Liberalism IS a mental disorder
Posted on 02/22/2011 7:47:33 AM PST by KeyLargo
Civility lacking in Wisconsin fracas
STEVE HUNTLEY
shuntley.cst@gmail.com
Last Modified: Feb 22, 2011 02:06AM
Tea Party protesters must be kicking themselves for being faint-hearted. After all, they showed up only at town halls and the offices of politicians. Angry unionists in Wisconsin took their complaints to the private home of Gov. Scott Walker in the Milwaukee suburbs. What happened to the left’s hand-wringing over a lack of civility in our political discourse?
Liberal commentators seized on every ugly sign at Tea Party rallies as evidence of darker forces animating the movement. What do they have to say about a Madison protester’s sign showing Brown with a Hitler mustache and accusing him of “exterminating union members”? Or one with a cross-hairs rifle sight over Walker’s face? Or consider this bit of venom: “If tea baggers are as hot as their Fox News anchors then I’m here for the gangbang!!”
Are these idiots representative of the masses of union protesters in Madison? Of course not. No more than the handful of idiots carrying ugly signs at Tea Party rallies represented its rank and file.
Powerful issues — be they union privileges or government spending binges — excite powerful emotions. The fervor of the Tea Party revolt is being played out in Washington as Congress grapples with demands for fiscal restraint after two years of unrestrained federal spending.
Another version of that drama is on display in Wisconsin where a governor, elected on Tea Party principles, is taking on the entrenched interests of public employee unions more accustomed to being coddled by politicians. Supporters of the demonstrators who abandoned their jobs — schools without teachers had to close — to protect generous taxpayer-funded benefits say the employees are willing to accept Walker’s demand that they shoulder more of their health care and pension costs but balk at his overhaul of their collective bargaining “rights.”
But the concessions, if realized, only address the symptoms of the public employee costs threatening to bankrupt Wisconsin and other states. The causes of the fiscal crisis are in the collective bargaining clout of public employee unions.
Unions are groups organized as adversaries to employers. The employers of public workers are the taxpayers. That explains why once even liberals as prominent as Franklin D. Roosevelt opposed granting collective-bargaining privileges to government employees.
Collective bargaining harnesses the power of the state to reach into the taxpayers’ pockets to pay for salary increases even in times of recession. It invokes the legislative authority of the state — and in cases like Illinois the protection of a constitution — to have taxpayers guarantee health care and retirement benefits they can only dream of. It puts a government imprimatur on work rules to the detriment of taxpayers, such as those that can make it next to impossible to fire a bad teacher. And government has no one offering competing services to restrain workers’ demands.
As the public unions expanded and grew prosperous with members’ dues, they have deployed huge numbers of voters and mountains of cash to political campaigns. The politicians responded by granting ever more generous benefits.
It’s a corrupt bargain, and a bad one for taxpayers. Politicians, who enjoy their own posh health care and pension benefits, can’t be trusted to contain the hunger of public employee unions for more money, more benefits. Only now that recession and a tsunami of red ink have aroused taxpayers are governors and legislators in some states trying to rein in the accumulated excesses of benefits awarded in good times.
Walker proposes letting unions bargain only for wages — not benefits — and any increase exceeding inflation be put to a voter referendum. His reform ideas or something very close to them are a reasonable attempt to make sure that when good times return, vote-seeking politicians won’t be able to again turn on the spigot of taxpayer money at full blast.
Liberalism IS a mental disorder
When the rats and traitors lack civility in the fracas, try to kick them right in the process.
The Left’s Assault on Democracy in Wisconsin
http://frontpagemag.com/2011/02/22/the-left%E2%80%99s-assault-on-democracy-in-wisconsin/
If governments were required to book unfunded benefits in the current year it would be more obvious to taxpayers.
It was the same phoney hand-wringing that was used to sell campaign finance reform (CFR). And we all now know what CFR was, it was the attempt by the left to unilaterally disarm the campaign funding of the right which historically outraised liberals.
Once CFR was enacted it worked just as planned and hamstrung fundraising on the right. And then Obama raised $750 million of filthy, evil dirty money in politics, and not one peep was heard from the corrupt MSM.
As we all know, this whole "civility" talk was a scam to try and pin Arizona on Palin and the right. It's always the same with the left free speech for me and none for anyone else. The "tolerant" left - who typically shout down conservative speakers because they simply cannot stand to listen to nothing other than their own voices.
Hey, liberals. The gloves are off.
As we all know, this whole “civility” talk was a scam to try and pin Arizona on Palin and the right.
Hell, the libtards in Minnestoopid are STILL trying to call Jared Loughner a right wing tea party nazi.
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