliefs through representatives who rise and fall in different leadership positions, and societies change according to the expressed beliefs through which a society is governed (law). Pick a governing style (Communism, Socialism, Representative, Direct or Indirect Representation, Monarchy, Theocracy, etc.), and you will find the collective beliefs of the people expressed in how long a leader remains in power or the stability of the society so governed. Politics happens and is best described as the push/pull of collective beliefs expressed by populations. Economies rise and fall based upon the collective beliefs, expressed in the stability of the society and the government leader’s length of time as leader.
History has shown when a governing leader is short-lived, it is generally because they refused to follow the collective beliefs of the population, giving rise to the credit ratings of stable governments and societies being higher than for those who are changing leadership every couple of weeks or months. Those leaders who can tread the waters of public opinion maintain their jobs and, many times in history, their heads by following the collective beliefs in the morals of the people. The US Dollar’s stability is one of the strongest reasons this currency is one of the world’s benchmark currencies. Politics did that, and politics are the push/pull collective beliefs expressed by the citizens to their government leaders. The process is messy and needs to be messy for a reason; only in the expression of two divergent points can a healthy middle ground be established, and society can grow.
Culture is not politics, but politics and politically minded people can influence it. If politics is a society’s expressed beliefs, then culture is the expressed moral convictions as lived by a community. For example, many institutions have been built on the law that coveting (envy) is wrong, but the practices of the people living build a culture that accepts graft, bribes, and other incentives that, while violating the law, are accepted. Make sense? The closer the culture is to following both the letter of the law and the living of the law provides for a stable and influential culture to invest resources into.
How does one change the collective beliefs of a society and the living practices of that society; first, you capture the children. Bad ideas do not go away, they are either replaced with good ideas, or the bad ideas go into hiding, awaiting the time they can make a new appearance. Everything modern society is facing has been faced previously, and the difference is that the seeds for the current dilemmas were planted more than 100-years ago, but the bad ideas first captured the children. Why have these bad ideas advanced so rapidly? The education of children in social customs, collectively shared beliefs, and individual duty, has been eroded and attacked mercilessly since “progressive education” (the refusal to teach children to read, write, and perform math) began in the late 1800s with Dewey, who called functional illiteracy “Progress!”
One of the first words plasticized, twisted, ripped apart, and then put together to fuel tyranny through modular language was the term progress. Unfortunately, language has continued to suffer relentless attacks since the late 1800s, and more words have suffered the same fate in the modularization of language. Consider with me the history of Tea. Tea plantations in India were ruled by the iron fist of laws drafted in America and marketed with women in distress to the consuming nations geographically distant to where the crops were grown. The tyranny of slavery is the same tyranny we face with modular language. Nobody realizes this because to mention this connection is frowned upon by those making money off the tyranny of language. The tyranny of modular language fueled the oppression of entire populations to fuel an empire. The language led to actions (afternoon tea) and a host of other practices, words, and social customs to fuel the demand for Tea. Unfortunately, the tyranny of modular language also fueled hot wars in China, more geographically distant suffering from the population consuming Tea.
Language – Plastic Terms
Diversity, what is it; what does it mean in practice versus meaning from a dictionary; what value does it have for a business? Equity, same problem, fewer answers, more confusion. Inclusion, same problem, confusion, chaos, and eventual destruction. These are, but a small sample of current buzzwords strung together and causing problems in businesses. There are entire word classes set apart for plasticization, which sound good to the ear, and that people love to rally behind, but these terms cover a hidden agenda. They have been weaponized to destroy, not lift and build—tyranny through modular language, plastic words.
American Express is a perfect example of how DE&I efforts (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) have been weaponized to pick away, through politics, the non-politically affiliated, those who show up to their employment and merely want to work their job. The University of Phoenix is another company long captured by, and suffering from, DE&I tyrants. Both American Express and the University of Phoenix began their DE&I journeys with the best of intentions. Still, the result remains the same, the minority classes bring politics anathema to good order and discipline into the company, initiating change cloaked in DE&I. The result has been the discouragement and disenfranchisement of employees. The DE&I champions crow and cheer for these people leaving as it injects more DE&I hiring, and the new employees realize that unless they are politically affiliated, read that as aligned to a militant tyrant in DE&I, they too will be out of work very shortly.
