** It is the most important ideological movement in China in the past 40 years.
It should be said that there are a huge number of ** factions in China, and they can be seen in all kinds of **. I'm sorry, I'm also a ** faction, that is, a "beauty fan".
However, today I want to make a "dog eat dog", I will boast about the freedom of the United States, but I will scold another group of "American fans".
Because we have fundamental differences about what American freedom is. Most of the "American fans" are Roosevelt's fans, that is, the fans of the four freedoms, the fans of universal values, but I think that Roosevelt destroyed most of the freedoms in the United States.
As the title suggests, I will talk about what freedoms are still worth yearning for in the United States, and these freedoms are often recognized as not freedoms by another group of "American fans".
One, the private police in the United States
There is a little-known fact that the United States is a country where there are more private police officers than ** police officers.
In many well-known theories, power cannot be privately owned, and property cannot be publicly owned is their favorite sentence. However, the police, as an armed force with coercive functions, are widely privately owned in the United States.
Back in the seventies of the last century, the number of private police in the United States was already approaching the number of official police. Since the beginning of the 21st century, the number of private police in the United States has been nearly five times that of the official police.
You can not think that the private police in the United States are just security guards in China.
In 2010, the largest private security association in the United States——— the American Association of Industrial Security International, defined private security as "the security behavior of an independent or private commercial organization, including guarding the person, property, information and other assets of the employer, responding to emergencies, employee background checks, detecting and investigating crimes and suspects, and arresting wrongdoers."
The modern police system originated from the Metropolitan Police established in 1829 by the decision of Robert Peel, Minister of the British Home Office, and its original purpose was to maintain social order and protect the personal and property safety of citizens.
Crime prevention and investigation, on the other hand, are handled by private individuals. The United States was heavily influenced by the British policing tradition, and the first New York Police Department was established in 1845. Pinkerton pioneered the private security industry in the United States, establishing a private police in the modern sense as early as 1853, although only five detectives were hired at that time to solve crimes.
Over the past two decades, the United States** has increasingly embraced and encouraged the use of private security as a powerful tool for crime prevention and the protection of private property. As a result, private police enjoy extensive powers such as search, inspection, arrest, investigation, interrogation and surveillance.
In many small towns in the United States, there is not even a single public police, all of them are private police, patrolling and arresting people.
There are also a large number of private correctional facilities managed in the United States. Since the 80s, it has been a legal fact that private individuals have taken over prisons. There are currently two models, one is to manage ** prisons;The second is supervision in privately run correctional facilities.
By 2007, about 7 percent of state, 16 percent of federal custody were in private correctional facilities.
With 75,000 inmates in 60 prisons, the Corrections Corporation of America is the largest private prison operator in the United States and the fourth-largest prison system in the United States.
It also manages 53,000 orthopedic beds in 15 states, with a 25% market share.
After a brief introduction to the current situation of private police in the United States, let's talk about why?
In the thinking of the Americans, although there is already a public police to exercise the functions of preventing and investigating crimes, maintaining social order, and protecting the safety of persons and property, it cannot be legally or morally excluded from the possibility of citizens taking security measures themselves, and citizens always retain the right of self-defense or self-help, and purchasing security from private hands is a natural extension of the right of self-defense (assistance).
Part of the Constitution of the United States still maintains the tradition of freedom, that is, this Constitution is a limited law that stipulates what the United States cannot do, that is, it creates a negative list of functions.
Since the constitution does not say that it has the power to prohibit private security, then the United States cannot monopolize security services.
This is freedom, and freedom is the restriction on the expansion of power.
2. The employment system in the United States
Since 2022, the wave of layoffs in the United States has spread from the financial and technology industries to other industries, following Twitter, Meta announced 11,000 layoffs, Amazon announced 18,000 layoffs, followed by Microsoft announced 10,000 layoffs, in recent days, Google announced 12,000 layoffs, HP and other companies have also announced layoffs.
Why are big tech companies in the United States so decisive in laying off employees?
Let's take a look at U.S. policies related to labor law. In U.S. federal labor law, there are two types of employment: the at will model and the formal employment model.
At will English means arbitrary, free, in the employment model is generally translated as the fair labor model of both parties, the vast majority of Americans adopt this model, directly in the offer of your treatment.
The peculiarity of this model is that I am free to fire you, and you are free to leave your job without handover, not even a second of handover.
Then the other way is to sign a labor contract directly is a model that requires compensation, but, sorry, you may not be eligible to sign this kind of contract, 99% of employees in the United States may not be eligible for this kind of contract, if you ask the company for this model, then sorry, you can find another job.
