As usual, he is spot on.
Host of Discovery’s “Dirty Jobs” and CNN’s “Somebody’s Gotta Do It,” Mike Rowe, is a fount of common sense in an increasingly senseless world.
He also knows a thing or two about hard work, so naturally he took to his Facebook page to answer a fan’s question regarding the stunningly stupid comments made last week by MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry when she pretended to be offended by the term “hard worker.”
Perry had said, in responding to a comment about speaker of the House Paul Ryan being a “hard worker” that, “I want us to be super careful when we use the language ‘hard worker.’ I actually keep an image of folks working in cotton fields on my office wall, because it is a reminder about what hard work really looks like.”
Rowe began by stating that his take on the matter “is that there is no longer a limit to what people can be offended by.”
He then let loose, writing, “First of all, slavery is not ‘hard work;’ it’s forced labor. There’s a big difference. Likewise, slaves are not workers; they are by definition, property. They have no freedom, no hope, and no rights. Yes, they work hard, obviously. But there can be no ‘work ethic’ among slaves, because the slave has no choice in the matter.
“Workers on the other hand, have free will,” Rowe continued. “They are free to work as hard as they wish. Or not. The choice is theirs. And their decision to work hard, or not, is not a function of compliance or coercion; it’s a reflection of character and ambition.
“This business of conflating hard work with forced labor not only minimizes the importance of a decent work ethic, it diminishes the unspeakable horror of slavery,” he added. “Unfortunately, people do this all the time. We routinely describe bosses as ‘slave-drivers,’ and paychecks as ‘slave’s wages.’”
He went on to note that Perry is likely of the mindset that because some hard workers enjoy more success than others, it must be because of their “privilege,” neglecting the fact that life is inherently unfair, all the while dismissing and diminishing the achievements of those true “hard workers” by comparing them with slaves.
Source: Mike Rowe Issues LEGENDARY Response About “Hard Workers” to Wacky MSNBC Host
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