  Phil quoted some pinko commie twinkle toed bint on his site as saying: "When you enter the low-wage workplace -- and many of the medium-wage workplaces as well -- you check your civil liberties at the door, leave America and all it supposedly stands for behind, and learn to zip your lips for the duration of the shift.
The consequences of this routine surreunder go beyond the issues of wage and poverty. We can hardly pride ourselves on being the world's preeminent democracy, after all, if large numbers of citizens spend half their waking hours in what amounts, in plain terms, to a dictatorship. " this made me mad--- there is a significant difference between a dictatorship and living in shitty circumstances. It sucks to be in a low wage job where conditions probably suck. its shitty. I feel sorry for people for whom the choice is one of these jobs or no job at all. BUT ITS NOT THE SAME AS A DICTATORSHIP! a dictatorship is where THE GOVERNMENT HAS CONTROL OVER WHERE YOU WORK, LIVE, EAT, SLEEP, ETC. Look, just because some people's lives would suck MORE if they quit their jobs, doesn't mean they are forced, in the dictatorial sense, into that job.
I honestly don't think people have a right to happiness; they have a right to THE PURSUIT thereof. they always have the right to quit their job to find better work, to go to vocational school, to do many many different things to avoid working in terrible circumstances. Should we have better enforcement of work place condition rules, yes. but just because someone doesn't like their job and feels like they are forced to work there under pain of welfare, doesn't mean its a dictatorship.
and while i'm on the subject of stupid quotes, "Stephen Baker, director of industry analysis at the NPD Group, attributed the surge in sales of laptop computers to a greater interest in being able to transport a personal computer. " according to an AP story on laptop sales exceeding desktop for the first time. well No Shit. That's some deep market analysis. Think about it-- interest in tranporting a computer would lead to more laptop sales.
. .
wow. I think some similar analysis would go something like this: " attribute the surge of sales in pens to interest in writing stuff down.
" or perhaps "i attribute the surge of sales in laxatives to the interest in remaining regular. " in its purest form, "I attribute sales of X to interest in 'the very thing X was designed to do'" if this is the quality of analysis from the average market anaylsis person, no wonder our country's economy is in the shitter. 
