User talk:Kdanforth

Do you not read the newspapers?
Real (inflation-adjusted) wages have been stagnant for thirty years. How can anybody not be aware of that? -- Orange Mike &#x007C;  Talk  09:39, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

I am relatively new to editing Wikipedia, but I think statements like "do you not read the newspapers" comes dangerously close to breaching the civility rules - almost an ad hominem attack, like “where were you when they passed out brains” sort of statement. However, I will let it pass. Many people with firmly held opinions can’t see that an opinion, however strongly believed, is still an opinion. Further, if that opinion is the basic support for an entire belief system, any questioning of it may actually seem like a personal attack.

I enjoy Wikipedia, but there are times when political beliefs start to interfere with objective statements of fact, and I would like not to see it devolve into some left or right wing blog.

This is about the page about The Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization. I changed the statement in the Legacy section from:

“Michael Moore said that Reagan's firing of the PATCO strikers was the beginning of ‘America's downward slide’, and the end of comfortable union jobs, with a middle-class salary, raises, and pensions. Wages have remained stagnant for 30 years.”

to

“Michael Moore said that Reagan's firing of the PATCO strikers was the beginning of ‘America's downward slide’, and the end of comfortable union jobs, with a middle-class salary, raises, and pensions, claiming wages have remained stagnant for 30 years”

I changed a period to a comma and added the words “claiming”. This has been reverted by a user name carptrash with the comment “No, this is what Moore said. That is already made clear”

I contend that the latter statement is more correct. The former states it as indisputable fact, which it most definitely is not – don’t believe everything you read in the newspapers. The latter makes it more clear it is an opinion of Michael Moore as stated in Daily Kos article.

Orangemike states on his user page that he’s “willing to lend a hand”. I don’t how to appeal this, but I would like to. I’m convinced my wording is the more clear and unambiguous, as a matter of grammar. The “stagnant wages” clause is more definitely tied into Mr. Moore’s opinion. I have neither the time nor inclination to get into a, what do you call them “edit wars”.

Now as far as whether or not wages have been stagnant for 30 years, statistics may show that to be more or less true. Who was that said there were “lies, damned lies, and statistics”? It is a fact only as true as the measurement of inflation, in this case the Consumer Price Index, as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Please google “cpi controversy”. If that index is, in fact inflated by less than 1% a year, then not only have wages not been stagnant; they have risen by close to 40%. That’s the way the math works.

I realize one of the basic postulates of progressivism is that conservative economics is cruel to the working and middle classes. As such, the “stagnant wages” argument is stated in newspapers, speeches, and op-ed pieces over and over and over and over and over again, like a small child who continues to raise his voice when confronted with facts he is uncomfortable with. It is still a rebuttable opinion, and should not be stated as fact on Wikipedia.

Hello
We have been going back-&-forth at the PATCO article - in a good way I think. However, if you put something, anything on your user page then your name will appear as a blue link rather than a red link and I will believe that you are an editor who plans to stick around and really improve wikipedia. Einar aka Carptrash (talk) 19:30, 14 January 2013 (UTC)