Copyright 2012 by John T. Reed
Okay, I will allow myself a tiny bit of optimism.
After last summer’s debt-ceiling fight, I figured, “We are toast.” The politicians will never vote to cut spending. That means they will have to hyperinflate once the bond market stops lending us another trillion each year.
Then we had Wisconsin. In 2010, they elected a Republican governor and legislature and they enacted laws that cut back on public employee union power.
The liberals and unions nationwide, spoiled by decades of successfully seizing and wielding power, could not believe an election could have such a consequence.
So they sued, they recalled, and they recalled some more. And they lost three more times. Unions nationwide put an unprecedented amount of their chips on the table in Wisconsin and lost.
Early results indicate that the unions appeared to have lost the union vote in Wisconsin!
When union members were forced to join—one of the things Walker corrected—they were disciplined and unified—cowed really.
But when union membership became optional, and more than half of public sector union members quit the Wisconsin unions, those former members started speaking out and acting out and apparently voting against the unions. Familiarity breeds contempt.
Yet they do not quit. Now, they are pinning their hopes on getting Walker indicted for misconduct. The unions have no interest in elections other than to use them to gain power. But if they lose, they do not concede, they file a lawsuit, seek an indictment, demand yet another election. They do not respect election results. Their greed for power knows no bounds.
Unions busted their asses for Obama in 2008, including in Wisconsin which Obama won by 14%. But when the unions in Wisconsin needed Obama, he didn’t do shit. He merely tweeted the day before the recall that he “stood beside [challenger] Barrett.” But he refused to actually stand beside him during the campaign.
The recall campaign seemed to even throw itself under the bus. Initially, the recalls and court challenges were about reinstating the union power, but ultimately, even the recall campaign did not want to talk about their original reason for the whole exercise—or all three exercises.
Barack Obama is a great believer in loyalty, but he sees it as a one-way street. If you are not loyal to him, you get thrown under the bus. But don’t expect any loyalty from him.
Almost every day seems to bring another example of some prominent Democrat throwing Obama under the bus. Clinton, Booker, Patrick, Rattner, Dowd, Rendell, and on any day when someone else doesn’t throw Obama under the bus, Bill Clinton is quite to step forward and take another shot.
I sense that Democrats are starting to see Obama as an embarrassment and starting to distance themselves from him so they are not tarred by his defeat in November.
Obama had a great ground game in 2008. Read union members busting their butts to get out Democrat voters on election day. Good luck with that this time, buddy.
There is no courage in DC—so far. But in a number of states—New Jersey, Wisconsin, Louisiana, South Carolina—governors and legislators, perhaps motivated by inability to borrow or print money, are standing up to the government unions and winning elections. Maybe, just maybe, somebody in DC will take some courage from the states. Or maybe we can just replace the people in DC with some “real men,” some of whom are female, from the statehouses and governors’ mansions.
But I wonder if anyone other than Chuck Woolery has the guts to stand up to seniors.
I sense that Obama and his party are headed for a devastating defeat In November. The guy is an incompetent, psychiatrically-defective jerk and with each passing day of his presidency, more people recognize it. Not only is he probably doomed, so are any policies that are associated with him.
Good. But that’s not enough. Seniors scream at any politician who dare even suggest their Social Security and Medicare should be cut. It is time for some one to start screaming back at them. I, who will turn 66 in July, volunteer to continue to do that in these web pages. I do not think screaming is the optimal mode of political discourse, but the Reverse Golden Rule applies: Do unto others as they have done unto you. If screaming is an effective political tactic, and it has been, then the unilateral disarmament needs to end.
You wanna scream about your “giving your life to this country?” Fine. I’ll scream about your stealing from your grandchildren’s future, you scumbag pile of greed and selfishness.
Are we having fun yet?
The Wisconsin primary also revealed a bit of useful information. The union guys are what I have long said: per se evil. The whole idea of unions is to prevent competition and that is unAmerican, immoral, and evil. The more power the unions got and exercised, the more it has become evident even to union members and many Democrats that the unions will bankrupt cities, counties, states, and the whole country if we do not stop them.
Legendary union leader John L. Sullivan was once asked what he would ask for after he got everything he was asking for. He answered, “More!”
Just so. And the American people are finally figuring it out. The greed in this country is less on Wall street than it is in union leaders, ambulance chaser lawyers, and greedy-for-power politicians. Wall Street are pikers compared to the left. The left and their “go along to get along” Republican enablers steal or waste trillions. Wall Street executives deals in mere millions or billions.
