Philip Davies and Minimum Wage for Disabled People

Earlier this week in Parliament, one Philip Davies argued that people with disabilities should be "allowed" to work for less than minimum wage. He argued that an employer is more likely to employ a person who is not disabled and that allowing disabled people to work below minimum wage would be a good way to prevent employers discriminating against disabled people.

I strongly disagree. Allowing such a thing would have precisely the opposite effect. Granted, disabled people might (and I stress the term) be able to find work more easily. But it would still allow discrimination in far too easily. If an employer knows that the law allows disabled people to work for less, they could very easily make a little pay cut that lowers the wages of disabled people in their company whilst still remaining within the law. It compels disabled people to accept the idea of being payed less and encourages discrimination.

Rather than tackling the issue in this way, Mr Davies should have made it his priority to tackle the attitude that would drive employers to hire a non-disabled person over a disabled. An employer that puts profits above people holds an utterly morally bankrupt position. The law should acknowledge this and counter it, not encourage it.

The Case For A Federal Europe

Tony Blair said yesterday in an interview with The Times that he believes the EU needs an elected president. The editor of The Times and many other people disagree with Blair, saying that such a move is a step on the path towards a federal Europe.

I agree with Mr Blair. In fact, I will go further. The European Union should, in my opinion, become a federal nation, made up of the current member states and willing to accept more members into the fold. The current member states should retain local governance in much the same way that the states of the USA do, but ultimate power should rest with a federal government in Brussels (or even shifting location every few years, if that will make people happier). The military forces of the EU should be shared and no single state should be able to go to war without the backing of Brussels.

There are several reasons why I believe this would be a wise move:

1. In a word: China. China's economy is now the fastest-growing in the world. In the next few years it is expected to overtake the US. If the European nations are to avoid becoming insignificant on the world stage, they simply must work together for the common good.
2. Economics. Greece, Spain and Ireland's economies have been on the back foot for over a year now. Without sufficient external funding, their recoveries will be slow. The same goes for the UK, albeit on a smaller scale. While it is fairly easy for an individual, small country to collapse, it is far more difficult to bring down a giant such as a united Europe would be. With money flowing freely to patch up weaknesses in the economy across Europe, deficits would likely be reduced dramatically overall in future recessions.
3. Military. Under the current arrangement, each European nation trains and upkeeps its own military forces, including nuclear weapons. Under a united Europe, with only one, shared military, the EU could have a military consisting of 200,000 troops and 300 warheads. That would be plenty to deal with any military threat, and would barely make a dent in the European economy. This would free up hundreds of billions of dollars (or Euros, rather) for...
4. ...science funding and education. With a United Europe, what with the stronger economy and spare money from the reduced military etc, more funds would be available which could transform Europe and the world. Japan and the US currently lead the world in technology, but this doesn't have to be the case. A united Europe could pour hundreds of billions of dollars worth into science and education. Some European nations already have the best education systems in the world. Consider how much that lead could be improved.
   And then on the science front, Europe could single-handedly accelerate the rate of expansion of human knowledge massively. The European Space Agency, if Europe united in the next few years, could have men on Mars and bases on the Moon long before the Americans or Chinese.

Think for a moment just how utterly all this would change the world stage. A United Europe would be the richest nation in the world. Several members of the EU are already part of the G8. If their resources were pooled, the USA, China and Russia-currently the "big three"-would be dwarfed by the EU. The standard of living and quality of life for people in Europe could increase to a point that we would consider almost utopian.

Pantheism-Possibly a More Applicable Term?

This is the sort of thing I think about after I lose the will to revise further during a day. I'm sure I could be spending my time more productively than this, but here I am.

It's possible that Pantheism might be a more specific and applicable term for the belief system I hold than atheism or even agnostic atheism. I've never used the term "God" to describe the universe like Hawking and Einstein, but I certainly hold a sort of reverence for the universe and have, as I've mentioned in previous entries, had what might be called numinous experiences induced simply by natural wonder.

I do not believe the universe is itself some kind of intelligent entity. There is no positive evidence for it. I do not believe the universe has some conscious purpose or was brought into being through a conscious act. There is no positive evidence for it. I do not believe in any kind of supernatural forces or substances whatsoever, as there is no positive evidence for them. I am a rationalist first, and everything else follows from that. So if I am a pantheist, I'm a thoroughly naturalistic one.

This is a very difficult distinction to get my head around.