An Open Letter to the Amazing Atheist

My dear Mr. Kirk,

Some time ago you released a video entitled “I Love Riots” in reference to the recent riots which sprung out of the George Floyd Protests. I commend you for calling them riots, as opposed to “peaceful protests” as many propagandists have done up until this point. Unfortunately, that is the only thing for which I can commend you in this video.

I am unsure where to begin with the many flaws of your opinions: though you provide some facts, such as the income disparities between CEOs of various major retail chains and low-level employees at those chains, you fail to understand other facts, economic theory, and even that Nietzschean philosophy you claim to hold. I think it is best if I begin where I am most comfortable. I think I should begin in economic theory, but before that, I must address some a major flaw of your argument. The invented fact, the strawman, you present about those opposed to the rioting say about Chauvin.

Who has justified the “public execution” of George Floyd? Who has said he deserved to be murdered for his forgery of currency? The only opinion I have heard expressed on this particular topic has been that Chauvin is without a doubt a murderer. I am almost certain that Chauvin, like so many others who have been convicted in the court of public opinion, will be found guilty of murder. But I digress.

As for economic theory, as you yourself say, you have no concern for utility. To any economist, the word is known to mean happiness. We use this word so much that it has become part of the common lexicon, with utility referring to those things which provide a level of happiness that people have come to expect so much they take it for granted as part of this Society. Things like electricity, water, and the easy access of supplies which is provided by retailers. This easy access to supplies, whether from a general store like Target or the automotive needs fulfilled by Autozone, has been eliminated, at least temporarily, from the lives of the people of Minneapolis by these rioters with whom you are so pleased.

This brings me further into my point about utility. The purpose of a firm is to provide goods and services to the community in which it operates. This is the social importance and value of any business. Notice, this is purpose is not to “provide a living wage” to its employees. Raising a wage can certainly provide an incentive to gain better employees, but the kind of employee demanded by firms such as Target is not going to be some astounding intellectual or muscle-bound hulk – these being two traits that pay quite well in our Society.

Now I know that many people say that those who work at a given firm are also the ones who are likely to be customers there. This is utterly stupid for two reasons. The first is obvious. A firm can save more money by paying less since its employees are unlikely to spend an entire paycheck at that location alone.

The second reason is quite complex. An acquaintance of mine asked to explain this in terms of a nurse and an actress portraying a nurse. And though this appears totally unrelated, in the case of your complaints, we can say the same about a cashier and a CEO, with some tweaking.

Let me give a summary of the initial explanation first. It is known, and often taken for granted, that a nurse makes less than an actress who portrays a nurse on some nationally syndicated show (or, perhaps, online in the age of streaming). There is a reason very obvious. There is more demand for the service provided by actress than at any given point in time than by the nurse. This is to say that a single nurse’s services are not demanded by as many people as the services of the actress. In addition, the supply of nurses is much greater than the supply of actresses to portray them. And you, Mr. Kirk, may say that this a sign of a moral flaw in our Society. This is evidence a Society which values entertainment and immediate gratification over those services which provide other utility. Is this not how you make your living? A highly demanded entertainer who generates more utility than the countless number of firemen throughout the United States do individually?

Or you may discuss the fact that any patient of a nurse demands her services exponentially more than he demands the services of any actress. This is true, but this has no relation to the amount of demand beyond merely constituting it. Obviously, the sick demand the nurse while the healthy do not. This is in relation to elasticity, which is to say that should the supply of nurses experience a marginal change, the value of those services changes by a greater amount than if the supply of actresses were to experience the same change.

This can be transferred to the problem you and Kyle Kulinski have imagined (and yes, the wage disparity between the rich and poor is nothing but an imagined problem). The CEO approves virtually every decision that has to do with Target’s retailing policies. These range from sales and discounts to the nature of the goods to be provided. These things are why people go to Target, not to see the cashiers. These people could not give less of a shit about the cashiers. So, we can see that the CEO’s services are demanded by every customer Target has on a daily basis. The cashier is demanded only by those persons coming through his line during a given shift.

But these things are just economic naivete, for which non-economists can be forgiven, much in the same way I could be forgiven for chemical naivete, unless I was to assume the role of a doctor. Your great flaw here is directly against that which your moniker is. Much like Mr. Kulinski, you claim to be an Atheist but adopt the Christian moralism. Indeed, you did great work is disproving those Christian who stupidly claim that man did not evolve. However, as soon as you see Natural Selection in action, that is the poverty of those people who are unable to earn more, you are outraged. Like the Christian, you adopt the myth of Inherent Human Value.

This a foolish thing. Though I cannot explain everything in this short epistle, I can essentially say we are in a constant state of competition for resources. People are given according to their contribution under Capitalism, and yes, this means some people are more deserving of luxury. Instead of looking into the economic sciences, you and your priest, Mr Kulinski (and yes, despite naming his show Secular Talk, Kyle Kulinski is very much the Marxist equivalent of any religious leader. He issues ill-thought dogma and moralisms as though they are scientific facts), you dismiss it, in the same way many of those Christians dismiss biology.

It is a shame, since you claim to be a fan of Nietzsche. Nietzsche despised the slave morality preached by Jesus of Nazareth. Inherent to the insidious ideology of that bastard Nazarene was the belief that you, he, and Mr. Kulinski share. The rich are inherently bad and the poor are inherently good. Do not try to say that you do not view the rich as inherently bad. In your tirade you professed a desire to see the CEO of Target reduced to such a state of poverty that he would look for “some one with low enough standards to let him blow them, just so he could have a hot meal”. I know that this is in jest, but your joke reveals your sense of justice.

You have rejected Nietzsche’s teachings in favor of the feel-good teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, only because the insidious ideology of the bastard Nazarene has reiterated by Marx, proclaimed as true by Bernie! Sanders, and professed as dogma by Kyle Kulinski. Neither of you are Secularists, for you place moralisms above facts, the very thing which Spinoza spent his life fighting against. Neither are you truly Atheists in the intellectual sense of the word.

I believe it was when you were on the Drunken Peasants that you had a guest on. I believe this was a man calling himself Galen. He lamented that the Atheist movement is plagued by people who are proud to say they know there is no god, but latch onto any moralism that comes their way. He called this, if I recall correctly, Atheist 1.0. You and Mr. Kulinski are Atheist 1.0. You reject what Jesus said only because it is said in a Church. When Bernie! Sanders repeats the Nazarene’s claims, you accept it because now it is your version of the pope saying so.

Sincerely

A Man Who Wishes to Be Known As the Heir of the Marquis de Sade