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Well, Duh!
Of course Scott Walker, Governor of Wisconsin is a poster boy for the Tea Party. The Tea Party stands for small government, low taxes, and the proven concept of the free market system and Walker’s onboard 150%. Whether Walker claims his Tea Party kudo’s or not, he is still their champion. Of course there are others including New Jersey’s Governor Chris Christie who fights the same fight against public employees unions and to re-establish a pro business attitude in his state. But Walker is the rock star this week because of the recall election which occurs today.
This week we hear Walker’s Democrat opponent, Tom Barrett, talk about Walker’s legendary status among conservatives as if it were a bad thing. Jeeze louise.
Let’s take a look at Walker’s record.
He all but eliminated a 3.6 Billion dollar budget deficit in just a little over a year. He stripped public worker’s unions of their collective bargaining rights which put teachers and garbage collectors into the same canoe with the rest of us who must actually pay part of our health insurance protection costs. (Wow! Now that’s Draconian!) He did all of this without raising taxes on the people of Wisconsin.
When you consider that, over the past decades, public unions (whose members are teachers, firefighters and policemen whose services are essential to the captive audiences they serve) have grown at an astonishing rate while private sector unions (including carpenters, boilermakers, plumbers and electricians which do not have a monopoly on the sort of work they do) have withered on the vine, you get a good picture of why public unions play such an important part in the nationwide conversation around cutting government spending. Big unions are losing ground in the private sector and the Walker recall election may be the effective end of public union thuggery across the nation.
It’s practically a certainty that when Walker is left standing after the ballots are counted tonight, that states with similar union issues like California and Ohio to name just two, will soon be taking similar steps to divest public worker’s unions of the club they’ve been using to assert themselves and their “rights.â€
The fact is, there is no place in public service for unions. The people to whom we trust essential services have no business using hired union muscle men to hold the taxpayers hostage. I can’t say it any better than the New York Supreme Court did back in 1943.
And so, Wisconsin friends, get out there and do your part for Wisconsin. But know also that you are doing your part for the entire country today. You are setting the agenda for the next decades with your ballot. Today you will vote to right a terrible wrong. Thank you.
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Comments: 67
You either have freedom or you don't. Due process of the law or not. Government interference with markets or not. Fraud or not.
You appear to have no clue.
It is just like she said, the captive audience is fighting back against monopoly extortion.
I think you are in error about a lack of big money interests in Wisconsin.
I see you are also opposed to the sanctity of contracts. They appear to you to be unimportant to you. I don't find that a conservative attitude at all. That sounds radical.
Unions are big money interests. There are many big money interests. Union big money fights with management big money interests. Right now, the management (corporations) big money has huge advantages over the unions. Unions have far less resources than corporations. They have less influence with the national and state governments.
Thus the balance which our nation and economy needs is lacking. If either unions or corporations become dominant we all lose.
Do you disagree with my analysis above? Do you think there is a balance between corporate power and union power? Do you think the individual worker / employee of a large corporation has a balance of power with that corporation? Do you think the average employee of the state has a balance of power with the state government? If you do, why are you afraid of government at all? If you do think the state government can exploit its employees, what power can balance the power of the state for those employees?
As I've said before, unions saved the day for us years ago. Now, their very existence is a threat to business to keep their employees safe and receiving a similar salaries for the market.
That seems kind of unfair to the unions but it is just the way things are. The employee's should have no one else commanding them what to buy with their own money.
If one party to a transaction has the power to change the law, to change the rules under which the transaction takes place, that is not a relationship of equals. The state has the power to change the law under which it hires and fires, rewards and punishes its employees.
Therefore, the state is hardly restrained by a law it can change at whim. I have experienced that here in North Carolina.
The state competed for workers and offered benefits to retain them as needed. But now it wants to say that after all these years, when the agreed upon benefits are needed, the state is saying, "I've changed my mind. I choose to deny you those benefits." The state has that power. Even the presence of unions of state employees does not balance that power.
Now did this comment discuss public unions?
Do the states have contracts with the Unions?