Language matters, and when terms are plasticized, the only result is destruction and tyranny. Consider the teachers in the Albuquerque Public Schools System or the employees of the State of New Mexico; both populations stress DE&I initiatives under various names but with the same purpose. Who are the enemies of DE&I; those who do not wear their politics on their sleeves, acting as emotionally charged smart bombs of the media. Even if a person holds some of the DE&I beliefs, if they are not militant in their beliefs, they are ostracized by their language, judged, and removed from employment.
When the patients rule the asylum, the problems for all patients in the asylum double and triple, not improve. The same result occurs when the vocal minorities of a population gain power that is not theirs, and they make no concerted efforts to rule fairly and justly. One of the truths about any revolution is that those who initiated the revolution rarely (if ever) get to enjoy the fruits of their rebellion as they are so focused on fixing what they perceive as injustices, they miss that they have become worse in action than those they deposed.
80-20 Rule
The 80/20 Rule is known by many monikers, but always it is the same rule, in different wrapping – 80% of a population will be controlled by 20%. In standard terms, the minority is setting the culture for the 80% to follow, and they hope you will never realize you are stronger without the vocal minority than with them. Take the recent changes at Disney. There is a vocal minority demanding change, couching the changes in diversity, equity, and inclusion, and the Disney business model is about to self-destruct. The same is true of American Express, where if you are male and white, you are not welcome. But, if you are one of the members of any number of protected classes, you are welcome. When politics interferes in professional pursuits, 80% will always suffer under the tyranny of the 20%. What happens when the vocal minority becomes the majority, they fang themselves to death, and nobody is left to care because that 80% majority has left them to their own devices.
It should go without saying, but I will make plain, I am not against diversity. I do believe that diversity for diversity’s sake is wrong, immoral, unethical, and anathema to good order in a society. Diversity of thought should be preeminent as the diversity of thought transcends skin color and lifestyle choices. Diversity of thinking includes the desire to see all succeed on merit, character, and individual action. I abhor in the strongest terms picking a person solely based on their gender, skin color, religious preferences, disability status, culture, or any variable that supersedes accomplishment, education, and learned skill set. The same is valid for inclusion and equity; when people cannot compete solely upon achievement, education, and intellectual skill sets, this creates an imbalance in the population.
Hence roadblocks to education must be removed, character-defining and building experiences should be shared and taught, and achievement recognized. What is missing from schools from K-12 and up; is accomplishment, education, and learned skill sets. What has replaced these; is DE&I, where the vocal minority is destroying with no thought for what replaces the institutions, societies, corporations, and more. Iconoclasm in its most destructive form has taken over employers, and these companies are committing suicide to pacify, tranquilize, and placate a small population at the expense of all.
Inherently, change is not bad but growing, productive, and useful change requires inputs from a diverse population. Inclusion is not inherently a bad thing, but the current demands for inclusion, only for the sake of inclusion, make the activities of the vocal minority lethal to the entire social body. Equity is a prerequisite for society to grow, develop, and be stable long-term. This is why societies built on slavery, or those muzzling 50% of the population, are inherently ripe for hostile takeovers.
The actions of the vocal minority in employment right now are precarious at best, suicidal at worst, and permanently immoral and unethical. The models they promote have no substance and enable unfair, unjust, and unequal systems. Worse, companies that flout their customer base, which is the largest stakeholder in any business, will find smaller profit margins and higher expenses as employee churn increases.
One truth that should give hope to the employees affected is that when the minority becomes the majority in a body and does not have any substance, they destroy themselves. C-Leaders, are you sure you want to take the company you have been placed in control over down this dangerous path? On my first day at American Express, new hires were introduced to the rich, proud, and stable company history and core values. How sad it is to witness how fast this company has fallen! Who will replace these companies? Will their replacements learn from the failures of the past?
