I'm So Sick Of RWers Using The Patriotic/Veteran Meme To Prove Stupid Points!

[Butch McQueen]

Just ranting here about the latest annoying Facebook bumper sticker which was along the line of "What makes "burger flippers" think they're worth $15 an hour when our brave troops getting shot at in Afghanistan don't make that much". That is just stupid on so many levels!

A. If a guy is in combat he probably is at least an E-3 paygrade with at least a couple years time in the service (what with time spent in basic training, advanced training, etc) so his base pay is about $1,900 a month. If he has dependents back in the states they either live in base housing (no cost) or he is getting a housing allowance adjusted for the cost of living at his home station - a good rough average on that comes out to around $1,100 a month for his paygrade. He is also getting various special pay and allowances for being in a designated combat area. Lets say when the dust all settles his monthly compensation comes out to around $3,400 a month. Plus the soldier gets some serious income tax breaks that the "burger flipper" doesn't. Do the math RW morons - that is more than a month's pay on a 40 hour work week at $15 an hour!

B. O.K. let us say that military folks are worth at least as much as "burger flippers". The head "burger flipper" at McDonald's had a compensation package that last year was worth about $14,000,000, which is roughly 1,000 times the salary of the minimum wage guy working 40 hours per week. So, by that logic the Commander in Chief (the evil Obama) should be making 1,000 more than the lowliest E-1 Private in the Army which would put Obama's salary at about $18,000,000 a year. I don't see any RW types supporting that idea!

C. Interestingly enough, when you compare the base pay of an E-1 Private with a 4 star General... The General's base pay is about 10 times that of the Private's. How many of these RW types support legislating a 10 to 1 pay ratio between the highest paid and lowest paid workers in the private sector? None of them support that!

The really irony behind it all... The guy who posted the offending Facebook bumper sticker didn't even serve in the military, but he is sure willing to co-opt the meme to try and prove a stupid RW point.

I'll close with an appropriate quote from Kurt Vonnegut in the prologue to his book "Jailbird" where in describing his own life at the time says:

"I imagined that I was a socialist. I believed that socialism would be good for the common man. As a private first class in the infantry, I was surely a common man".

Thanks to all who tolerated the ranting and thanks to DU for providing a place to blow off steam!

Butch

[itsrobert]

1. Great post

as a retired (26 years) veteran, I am tired of these right winger clowns using the veteran card.

[Vietnameravet]

6. USAF here and sick of right wing bullshit as well!

[JimboBillyBubbaBob]

2. Rest assured,

their lame attempt at supporting a point through the use of the meme is not working! Your post helps support that idea.

[FreakinDJ]

3. That and the Jackasses posting it in NEVER Served

I wish they would defiling the good name of our troops

[truebluegreen]

4. Thank you!

And welcome to DU.

I really like comparing base pay of privates and generals--I'm going to remember that.

[painesghost]

5. They're right on one point.

We don't pay our soldiers enough. Their point seems to be that, "Hey, We screw our servicemen and women, the least we can do is continue to screw our workers too. I mean fair is fair. Those guys are risking their lives. If were going to screw them, we got to screw everybody else also. If not, how could we live with ourselves."

The sensible solution is to raise military pay and also raise worker pay. I'm tired of RW's continuous race to the bottom.

[jmowreader]

7. At last year's fair I was told no Democrat "supports the troops"

This of course forced me to play the "troops" card at a level your average teabagger can't do: I took my VA identification card out of my wallet, showed it to him and asked if he knew what you had to do to get one. (He didn't. Does now, though.) Seeing these assholes' jaws hit the floor is an especial pleasure I don't partake in unless absolutely necessary.

[Initech]

8. Not to mention they don't know a damn thing about history or what our government is supposed to do,

They only know symbols and buzz words, and to quote the late, great George Carlin "Politicians hide behind three things: the flag, the Bible, and children. Those are symbols and I leave those to the symbol minded. "

[Rozlee]

9. I went into the military to get away from minimum wage jobs.

And for military benefits like the GI Bill. Sure, a lot of low-ranking people with families struggle and qualify for programs like food stamps, but they get great medical benefits. People would be surprised if they knew that the largest demographic of people going into the military are those that couldn't find gainful employment in the civilian sector. It's no secret recruiters often target poorer areas for fresh meat. According to an Associated Press release from 2007, 3/4 of troops killed in the Iraq War came from towns where the per capita income was below the national average and more than half came from towns where the percentage of people living in poverty topped the national average.

Pretty smart idea to keep burger flippers' pay low. That's how they make sure they'll always have new cannon fodder to fight their wars.

[Turbineguy]

10. It's their last refuge.