Do the states have the power to change the law to deny all union claims?
Can the states change the law and thus invalidate the contracts with the unions?
So how can the unions "rape the taxpayers"?
Precisely, eagle i.
The top union administrators care about their own personal interests just as do the top management of the corporations care about their own personal interests. Their relationship to the union membership is quite similar to the corporate managers relationship to the stockholders. In both cases, the union membership and the stockholders are being exploited. In both cases the executives need the contributions of money from those they exploit.
I have little sympathy for the union bosses and little sympathy for corporate executives. But others would do the same as they do in their place. It isn't that those persons are bad people but they are in a situation in which they are tempted to do bad things. It is inevitable that many of them will yield to that temptation. The context, the circumstances in which they act almost demand that they act as they do.
Picture, if you will, the situation of a preacher in the Deep South of 1840. The church in which he serves is one of the finest in the city. It's membership includes many of the richest and most politically powerful men of the community and surrounding territory. How would it be possible for that minister to retain his position and standing in the community if he attacked the institution of slavery and the practices of the slave owners? How sorely tempted that minister must be to find passages in the Bible which seemed to justify and accept slavery as a normal part of life. It would not be that the minister was a bad person, a person who lied about his beliefs, a person who was filled with hypocrisy. But he would be only a poor human being in a situation in which everyone around would be applying subtle and overt pressure to go along with the rest of the community. We are all only human and we are all vulnerable to such pressures. To blame such a minister, such a union boss, such a corporate executive is to blame them for being people, for being a human being.
There were thousands of secretaries, railroad workers, construction workers, and so forth who also contributed in the creation and operation of those death camps. It wasn't just soldiers. Peer pressure, job pressure, fear of resisting and being sent to such camps, and some selection by the Nazi Party of people who would go along with the "final solution."
Do you blame all Germans, some Germans? Weren't there many people of other nationalities who contributed to the Holocaust? Weren't there some of the Jews being held in the camps who worked some of the most unpleasant jobs (like removing the dead bodies from the gas chambers and putting them in the ovens)? So it can't be just a "German thing" it's a human failing.
Does that mean these people were innocent? Not at all. The crimes were less in the main but the U.S. also had concentration camps of people who's only crime was that their parents came from Japan. So we also will commit crimes in situations which promote crimes.
There have been studies in which people thought they were causing great pain to others, pain to the point of being life threatening, and yet many of the "subjects" of the study, with no more pressure than that of a person with some "authority" telling them to go ahead, inflicting that pain.
My point is not that those who are committing crimes are innocent. My point is how easy it is for society to provide the circumstances in which such crimes will be committed. One can blame, accuse, be outraged, and condemn such crimes but the crimes continue due to the social situation. The solution is not in the blaming but in changing the situations so that such behavior, such crimes are not encouraged.
Therefore I try to direct attention to the factors which tempt people to do evil acts, factors which encourage people to commit vile crimes, situations which bring out the worst in people's natures. Blaming does not prevent evil.
Given the nature of our money (it's remarkable how many things are influenced by that aspect of our lives) the relationship between employer and employee is that of competitors, rivals, opponents. If the power of either is not balanced by the power of the other, the more powerful party has strong temptation to exploit the other. Thus if either unions (employees) or management (school administrators) have markedly more power, the other will be exploited. Balance of power is vital here just as it is in the three major divisions of our national government. But in the schools that power is much more difficult to balance because there are only the two parties, labor and management. Two party interaction is inherently unstable. Thus, in a monogamous culture of nuclear families, the divorce rate will be high despite the large array of supports for the institution of marriage.
Now in truth, labor and management are and should be on the same side. They should be partners in producing benefits for their clients. In the schools, the school administration and teachers should be cooperating in helping the children to learn as much as possible those things that will benefit them and the society at large. But the money relationship means that the administration attempts to force, compel, coerce the teachers to obey. You will note that this is what the laws about student progress and teacher compensation are doing.