This labor model is only for senior managers or very powerful professional and technical masters, in layman's terms, only those with O have the opportunity to sign, such as CEO, CFO or CMO, etc., the company is impossible to sign with ordinary people, and this model is usually accompanied by Golden Parachute and Golden Handcuffs clauses.
For example, after Musk took over Twitter, he fired the CEO, CFO and chief lawyer, paying them a total of about 2The huge compensation of 100 million US dollars is because when Twitter hired the three executives, it clearly stipulated in the company's articles of association that "if the employee is dismissed in the future, it will be compensated xx, and the compensation amount shall be calculated by xx, and if there is a change of shareholders or a change of control in the subsequent company, the majority shareholder, all shareholders and the board of directors must also accept this clause".
This is the Golden Parachute Clause, and this is also the lifelong goal of American workers: to be able to sign a Golden Parachute Clause with the company.
Of course, having a golden parachute does not mean that it is a peace of mind, relatively speaking, there is a gold handcuff clause, mainly for the executive's performance, contribution, stock price, non-competition and other aspects will also make requirements, if you fail to meet the requirements and are dismissed, there is no need to compensate.
Now let's look at redundancy compensation.
In the U.S. federal bill, there is no content on layoff compensation, you read that right, don't wipe your eyes anymore, I really don't see it, but each state will have different standards, take California, which has relatively strict labor laws, for example, California's requirement for this part is "companies with more than 100 employees must notify employees 60 days in advance when laying off employees."
In just such a paragraph, there is no compensation.
Musk's tweet during the Twitter layoff was based on the fact that "the severance pay I sent them is already 50% higher than the law".
As long as there is no gender, religion, or racial discrimination involved in layoffs in American companies, there is no need for compensation, even if you are terminated due to insufficient employee ability and attitude, there is no special explanation for pregnant women and disabilities in the bill.
This means that the U.S. Labor Act does not have the concept of a vulnerable group, and these people are no exception.
The United States also has fewer holidays than China, and there are no national holidays in the strict sense, only 10 federal holidays instead of national holidays, federal holidays are holiday regulations formulated by the United States Congress that only apply to federal agencies, including Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc., but they are only 1 day (3 days of Christmas is not a federal holiday).
The maternity leave in the United States is 12 weeks, and only the company has 50 or more employees and has worked in the company for more than 12 months
As for overtime pay, it is not necessarily available.
In the U.S., employers are required to label each position as "exempt" and "non exempt." The biggest difference between the two positions is whether or not there is additional pay for overtime: the former does not and the latter does.
The so-called exemption means that it is not subject to the FLSA regulations, so there is no overtime pay. Non-exempt employees must be paid no less than the federal minimum hourly wage, work no more than 40 hours per week, and receive no less than 15 times the usual hourly wage.
Generally speaking, exempted positions belong to white-collar workers, are annual salary system, have special requirements in terms of technology and professionalism, and are not based on working hours but according to whether they have completed the task as the assessment standard;
Non-exempt positions are blue-collar and generally hourly paid, with salaries calculated based on the length of hours worked.
The advantage of exempting employees is that they don't have to clock in, sometimes they are busy and sometimes they are free: when there are many projects, when the deadline is tight, the working hours will be longer, and sometimes there are no projects, so you can leave work early in less than 8 hours. Therefore, it is not important to work less than 40 hours a week, but the important thing is that the worker can complete his or her job with quality and quantity with his or her unique skills and experience.
The vast majority of white-collar jobs, such as doctors, teachers, engineers, civil servants, marketing, and managers, are exempted. Information technology practitioners, commonly known as coders and code farmers, are no exception. The nature of a programmer's job is different from that of a worker on an assembly line, and job performance is far less correlated with the length of work hours than with the employee's ability to innovate.
That's why most U.S. Internet companies have flexible working hours: as long as they can complete their work on time, no one pays attention to their commute time. These companies emphasize work-life balance to bring out the best creativity in their employees. However, the amount of workload is related to the size of the company, the company's culture and the company's management level, as well as the technical level and work efficiency of employees.
As long as you complete the task, it doesn't matter if you work overtime or less. Those American white-collar workers who want to get a raise and be promoted, there are not a few who work overtime crazily, and there is no penny of overtime pay.
In the U.S., it's an open secret that some industries work long hours, such as the financial industry, where 7-to-7 is the default working hours. Working 60 hours a week, this kind of high-intensity work usually has high pay and benefits: they earn almost 3 to 5 times more than people with the same education and experience.
In addition to the union-affected businesses and some white-left anti-discrimination policies, the United States has almost the freest labor market in the world, the least regulated labor market, and the high-tech companies are even less affected.