The American people’s answer to the public employee union demands is “Less!” Public employee unions also lost in San Jose in yesterday’s electeions.
If you don’t like your job, quit.
If you don’t like your benefits, quit.
If you don’t like your working conditions, quit.
Oh, you say finding another job is hard?
Are you whining? Try growing up instead—like the rest of us, the majority of us. And if you cannot find a better job than the one you now have, how about you quit complaining about it? Other people have no job at all. That fact that you cannot find a better job is all the proof anyone needs that you are getting paid at least what you are worth including benefits and working conditions. If you weren’t, you would have left. Actions speak louder than words.
The unions in Wisconsin, going back to when they occupied the statehouse, look really ugly. Furthermore, they are oblivious to the fact that they look ugly. They think they look good. So they keep on turning off the American people with their shrill screaming and sign waving and wild accusations.
This is a good thing.
Apparently, the Wisconsin people who voted against Walker suffer from Scott-Walker-Derangement Syndrome which is a far more virulent disorder than Bush-, Cheney-, or Sarah-Palin-Derangement syndrome. Frank Luntz, whom I met at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco last year, held an on-TV Wisconsin-voters-only focus group on Fox News. It had both Walker supporters and Walker opponents. Luntz commented that the group could not even “agree on the facts”—something he had never seen before.
The phrase “agree on facts” is a non sequitur. Facts are facts. If there is not “agreement” on fact, at least one side is wrong. Agreeing is something you do on opinions. Facts are found, not agreed on. Rush Limbaugh, commenting about that same focus group said the Walker opponents would have denied that 2 + 2 = 4 if Walker said it. The Walker opponents in Wisconsin have simply lost their minds. Wisconsin is apparently the sick puppy capital of the U.S. Check the water there.
Not that you can’t have a reasonable dispute on state policy on right-to-work and such, but they already did. It was called the 2010 election. The issue was debated, the voters voted, and the Walker side won. End of discussion. Time to get up from “the table” and go to the legislative chamber and vote on the bill and govern the state.
To Democrats, debate and compromise and sitting at the table are what you demand until you get what you want, at which point you pronounce “the debate is over” as they have with global warming or climate change or if you don’t like the weather wait a little while or whatever they call it now.
Walker’s opponents say the divisions in the state are all his fault because he would not “come to the table” or “stay at the table.”
Bullshit!
That “at the table” stuff is union talk. The matter was debated in the 2010 election campaign, the union side lost, Walker and the Republicans did what they said they were going to do. Sitting at the table was nothing but a delaying tactic to try to nullify the election result.
The divisions in Wisconsin are caused entirely by unions who do not respect the will of the voters of the state. I have said on a number of recent occasions that the true Democrat agenda is totalitarian socialism. I am sure that sounds kooky to many, but the Democrats keep saying things that reveal that or doing things that reveal it. The endless refusal of Wisconsin Democrats to accept the will of the people as expressed in multiple democratic elections is rock solid evidence of it. The stupid stuff that comes out of Nancy Pelosi’s mouth—e.g., You have to pass the bill before you can read it or some dopey thing she said about having to have elections made it too hard to govern—is further evidence. Obama lately has lost three consecutive Supreme Court cases by 9-0 margins because the former Constitutional law professor who swore an oath to uphold the Constitution keeps behaving as if there is no Constitution. He tried to get card check passed, which would end secret ballots in union elections and let union bosses intimidate workers in joining. The Democrats are anti-democracy and anti-voters when they lose. If you are only pro-democacy when you win, you are anti-democracy.
Do I still think we are going to get hyperinflation? Yes. The alternative is to cut federal spending by about 50%. I see no political will, courage, or mandate for that yet. But Wisconsin showed that the American people, if not many politicians, can see the insanity in unbounded borrowing and spending and they will support politicians who will commit to restoring fiscal responsibility. What Walker did in Wisconsin was austerity to put it into European terms, but it was sort of painless except from the union bosses’ perspectives. From the taxpayers’ perspective, things got better under Walker. From many former union members’ perspective, things got better under Walker (no union dues to pay for one).
I am still going to put more money in Canada and other offshore locations, but tonight I saw a slight ray of hope that we might still turn away from the cliff.
John T. Reed