Now if there is a teachers' union how can it be as strong as the administration of that school unless almost all the teachers are members? Obviously it cannot. If only a few teachers are members and contribute to the economic support (via dues: there's that money again) of the union professional staff, that union cannot possibly balance the power of the administrators. Therefore, the unions, to be powerful enough, must have some means to gain all teachers as members with their dues. But again, the nature of money intrudes. The teachers don't want to give up their money to the union. Also, the union, to gain power, must be able to coerce the teachers to obey it's commands. (Frying pan into the fire situation for the teachers.) So because of money, the pressures on the teachers, the temptations of the administration and the union leaders, lead to coercion, conflict, and stress. It is not good for education at all. Now add in the prison / factory model of education with it's command and control structure in which power resides at the top and is propagated downward and we have a really "sick" social situation, one which is harmful to the students and everyone involved.
Coming from someone who thinks Obama is too far to the right. Wouldn't giving you an answer to that insane question be like talking to a box of rocks? You're way out there on the left fringes Ron, hanging on the edge of mental instability.
"And like I ask all the right wingers that say that, what, exactly, has Obama done that you consider socialist in the least?"
Using funding bailouts (the same as Bush did) to exert control over the financial industry, expanding that method to control 2/3 of the auto industry, using the EPA to institute policies that control the pricing and use of the electric energy, additional restraints on oil/gas to control that segment of the energy industry, 100's more regulations to create further government control of agriculture, and all production, manufacturing, and the service industry, expanded and onerous controls over religion, total control over the lending for advanced education, additional requirements/restrictions on housing loans, and set in place a law that will guarantee the dissolving of the entire health insurance industry leaving 100% control of providers, and via finances control of health related decisions of treatment.
That is a partial list off the top of my head!
Health, manufacturing, education, transportation, all energy sources, and service providers,
The better question (and a much shorter list) is what segment has he NOT exerted more control (which is socialization)?
Your inane question shows a logic similar to the perceptions of Tommy, the Pinaball Waizard of The Who fame.
Using funding bailouts (the same as Bush did) to exert control over the financial industry
TARP was a Bush initiative, already in place before Obama was put in office. I personally would argue, and rightly, that for that to be socialism, no one would be exerting control of the financial sector, they would be owned by the government, period, but hey, if you want to call Bush a socialist, that's fine by me.
expanding that method to control 2/3 of the auto industry,
Again, Bush negotiated this deal, announcing it publicly in December, before he left office. Again, the government has not nationalized the industry, not socialism.
using the EPA to institute policies that control the pricing and use of the electric energy, additional restraints on oil/gas to control that segment of the energy industry, 100's more regulations to create further government control of agriculture, and all production, manufacturing, and the service industry,
Again, I have no idea where you got your definition of socialism from, not to mention your paranoia exceeds reality in large measure.
expanded and onerous controls over religion
This one is pretty funny, since that brewhaha is largely election year posturing in the first place, since the Catholic church already operates it's non church entities in twenty eight states, and various European countries, with the same, or more restrictive policies in effect, and has for a number of years. Suddenly, though, it's a matter of conscience for them. Give me a freakin break.
total control over the lending for advanced education, additional requirements/restrictions on housing loans
One, it's not total control. If students wish to pay usery rates, they sure as hell can, the banks will be happy to lend it to them, but the practices that were going on were abusive, and resolving that problem is hardly socialism, nor is making the housing loan system own up to their own responsibilities for the mess they created.
, and set in place a law that will guarantee the dissolving of the entire health insurance industry leaving 100% control of providers, and via finances control of health related decisions of treatment.
One, the health insurance lobby wrote much of that freaking law, despite what Dems and Republicans want us to believe with their respective propaganda campaigns, and traded off reforms they knew were inevitable, anyway, for all the new customers the mandate would have given them. The idea that the insurance industry was going to fail from their own deal is naive, and socialism would have been if the government provided the insurance. They are not, it is all in the hands of private, for profit insurance companies, and that fact is why it will not solve the problems it was meant to impact. Not socialism, though, by any stretch of the imagination.
That is a partial list off the top of my head!
