In Arkansas a kid can’t get tattooed until age 18. Hutchinson’s veto was purely him responding to corporate pressure. The day when too many Republican elected officials would act like lapdogs to large corporations is ending, although some fossils like the Governor of Arkansas have not got the message yet.
Thought For the Day
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
There are multiple questions. (1) why did he pay them any mind and (2) why are business corporations remonstrating with politicians on these matters. I can see tax and regulatory matters being of interest to them. Why is this of interest?
In my corporate life, in the last ten years or so before my retirement in 2014, I saw a rapid increase in an attitude of abject terror in the C-Suite that the firm would be criticized by any of the “advocacy” NGO’s such as the Human Rights Campaign, NAACP, etc. It grew to the point where arguments based on law, labor relations, and/or legitimate business interests for doing something the NGO’s did not like were simply ignored. I suspect these attitudes are even more prevalent today, and that the C-Suites have by now drunk the “silence is violence” kool-aid as well.
I saw a rapid increase in an attitude of abject terror in the C-Suite that the firm would be criticized by any of the “advocacy” NGO’s such as the Human Rights Campaign, NAACP, etc. It grew to the point where arguments based on law, labor relations, and/or legitimate business interests for doing something the NGO’s did not like were simply ignored.
OK. Now we get to question 2: how is it that positions in upper management came to be occupied by people who were pathologically other-directed? And why is their other-directedness in the face of these organizations and not those organizations?
First of all the corporate execs couldn’t have understood the law if they read it, which they did not.
“Now we get to question 2:” I have some ideas.
When I started at a large national corporation in the mid-1970’s, the very large, NY office’s HR function and facilities and etc. admin/personnel/overhead functions were done by one assistant office director and his secretary and by operations personnel – nearly all men and WWII vets – as additional duties. In the 1980’s we moved the office to a newly-built high rise NYC office tower my boss and I dealt with the architects (the same firm rebuilt the Statue of Liberty, etc.
When I retired in 2015, there were dozens of full time people in the national HQ and NY office doing all of the above. I thought the HR people took over.
Plus, from the 1990’s they went “balls to the wall” after meeting racist/genderist quotas in hiring and promotion. I know it’s uncharitable and often wrong, but any time I see a black or female in a high position, I question how many better-qualified white males were shunted aside?
Anyhow, I’m boycotting the [expletive-deleted] NFL, MLB, Coke, etc.
The Walton Foundation (think Walmart) OWNS our governor, and several other politicians, here in AR. The Waltons say, “Jump,” and his Royal Highness “Governor” Hutchinson asks, “How high?” The Waltons put their unbelievable wealth behind every moral evil (Leftist, Communist policy) in the entire state, nation, and world with their lobbyists. You name it. If it is a moral right, Walton money is fighting against it. If it is a moral evil, Walton money is supporting it. Oh, they have pretty museums and such and pass money around claiming to be generous, but it is all for the purpose of control. The Waltons also own the editorial board/page of our only state paper, the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. They are as WOKE as they come. It has literally been this way for the biggest part of 3 decades here in AR. Apparently, Tom Walton, a grandson posted something on the Walton Foundation page related to the bill the governor vetoed. It was causing a huge flap in our local radio talk shows this afternoon/evening. I didn’t look his comments up because I was done with those folks at least 20 years ago over the pranks the pulled in K-12 education via buying state politicians. By the way, the actual conservatives in our state, most of whom I know, personally, and/or are my friends on social media are rejoicing mightily as our AR House and AR Senate over rode our governor’s veto this afternoon. So the law protecting children from mutilation in our state will become law regardless what his Royal Highness Hutchinson and/or the do gooder/control freak, Leftists Walton’s. In case you are wondering, Walmart, owned by the Waltons buys almost everything from China and/or other foreign countries.
“[H]ow is it that positions in upper management came to be occupied by people who were pathologically other-directed…?”
Great question, Art. As near as I could tell, being a level or two below the real movers and shakers and thus not normally privy to all the details, the usual suspects from HR and PR (or, these days, “Corporate Communications”) managed to convince the business guys that it would significantly hurt the business if HRC, NAACP et al. took out after us for real or imagined sins against their mascot groups. Either that, or they were afflicted with a dangerous level of narcissism. Or, more likely, both.
And T.Shaw, you’re right about the execs and their lack of understanding of, and interest in, the law. That, of course, was supposedly why our legal department existed, but since evidence rules required that we only give advice lest we lose the protection of attorney-client privilege in the corporate setting, we had no real decision-making power. We were viewed more and more often over the years as an obstacle, not as functioning parts of the machine. Since I left, the department has been “downsized” several times. Now they pay outside counsel way more than we used to cost them, but outside counsel only speak when spoken to. 🙂
Did you catch this?
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/04/united-airlines-plans-to-use-race-and-gender-based-quotas-to-select-pilots.php
Idiocracy is now.
Wait until an airliner goes down with one of these affirmative action hires at the helm. Virtue signaling with the lives of other people.