Unions

The turmoil in Madison, Wisconsin is not, unfortunately, a battle between good and bad, right and wrong, light and dark. Much as I do concur with Gov. Walker on the need to eliminate collective bargaining for public employees, he is not basing his position, at least in public statements, on the fact that unions are marxist and contrary to Christian principles. Walker appears to be using a fiscal calculus and, to a great extent, undermines himself by exempting police and fire unions.

The governor would present a more consistent and defensible policy if he began from a performance based analysis, i.e., the teachers are failing to perform at acceptable levels and should not be paid as if they were - nor should the taxpayers be forced to fund benefits for substandard performance.

In fact, if any of the people assaulting the capitol were of even average intellect and awareness, he would support the elimination of public unions and, if the government fails to eliminate them, the members would decertify the union themselves.

Unions protect and reward incompetence and failure and punish excellence and achievement. I wonder how many of those angry public employees are ranting and raving because in a merit system they would be at the bottom of the ladder if not unemployed.

Come to think of it, doesn't protect incompetence and punish excellence bring something to mind...like, I don't know, maybe, from each according to his ability, to each according to his need?

Public unions, especially, also participate in the theft of wealth from the populace, theft at the point of a gun. I am still looking for the passage which supports that.

Now, of course, I know that few public employees believe in Yahweh and His Son - and I don't really care about them at this point; they have their gods and their rewards.

Those who do claim the God of the Bible as their God need to think really, really hard about who they are worshipping...in that square...in Madison.

Madison, Wisconsin

Watching the typically nasty and potentially violent protests in Madison, Wisconsin, I am disgusted.

These people threaten to turn loose the hounds of Egypt are not vitual slaves (regardless of how bedraggled they appear) demanding an end to sweatshops and child labor. They are not resisting the inhumane demands of the ogres of industry.

Rather, these are people wearing shoes and polyester manufactured by real slave-laborers (though they may feel guilty and launch a balloon for peace).

While the protesters rage at Gov. Walker and the Wisconsin legislature, their real targets are the taxpayers of Wisconsin.

Never mind that in all likelihood those malingering at the capital are paid better, have more and better benefits, have a lighter workload, and retire earlier than those they despise as mere mudanes and worthy to be milked dry.

Gov. Walker, you are not going far enough. Privatize all the services and let these pampered unionists compete with real workers. For those which you cannot or are unwilling to privatize, add one simple additional rule: if a person is employed in the public sector, for as long as he is employed, his right to vote in the political division which issues his paycheck is suspended (if he works for the city, he cannot vote in city elections, for the state, in state elections, etc.).

Lest you think I am the only proponent of dealing harshly with these self-absorbed people, check out the following:




40% of Madison Teachers call in Sick, Schools Shut; Video of Massive Protest in Wisconsin Capitol Building; If Jackasses Could Think


Public unions objecting to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's plan that will save 6,000 jobs flooded the state capitol in protest. 40% of Madison area teachers called in sick.

Those teachers should all be fired. Unfortunately they cannot be fired because their union protects them.


http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2011/02/40-of-madison-teachers-call-in-sick.html


And this:


Fire them all
The Wisconsin governor is doing a staunch job of standing firm, but it's time to go on the offensive and fire every teacher who called in sick on Thursday and Friday:

State and Madison teachers union leaders are urging their members to report to the Capitol Friday and Saturday for continued protests against Gov. Scott Walker's collective bargaining proposal. "We need you to come again (today). We need to hear you on Saturday," Mary Bell, Wisconsin Education Association Council president, said at a rally Thursday, when teachers from around the state joined Madison teachers whose absences closed schools for a second day.

I'd actually like to see Walker go one step further, decertify the teachers union and fire every public school teacher who belongs to it. That would border on epic and would instantly make him a national hero in the image of Reagan. One of the defining lessons of the Thatcher and Reagan eras is that the people love a politician who crushes unions. Pawlenty should be hoping for the spread of the teacher sickouts to Minnesota thus giving him the chance to improve his national profile by breaking the public employee union there.

http://voxday.blogspot.com/2011/02/fire-them-all.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2Fvoxpopoli+%28Vox+Popoli%29

11 Predictions for 2011

1. Global warming will continue unabated. Temperatures will fall with the snow further confirming the post-science conclusions at East Anglia. In a bonus prediction, a historiometerologist will receive a Nobel for his theory that Lucy's tribe created the last Ice Age by over-cultivation of soybeans.



2. Money will be plentiful for everyone in the next twelve months (especially if you work for a government agency or the SEIU). That will prove beneficial since it will provide excellent paper logs to help offset the increasing global warming and you won't be able to buy anything with it anyway.



3. The Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank secedes. The President of the KC Fed issues the following statement: Banksterism is one thing, but this Bernake guy is nucking futs!"



4. The Alaska senatorial race is finally settled and it turns out Sen. Murkowski can field dress game also. (We shouldn't be surprized, really, she's been skinning taxpayers for years.)



5. Fears of rampant and discriminatory government censorship of the web are allayed when the FCC announces that PBS.com1, PBS.com2, and PBS.com3 will all have optional backgrounds.



6. Three IRS Revenue Agents accidentally put a lien on every bank account in the US. The IRS Commisioner apologizes and requests extra employees because there are "going to be a lot more audits this year."



