Commander Kelly: The Cost of Kayla

Shanty Cafe RIP
Seattle WA
Born 1914
Closed 2016

Kayla Chadwick wrote a column for the Huffington Post called I Don’t Know How To Explain To You That You Should Care About Other People. Here is her column...https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/i-dont-know-how-to-explain-to-you-that-you-should_us_59519811e4b0f078efd98440. Here is my response to it...

Kayla is tired. Kayla is fatigued. Kayla supposes that the adherents of one political party is filled with cruel, selfish people who lack empathy. Kayla is perhaps tired after her excessive virtue signaling…?If you don’t agree with Kayla about raising the minimum wage and imposing universal health care then you are in danger of lacking compassion…?

Kayla does does not consider that possibility that raising the minimum wage also raises teenage unemployment levels. Raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour in Seattle has cost thousands of jobs in King county and led to the closing of many historic restaurants including the iconic FX McCrory’s just last year.

There are many folks who think much like Kayla in my home town of Seattle. And this has created havoc in the local restaurant scene. Consider the case of the Shanty Cafe. It opened its doors in 1914 serving chicken fried steak and hearty breakfasts to Seattle Patrons. It survived two World Wars, the Great Depression and numerous economic downturns. But it did not survive the increase of the minimum wage to $15 per hour closing its doors in November 2016 (www.thestranger.com/slog/2016/11/25/24709848/shanty-cafe-a-queen-anne-institution-will-be-closing-its-doors-monday). Where is the compassion for its owner Ginger Crowley? Or the Shanty’s employees? Or its customers?

Its gotten worse since then. In 2017 multiple restaurants closed in Seattle every single month of the year (Of Requiems and Reboots: Seattle Restaurants That Closed in 2017: www.seattlemet.com/articles/2017/12/28/requiems-and-reboots-restaurants-that-closed-in-2017). According to a recent study cited by the Washington Post “the average low-wage worker in the city lost $125 a month because of the hike in the minimum.” (Analysis | A ‘very credible’ new study on Seattle’s $15 minimum wage has bad news for liberals www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/06/26/new-study-casts-doubt-on-whether-a-15-minimum-wage-really-helps-workers/?utm_term=.00a21bc5feb7).

Nor is the problem limited to Seattle. An increase in the minimum wage in San Diego, CA also seems to have cost around 4,000 jobs in the restaurant business (San Diego's new minimum wage already may be killing jobs: http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/columnists/dan-mcswain/sd-fi-minimum-wage-job-losses-restaurants-20170406-story.html).

Kayla boasts about her being a spendthrift informing us that she does not mind paying the extra 4.3% for her fast food lunch if it supports a struggling family. Good for Kayla! That is her choice. The conservative viewpoint is that those who pay attention to pennies will worry less about dollars. Ben Franklin told us that “a penny saved is a penny earned.” The conservative asserts that all of us have a right to care about all of the money we choose to spend — you have a right to be a tightwad in this country!

Kayla is delighted to pay taxes to support public education. Good for Kayla. It seems that she is a property owner paying her property taxes. Anyone who owns property, regardless of political affiliation or the number of children you have, pays to support public education. The more property you own the more you pay to support public education.

A good system of public education is critical to the success of a representative democracy. The problem we have in America is that our public education system routinely fails its citizens. The Left is in the grips of teacher unions such as the NEA and are more concerned with raising teacher salaries than with improving student outcomes. The left also opposes school choice vouchers that offer parents a means of raising standards and outcomes particularly in minority communities.

Kayla tells us that “Poverty should not be a death sentence” and so on. Well no one ever told Kayla that Life itself is a death sentence. Death and taxes are inevitable. The British, who have a Universal health care system, are out in the streets protesting the flaws in their own system. The advisability of adopting a single payer system in the USA is, at a minimum, highly debatable. And those who raise objections to socialized medicine are worthy of being listened to.

A fundamental belief of Conservatism is that All Human Life is Sacred. Black Lives Matter BECAUSE All Lives Matter. Kayla’s column makes her sound like she is a shrill and self righteous twit— a Leftist scold. But we as conservatives must acknowledge that Kayla’s life matters too. Who knows? Someday light may intrude into her seemingly narrow mind and she may consider the possibility that her ideological opponents are human too.

The Left claims to have compassion for working people, minorities and the poor (in spite of harming precisely these groups with by raising the minimum wage, and opposing school choice). But it consistently refuses to speak up for the rights of the voiceless — the unborn. It lacks compassion for the weakest among us.

Kayla’s column is an empty and condescending exercise in self-congratulation; it is a desperate attempt to dehumanize her political opponents by constructing phony straw men. Rather than engaging in argument she prefers to launch personal attacks on her ideological opponents. Sad!