© Copyright 2022 – M. Dave Salisbury
The author holds no claims for the art used herein, the pictures were obtained in the public domain, and the intellectual property belongs to those who created the images. Quoted materials remain the property of the original author.
After discussing 
Any time a debate about taxes arises, the terms progressive and regressive get thrown around like popcorn in a food fight. Whether or not those speaking, even know, or care about the definitions, implications, and repercussions are different topics and one I will not hazard a guess. My intent here is to help you know and better understand the terminology as we discuss the broader topic, sales taxes. Please note, since the early 1900s, the word progress has been twisted by tyrants, plasticized by the media, and manipulated into means one thing to one person and a different thing to a politician. Of all the terms plasticized for tyranny, progress is one of the most egregious examples. Just like the term “Buffalo-wings.”
The terms progressive and regressive are a perfect example of how emotions and language mix. Without knowing all the definitions of a word, people will choose to use the sound of the word to decide whether the word sounds harsh or pleasant. For example, progression sounds good, and regression sounds bad, but progress has roots in royalty taking a trip, and regression is a privilege or returning. Hence, one of the main themes in these articles has been and continues to be how to control your emotions to improve your decision-making, the need to read, the opportunity to learn and keep learning words to empower conversation and knowledge.
Of all the progressive ideas needing to be eliminated, the sales tax sits at the highest pinnacle for regression. Consider this, in states with the highest sales taxes, the sales tax is a pyramid where the final consumer winds up paying taxes on business-to-business transactions, dynamically increasing the price of the final goods or services delivered. Business A buys raw goods from Business B and sells these goods to Business C to make small parts. Business A buys these goods from Business C and sells them as finished goods to a consumer. In a sales tax pyramid, the government gets paid at the end of every transaction; thus, a product in Vermont will be less expensive than a product in South Dakota, due precisely to the sales taxes paid by Businesses AB, B, and C during the manufacturing process. Thus, the top five states in the United States with the highest sales taxes have a tax pyramid scheme in place, and the end consumer pays through the nose for everything!
While the Tax Foundation does an admirable job pitching for “right-sizing” the tax base to make sales taxes more “equitable,” they miss the forest for the tree. Sales taxes are a silent killer and need to be regressed from American purchases at the earliest opportunity! 
Starting in the 1930s, during the “Great Depression,” changes were made to America’s methods of governance by the President, a willing media, and sycophants in the Senate and House. Establishing the Federal and State Government’s ability to rule by largess; picking winners and losers based upon obeisance to a bureaucrat’s whims, wishes, and will. Reich lays out this history, walks the reader through the laws, and makes the case that because of democratic rule America’s Republic has been reduced to a feudal system where the government decides who gets the largess and who does not. With the Federal and State Governments making these decisions, businesses do not compete fairly upon their own merits but upon how much taxpayer money they can bamboozle from Uncle Sam. Unfortunately, the entire system hinges upon reducing private property ownership and the freedoms private property allow to feed the ever-hungry beast of Government consumption.
Thus, America needs to demand change through the ballot box, insist that freedom and private property are returned to the people. Those representatives who have no moral center, or cannot serve their constituents from both parties equally, are removed from politics; indefinitely! Since America is a Republic and not a democracy (yet!), the problems in representation can be solved.
Shakespeare (2016) used Hamlet to relate a line that frequently applies, especially when communicating online, “… thou doth protest too much, methinks.” Too often, those intent on misusing words are protesting too much about something. On social media, every communication, every interaction, and every person is a threat to the intellect of the one protesting and must be lorded over, trolled, and publicly shamed. A recent example of this the world witnessed during Justice Kavanaugh’s confirmation process, where the judge’s children were physically and verbally assaulted—using a warping of legal rights, guaranteed justification for the assault. A careful review of any newspaper, news broadcast, and many politicians speaking will evidence the plasticization of words to justify actions, e.g., President Clinton, “Depends on what your definition of “is” is.” Words to couch a threat while seeming to be helpful and friendly, or worst of all hide abuses of others through twisted logic. Every time words become disconnected from standard meanings, society crumbles, language becomes useless, and the consequences are multi-generational, which is precisely what transpired in recovering Germany after Hitler’s demise.