7. President Obama signs Executive Order instituting Don't Ask, Don't Tell for Christians in the military.



8. Monsanto issues press release noting that all your corn are us.



9. On a flight from Tunisia to NYC a 23 year-old male passenger attempts to ignite a hair bomb secreted in his scalp. TSA announces that henceforth all passengers must be bald and will be subject to intense phrenological examinations.



10. In the first of many municipal collapses, the East St. Louis Public Employees and their pension funds foreclose on the town. The Local President notes that under their management all citizens will be equal, but some will be more equal than others. In a related matter, Illinois will accept only union ID as proof for voting.

11. 2011 will be a year of hope and change, promises of improvement, and bold predictions of success - and yet, the Royals will still suck.

Unconstitutional...sorta

A federal judge has just ruled that the health care mandate (and related provisions) are unconstitutional and exceed the feds' powers under the commerce clause - nor, apparently, did the late hour argument that it is a "tax" prove persuasive.

Wonder how much more of the tribute paid by some of us will be spent to decide how much more tribute should be confiscated from some of us to be redistributed to others?

Of course the answer will be decided by the philosophical and collectivist ambitions of the courts and not by the legitimacy nor the efficacy of the regulation.

TSA

Lots of uproar over the pat-downs and nude screenings at the airports.

There is also a curious juxtaposition of the dems and republicans, with the dems crying out for protecting the "police" and the republicans worrying about "unconstitutional searches". In reality, there is nothing mysterious in the positions taken - merely a case of each side acting politically with the democrats backing their president and the republicans staking out the ground of the opposition. Principles are not at issue, only power and popularity.

Frankly, the entire argument is ridiculous.

There are no constitutional issues in play. The Constitution protects contracts. Buying a ticket to fly is entering into a contract for services. The searches and scans are part of the contract...you agreed to them when you paid the price for a ticket. If you don't want to deal with the security, don't fly! You would do the same for any other product you thought was substandard, wouldn't you? If you find the security process offensive, subscribe to alternate means. If the ailines revenue declines enough, they will get the changes made post-haste.

Are these procedures intentional?

Of course they are.

I am not going to dump on the TSA workers as I have seen some do. Most of them are just like any other blue-collar worker in our neighborhood. There are a few cretins, twisted freaks and ulterior motivations, but most are people trying to pay their bills and get home on time.

Inherent in the character of the TSA work-force resides the problem as well.

The agents are not well-trained, experienced security and protection experts. It also appears that Homeland Security has no interest in providing them the training and skills to make them experts. So what the government lacks in quality, it makes up in quantity and brute force.

Tens of thousands of untrained, unskilled people will not make a quality security force.

What it will make, however, is a fertile field for groupthink (a new thin blue line).

Are the TSA agents unionized? If not, bet they soon will be...and what do we know know about government employee unions?

The only way to kill the monster is to stop feeding it.

Election in the Rear View

Two weeks gone by and the outcome of the election is starting to come into focus.

I really had hoped that there would be a significant mandate for the Tea Party and its candidates...not that there wasn't an effect...the Tea Party raised the level of change from that of a typical mid-term election to historic numbers.

Unfortunately, the real impact was a bit muted by the fact that the few truly outstanding, consistently conservative candidates mostly lost and nearly all of the hard-core statists won. Most of the changes occurred in the middle where dozens of moderate dems were defeated by dozens of moderate republicans.

The result is that Nancy Pelosi has a smaller but more cohesive leftist bloc and the republican majority is still lacking the necessary fire and steel needed for a revolutionary term.

What needs to be understood here is that the outcome of the congressional elections are nearly meaningless: no vetos can be overidden, no legislation can be passed (without compromise), there will be gridlock.

If the President was a normal politician this would be a good position for the people's sake. But, sadly, the chief executive is not a normal politician.

The fact that all the republicans can do is say no leaves the nation virtually naked in the face of the bureaucratic onslaught we are about to experience.

Obama will now begin to show his true statist colors and rule by fiat through executive orders and regulation - and the republicans can't stop him.

How do we counter this War of Federal Aggression? Two ways: through our state and local governments and by our refusal to participate in the system.

Nov. 2

By the time this is read by all but a few, the events of this day will already be playing out in full effect.

Whether or not there is a GOP landslide, the question which may be left unanswered is if the landslide signals real change.

I think there are some key races which will signal something bigger than just a new boss overseeing the same old system:

1. Reid-Angle - if Harry Reid wins it will be a major disappointment and will likely portend a night that will not meet expectations; if he wins comfortably, look for headlines about a GOP failure.

2. O'Donnell-Coons - A comfortable Coons victory means that little has changed. A close race means the Tea Party is growing in power and is not going away. An O'Donnell victory signals a massive revolt and that big changes will occur in short order.

3. Hartzler-Skelton - A bellewether of business as usual. Skelton is representative of "the club" and has had an easy go for decades. A defeat will be almost as apocalyptic as the DE race.

4. WA and CA - The races for the Senate and CA governor will be coming in as the outcome is becoming clearer. If 2 or 3 go Republican, it will establish the grass roots as a new power broker.

Let's watch and see and tonight or in the morning I will analyze what the results will probably mean for us, for them, and how the losers are likely to react.