TalKing of the Hill - Junkie Business

SomeBloke

I've never watched King of the Hill in any serious way until you guys started covering it, the pilot was nearly unwatchable because of Twig-boy's strawman role, so I skipped this one outright in favor of letting this podcast episode just recap it for me. Life's too short for unfiltered libertarian screeds.

Christian Kiddle

it had gotten to the point where I was just telling employees how to use the law to get the most possible money out of the company because I knew nothing I could do 'legitimately' would have any positive effect. the EEOC is pretty ineffective, which kind of makes me laugh when libertarians act like Mike Judge did on this episode. Don't worry, folks, the employers still have 99.998% of all the power in the workplace.

Christian Kiddle

I was an HR generalist until this year. I don't know how you do it with a conscience, it weighed so heavily on me every day. I got conned into an HR degree because I was told it would help people. The bright side is now I'm using my degree in a way that feels less harmful, I only do hiring now, most of my job is convincing people to leave non union jobs for union jobs and I feel lucky to be only somewhat selling out my values now instead of completely selling out...

Christian Kiddle

I got carpal tunnel from pulling wire, it's definitely not just a White collar affliction

Rhomega

Mike Judge would be able to do the "People taking advantage and being lazy" with the Beavis and Butt-head episode "Bathroom Break" where Beavis and Butt-head realize they're still getting paid to use the bathroom, so they just stay in there all day, and the manager can't get them out because of a labor law, so he has to run the whole restaurant by himself.

Jason Lew

Don't get me started on BART. We could have had BART around the Bay today if it wasn't for San Mateo County in the 60s and homeowners balking at "high costs" (and not wanting "poor" people from Oakland and the City to be able to use a train that could drop them off in their "nice" neighborhoods). Basically the same Libertarian attitudes of "why are you taking money out of MY pocket to fund a public transportation for other people? Why don't they get a job and a car?" It basically caused Marin and Santa Clara county to drop out so now we have increased traffic and a lesser BART system. And the people who got their way 60 years ago are now dead or in old folks homes so they don't care anyway now.

twistedmentat

In the 90s I remember a lot of moral panics about people who were cheating the system, that you will try to help people but there will be lots of people taking advantage of it! You shouldn't have welfare, people who don't want to work will just live the high life on your hard earned dime! ADA will bankrupt companies trying to accommodate everyones disabilities, and everyone claims to be disabled so they can get away with no working! It reminds of a later sorta moral panic about transfats; "if they ban transfats, food will taste bad!" was both a late season king of the hill and early season American Dad episode. Also Drew Carey had an weird add complaining about the Nanny State telling you what you can't eat.

Joe Hodgson

Electricians and other technicians get it as well. It's definitely not confined to the white collar world, but certainly is most associated with it.

I've got my bingo card ready. Let's listen

Nicholas Friederich

Just a comment on Carpal Tunnels syndrome. While it has been the go to example of a “white collar” disability and people have been wrongly mocked for having it. It grew in prominence during the labor movement as a disability of people working in meat packing as demonstrated in the song “Carpal Tunnel” by John O’Connor So while no one should be mocked for a disability they have this one is by no means exclusive to office workers. https://youtu.be/1RaVu7RTpYw

nick f

Chiptune Chuck Mangione fuckin rules

Kevin OReilly

A small gripe- I would take Entemann’s chocolate donuts over Dunkin any day of the week. Those things are great, regardless of the toxic preservatives

PurpleComet

What's also "funny" about Twig Boy listing being gay as a disability under the ADA is that there were no employment protections for LGBT people at the time, not on the federal level and certainly not in Texas. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled employers can't discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity in 2020, but there's no federal law that explicitly protects LGBT people from employment discrimination (or housing, public accommodations, etc). Ok I'm off my soapbox.

Blarghjon

Interestingly, penn and teller bullshit introduced me to Michael Parenti lol. The opposite of libertarian.

Lockerus

I guess Leon was hoisted by his own Petard.