Health, manufacturing, education, transportation, all energy sources, and service providers,
The better question (and a much shorter list) is what segment has he NOT exerted more control (which is socialization)?
Your inane question shows a logic similar to the perceptions of Tommy, the Pinaball Waizard of The Who fame.
Well, if your errant notion was actually right, I would agree, but it isn't, so I don't.
so·cial·ism
[soh-shuh-liz-uhm] Show IPA
noun
1.
a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
2.
procedure or practice in accordance with this theory.
3.
(in Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.
Correct.
There are numerous shades of socializing an economy. You are surely wise enough to know, it is not like a pregnancy, that is all or none.
It is always a progression.
In addition, once the government can invalidate solid contracts, for no reason at all, and manipulate the Bankruptcy court to finalize the pillaging, who owns the company?
In every instance I mentioned, control has gone to a point, that the stated owners have been castrated of decision-making ability.
If you own a home, but your neighbor can tell you how much to spend on it, what improvements you are allowed to make, where or if you must move the home too, and how much you are allowed to sell it for – do you really own it?
That is exactly what has been happening for decades in this country.
Yes, Bush had a great many socialistic ideas. Obama is heading the same way, but at warp speed.
But if it makes you sleep easier at night, thinking all is well – that is fine with me – just do not run for office.
"And like I ask all the right wingers that say that, what, exactly, has Obama done that you consider socialist in the least? "
"In the least".
That certainly sounds like an admisssion that socilism can happen in degrees.
Period.
Well-said, Viki.
On the other hand, they have discovered the lucrative business of blackmailing John Public. When the public has no other place to turn to get the services like firefighters, teachers and police officers, the Union is totally out of place.
Yes. Very well put. I do differ a bit though. For the most part, the Congressionals I've known and worked with are good men. Of course there are knuckle-heads like Max Bauccus - who reminds me of either Beavus or Butthead....whichever ones laughs by snorting through his nose - but most of them, even Idaho's lamented Larry Craig, were dedicated to their constituency.
You are right completely about the intoxicating capability of power. It ruins people.
I'm curious where the free market system has been tried, let alone proved. Admittedly there have probably been small proof of concept studies in college classrooms and other restricted settings, but there has never been a free market in the Adam Smith sense anywhere at any time. What always happens is as soon as one or more players gets ahead they work on gaming the system to make sure they stay ahead. In the US the system was rigged from the get go by tariff and trade policies. You have to remember that the American Revolution was unique in being a middle and upper class affair. Land owners, merchants, and manufacturers were fed up with British trade policies and wanted to have their own system that operated in their favor.
I'd have to research that, but my gut tells me that they had the same sort of cronyism between government and business that's always operated in the US.
Done...
But out of state money sure is.
I listened to a caller from Michigan on a conservative talk show who was aboard a bus en route to Wisconsin to cast a vote for the Democrat. There were four buses in his convoy and they were organized by the auto workers union in Detroit. So. If the out of state money has already spoken, you still lose.
Neener. Neener. Neener.
Conservative forces donated 30 million dollars. Democrat forces donated 3 million. Sorry your guy couldn't get any support from the left wing donors...
The free exercise of voting for the candidate of your choice is something to cheer about indeed. This is what democracy looks like.
They will return to days of old, with 10-year-olds as public school teachers, chained and padlocked to their desks, being forced to teach the students for a bread crust, and a sip of dirty water!
Those poor teachers have endured and suffered OG so very much. Working 28 hours a day, 9 days a week, and 15 months a year – their tiny withered fingers bleeding from all the chalkboard writing,
OH the INHUMANITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The crazy thing is, I heard arguments against Walker, claiming he has a desire to return to forced child labor, sweat shops, and slavery, with little kids chained to their work-stations!
soooooooooo
That was such a bizarre, abstract, out-of-context comment.
I was at first wondering if you had accidentally added this to the wrong comment string.
Then I looked closer at your moniker, and realized, you must be the bottom one (as opposed to the middle one you want to avoid).
So I will not choose to strain you by asking you to think.
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