This is one of the key reasons why American technology can dominate the world. The reason why there is no such technology company in Europe, with strict rules on commuting time, no arbitrary dismissal, and mandatory holidays, how can such an enterprise have excellent technology companies?
Allowing employers and employees to enter into contracts freely is to protect the free rights of both parties to the transaction, rather than requiring the employer to come forward and dictate how the business owners should sign the contract.
3. Child labor in the United States
The United States is the only country in the world that has not ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the United States is the only country in the world where child labor is legal.
According to relevant data, there are currently 500,000 child laborers in the United States every year engaged in agricultural work, and many children start working at the age of 8 and work up to 72 hours a week, or more than 10 hours a day.
For example, Iowa repealed child labor laws that allow children between the ages of 14 and 17 to engage in mining, meat packing, dismantling, guillotine scissors, and other hazardous work without liability if a child is injured or killed on the job.
Proponents of child labor in the United States argue that child labor is not allowed, that is, "giving them the power to nationalize children on their land." The children are theirs, not the state.
Farm organizations claim that the ban on child labour is a concentration of power that may prevent children from doing household chores in the home or on the farm, including picking vegetables from the home, to the detriment of farmers.
They believe that children have a natural dependence on their parents and family, and that parents have the right to raise their children in any way they want. They continue to emphasize the important role of the farm community, claiming that the amendment is aimed at children who work on farms, and that the implementation of the bill will result in children not being able to get effective exercise.
They believe that the idea that parents let their children work is simply absurd as parents exploiting their children.
To this day, the U.S. tobacco industry still employs a large number of child laborers during the busy harvest season.
Although there are numerous laws governing children in the United States, including the possibility of depriving custody of children by beating and scolding. However, the residual child labor system is a restriction on the power of the United States, and this is freedom.
* Not being able to reach into the homes of Americans, how they want to educate their children, whether they want them to work, is the scope of each parent's own guardianship.
And many ** factions, but they like to promote the protection of child labor every day, and ask for ** to expand their rights, what kind of freedom is this.
Fourth, community autonomy in the United States
Who you want to sell your house to, you don't count, the community has rules, and many American communities need to qualify new users.
The lawn at the entrance of your house should not dry clothes, otherwise it will affect the environment of the entire community and even affect the price of other people's houses.
There is even one such model for apartments in the United States, which is the joint-stock apartment. The property right is a building, which is shared by all owners, and if you want to sell the house, it is actually part of the equity of a company.
These rules are not made by **, but by the community groups themselves.
This kind of community autonomy is also reflected in common defense.
In some parts of the United States, there have been large-scale ** communities where small militias have been formed to keep their communities and families safe, patrolling at night to prevent disruptive activities in their communities and in certain families.
They believe that the United States has no control over the situation, and can only seek security protection through itself, and can only prevent the actions of the United States through the solidarity of the communities in which they live.
In this way, they can ensure the safety of themselves and their families, so that black people have nothing to do.
Community autonomy in the United States is based on contracts, through which everyone participates in the community and settles disputes between the two parties.
And ** does not have the right to interfere with the contract-based autonomy of the community.
This kind of community is not a first-class institution as we understand it, it has no coercive force, and all rules are based on a voluntary and autonomous contract, so as to be completely subordinated to the free will of each individual.
Autonomy is freedom from coercion.
Of course, now the United States is obviously not a paradise for liberals, ** intervention in the economy is getting more and more serious, and even has the power not to allow Nvidia to sell goods to whom, but also controls the right to print money in its hands, prints money at will, and also builds global military bases everywhere to spend taxpayers' money to participate in various conflicts, ** runs to support trade unions that extort enterprises, levies high taxes to subsidize blacks, etc., and so on, and so on.
What I'm talking about is just a remnant of the freedom of the United States.
* What you can't do is freedom. And among Roosevelt's four freedoms, what freedom from want is actually a kind of rhetoric for the expansion of power, and the implication is that in order to make you eat well, I have to levy some taxes.
In order to control the legal tender power in his own hands, Roosevelt also forcibly confiscated the private ** and prohibited ** transactions, and the largest destruction of American freedom began with Roosevelt.
Most of the ** factions who talk about American freedom every day, what are they singing about the United States?They are saying that the United States has a good welfare system, the United States has labor unions to protect workers, while China has sweatshops, and the United States has a strong ** to protect civilians, and these are all, because these are not freedoms.
Therefore, he does not mean that he is a liberal, but more of an obsession with power.
This kind of "beauty fan" of mine is authentic.