Inconsistency is a Payne

Full disclosure: I do not like Carrier because I have a bone to pick with them.  Recently, my nine-year-old Payne Furnace stopped working because of a cracked heat exchanger (basically the main part of the furnace--if it's cracked, you should just get a new furnace).  The heat exchanger is under warranty for 20 years, but only for the original owner.  I purchased my house less than three years ago.  So I called Payne and the person I talked to said I was not covered because I was not the original owner.  I asked to speak to a manager, and they transferred me to a manager at Carrier (Payne is owned by Carrier, which is owned by United Technologies).  The manager told me that Carrier would stand by its product and cover the cost of a new furnace.  Then when the company that was set to install it called Carrier to arrange payment, Carrier decided not to pay.  The manager called me back and said she made a mistake.  They would have covered it if I had the 90% efficiency unit, because the failure rate on that heat exchanger was higher than expected, but I had the 80% efficiency unit.  The conversation from there went something like this...
"Well, mine had a 100% failure rate, and it's not even ten years old yet, so aren't you going to stand behind your product?" I asked.
"Sorry sir, the warranty is only good if you are the original owner.  It's non-transferable."
"I'm aware of that, but you had said you would stand behind it anyway.  Now you won't?  Why would I ever buy a Carrier furnace again in my life?  What difference does it make if I'm the first owner or not?  It should have lasted 20 or 30 years!"
"Sorry for the mistake sir, but there's nothing we can do."
"Well, I can tell you that I'm very dissatisfied with your company, and I certainly will be purchasing a new furnace from someone else.  Regardless of whether or not I'm the original owner, there's no reason that the unit should fail after nine years."
I at least got them to agree to pay my diagnostic fee when I had someone come out to check why my furnace wasn't working, but several months later, I'm still waiting on that check...
What does that have to do with anything?  Well other than me just venting (no furnace pun intended), I wanted to make the point that because of this, I ended up buying a furnace from another company (Lennox).  In fact, I had a Lennox Central Air Conditioning unit installed at the same time.  Carrier lost my business because their product sucked and they did nothing to stand behind it.  This is what happens in a free market: choice.

Donald Trump "saved 1,000 jobs" at Carrier from leaving the United States for Mexico.  On the surface, it sounds like he did a great thing, right?  But if you take a look at how he did it, I think you'll see that it was NOT a great thing.  Quite the opposite.  The jobs basically stayed here because Trump threatened Carrier, and Carrier was promised special tax incentives to stay.  I've been listening to Ben Shapiro a lot lately, and he is completely correct in his analysis on this, calling it "economic fascism" (which is different than full out fascism by the way, but it's not cool for the government to play favorites).  Sure, 1,000 jobs were saved at Carrier, but maybe 1,000 jobs were lost at other places that could have stepped in and done a better job than Carrier (based on my experience, that doesn't seem very hard to do).  Why should more money from us, the taxpayers, flow to Carrier as basically a bribe to keep jobs here?  If Carrier is given tax breaks, why not give others the same tax breaks, and create a climate with less regulations where businesses want to stay and grow?

Shapiro points out that Obama basically did this same things eight years ago with Caterpillar.  Republicans (rightly) complained about it then.  Why is it alright with a lot of Republicans now because Trump is the one doing it with Carrier?  Either it's right in both cases, or it's wrong in both cases.  Consistency is key.  Let's be honest here.  Let's be consistent.  If Trump does something good, let's point out that he did something good.  If he does something bad, like this Carrier deal in my estimation, let's point out that he's done something bad.

The idea of consistency extends to other things as well.  Leftists LOVED it when Obama bashed and criticized Fox News throughout his Presidency.  After all, Fox is quite overtly biased to the right, so it makes sense that Obama doesn't like them.  They're basically the only mainstream media news station that's biased to the right, but they are biased to the right nonetheless.  I don't have a problem with Obama criticizing Fox News.  And I don't have a problem with Trump bashing and criticizing CNN either.  CNN is clearly biased to the left.  Throughout the campaign, CNN clearly favored Clinton over Trump, Donna Brazile provided Hillary with debate questions ahead of time during the primaries, Don Lemon and Anderson Cooper are absurd, and while CNN at least didn't publish the unverified dossiers like Buzzfeed did, clearly Trump was not going to be thrilled about the article they did publish.  But instead of Leftists admitting that Trump's distaste for CNN parallels Obama's distaste for Fox News, suddenly they're crying that Trump is trying to stop freedom of the press because of what he said about CNN.  What?  Overreaction much?  Again, either both cases are OK, or neither one is.

What about cheering when people decide not to design clothes for Melania Trump or perform at Trump's inauguration?  I have no problem with that.  But I also have no problem with bakers not wanting to bake cakes for gay weddings if they don't want to.  No one should have the right to demand that someone should bake a cake for their wedding, dress them, or perform for them.

How about free speech?  Who's cool with banning Milo Yiannopoulos from speaking on a campus (or in some cases, Ben Shapiro, like at DePaul)?  Who's alright with violently protesting when he is scheduled to speak, so the event gets shut down, and spitting in the face of one of his cameramen?  Why do we see it so often with speakers on the right of the political spectrum?  Why are people always just cursing, name-calling, and never coming up with a better reason for violently protesting than "because you support Trump"?  Yes, Milo has some pretty controversial views, and he's definitely in the minority on many of his views (and because he's gay and conservative), but since when do college students want to shut up the minority voices instead of listening to what they have to say, engaging them, and presenting counter-arguments if you believe they are wrong?  I don't understand any real problems with Ben Shapiro though, actually.  He's very principled and consistent, and I don't find him terribly controversial.  Ben is conservative, but he presents facts.  I've watched videos of him talking in places where he was shouted down and called a Nazi.  Clearly, those sorts of protests can only come from complete ignorance: he's a devout Jew.  But we're living in America in 2017, where the President-elect is being called the same thing, and he's actually standing up and defending Israel, so there's that.


I can point out plenty of examples of places where people are often not consistent, from criminal laws to what are taxes are used for, and you can take whichever side you want on the issue, but you ought to be consistent.  And if you like Obama, something isn't good just because he does it.  If you dislike Obama, something isn't bad just because he does it.  The same holds true for Donald Trump.  And Ben Shapiro.  And yes, even Milo Yiannopoulos.  OMG, he got a book deal, PROTEST AND BOYCOTT Simon and Schuster!  Anyone want to join me at a book burning later?  I have Huck Finn and To Kill A Mockingbird on my bookshelf.  They're great books, so they probably burn well, especially on pages where the n-word is used.  I'll meet you at the bonfire, but any idea where I can pick up a Quran on the way?

[That list bit was sarcasm, by the way, for those of you who did not recognize it as such--I am fine with Milo publishing a book and not really down with burning any books.]