I had the great personal pleasure of speaking to a senior citizen from Germany who lived through Hitler’s oppression and the recovery of Germany post-WWII, and the person I spoke with affirmed the most challenging social problem was relearning words and definitions to communicate without the taint of Hitler’s Germanic Language. Hence, we can draw several lessons from this experience; language is trained. It can be retrained; relearning language is a social problem fixed through social interactions and personal knowledge, and personal responsibility and accountability remain pre-eminent in communicating correctly. Another lesson from my experience, history repeats itself, and those with dastardly designs will always corrupt language to gain the advantage before showing their true colors as tyrants. Every single despot in recorded history has employed plastic language to lull the population into acquiescence before demanding loyalty and destroying that civilization, society, or culture.
A colleague and I were recently discussing how emotional intelligence has taken over as a phrase with power but lacking definition, clarity, organization, and foundational logic. Included below is my answer to my colleague and some thoughts on avoiding the constant maelstrom of business jargon passed around as useful tools for management.
Hence the conclusion that emotional intelligence is a misnomer and the process currently labeled as ‘emotional intelligence’ is nothing more than intelligence being confused with emotions (Antonakis, Ashkanasy, & Dasborough 2005; Locke, 2005). Antonakis, et al. (2009) and Locke (2005), both of whom supported the claim that emotional intelligence is a confusion of intelligence with emotions that creates chaos when applied together, supports the conclusion that emotional intelligence does not work as a concept. Thus, in employees’ identity transformation, using any emotional intelligence model remains wasted time and energy for the business leader already stretched thin on resources.
Lewis (2000) and Van Kleef, Homan, Beersma, and van Knippenberg (2010) completed research where emotions of a negative type were selected and employed, then measuring the motivation and influence upon the team members were measured. The study reflects similar conclusions and supports Solomon’s (2003) position that emotions are a choice and that emotional inclusion in a situation does not influence the intelligence of those involved, even though the followers’ emotional decisions are recognized as pieces to the social environment and relationship in small teams. Neither Lewis (2000) or Van Kleef, et al. (2010) investigated the social connections between follower’s emotional response choices and the emotions in the situation, even though social interactions do influence emotional choices (Solomon, 2003).
According to APA.org (2018), intelligence is nothing other than the functioning of the intellect an individual possesses. APA.org (2018) discusses how to compete more effectively through proper sleep, diet, education, etc., in intelligent functions; apparently, feeding the brain improves how the brain functions, thus increasing intelligence opportunities and competitive skills against others on an Intelligence Quotient (IQ) standardized test. Locke (2005) explored the intelligence side of the misnomer emotional intelligence, further supporting that an individual’s intelligence, even if focused just on emotional responses, cannot and should not measure the intelligence of the individuals involved in a situation. Finally, Joseph (2016) imported that understanding the leader-member exchange (LMX) and working to improve the LMX remains more important than being, whatever definition is currently accepted for, emotionally intelligent.
Emotional Intelligence will die as a concept when the researcher’s and practitioner’s social popularity begins to subside. What will not disappear is the continued use of plastic words to describe, detail, stretch, contort, and deceive people. Hence, the third suggestion to avoid calamity brought about by jargon unleashed is to recognize plastic words, and if in doubt, refer to the first suggestion, read a book!
Poerksen is not mentioned to sell his book, although it is an excellent read. Poerksen is mentioned because, during the Obama presidency, modular language’s tyrannical actions took an enormous leap. Words never before plasticized began to be stretched to describe all sorts of things they do not fit. For example, Speaker Pelosi called Veterans of the United States “Terrorists” and used this label to weaponize the government against veterans. We all should remember the day a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich became racist and was removed from millions of sandwich lovers’ diets.
Thus, this article aims to provide you, the reader, with a clear, distinct definition for the term patriotism. That patriotism continues to be plasticized to cover the work of terrorists who are burning, rioting, looting, and destroying America remains a consideration of great importance. The first job of any American who desires to retain their liberty and freedom is to learn.
While my answer might not be your answer, our combined answer will strengthen those who desire to become patriots. I gladly shoulder the title patriot because America is me, and I am American! I am a veteran by the grace of God; but, I am an American because my fathers and mothers came here from foreign lands so I could have the opportunity! I am a patriot by choice; there is not another country on earth like America. After traveling ¾’s of the way around the world, I would not live anywhere else. I am a patriot by conviction; I firmly believe the world is better with America, with all her myriad of faults than without America.
America is hope for the war-torn refugee! America is the bread provider for the famished! America is the “Shining city on a hill,” as referenced by President Reagan. I know America is worth fighting for, keeping, and renewing through the “Rule of Law.”
I love words; I was taught from a young age three invaluable lessons:
Consider a term oft used to describe the political left, “Social-Justice Warriors.” Long have I asked my political left-leaning colleagues what this term means, how it applies, and the veracity of the term as a description of societal action. Breaking down the term, we find three definitions taken from Dictionary.com:
Thus, to extrapolate meaning from the definitions, one would conclude a social justice warrior is “a person in society, looking for the social administration of law, who has experience fighting for the proper administration of law.” Yet, the definition from the dictionary for this term is 180-degrees different and is termed derogatory, “a person who expresses or promotes socially progressive views.” Those rioting and looting in the streets got there because a social justice warrior enraged the community on an issue that is racist, one-sided, and emotionally driven. Lest it is forgotten, the term being applied to the people driven by emotion to launch protests that become mob violence is derogatory in nature, critically disrespectful of the person calling themselves a social justice warrior. But, the social justice warrior carries this title as if it were a compliment and a badge of the highest esteem.
A recent attack by a social justice warrior regarded the inability of poor black people to have government-issued photo ID, and that without that photo ID, the poor black person would be disenfranchised in exercising voting rights. My response was that holding any person down by race was racist, and the social just warrior preceded to become unhinged. Let us be clear, anytime a person’s race is the sole reason that person, or group of people, cannot take part in something, is racism, and the person espousing that opinionated garbage is racist.
From that day to this, I have been attacked for not seeing race, not being sensitive to the race of others, and refusing to allow a person’s race to be an excuse for poor performance, bad language, and infantile public and private behavior. I remain unapologetic; I am not a racist! I hold myself to the highest standards publicly and privately as my first obligation to society. Without regard to race, color, creed, etc. I hold others to the same standards. I am willing to teach and remain willing to learn as my second obligation to society.
I quickly learned that if any other race of person employed “Ebonics” they were told to speak properly, but there was a pass for black people. When I pointed out this was racism, I was sent up on charges for being disrespectful to see the Commanding Officer. In the US Army, I was the only white person in my squad in S. Korea. I was never invited to squad parties, social get-togethers, or allowed into training. I asked why I was being excluded and was told it was because the squad leader did not understand white people. The command structure supported the exclusion, and I was left without support as a new soldier in the US Army.
In the name of racial equality, America has been taught since the early 1980s that words create problems, and some words cannot be used by “white people.” This behavior is inherently racist and spreads the problems of race, not improving racial relationships. During President Obama’s reign, America learned that peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are racist. Fluffernutter sandwiches are racist. But, this is not so, they are sandwiches, food, and delicious. Yet, through plasticization and a social justice warrior, suddenly, a staple of millions of people is now “off-limits” and cannot be consumed. My local sandwich shop had to stop selling a peanut butter honey spread on bagels as a sandwich option because the owners feared being picketed.
Improving communication is all about knowing and using language succinctly and precisely, and then supporting proper social behaviors through courage and tenacity. There is no reason the grocery store, the restaurant, and other social and community gatherings should be an atmosphere of foul deprecations, excuses for small minds to emotionally lose control, or for adults to imitate the worst childish behaviors. Standards promote freedom, and the US Republic is all about personal freedom through responsibility and accountability for one’s self.
DNC-Consulting 