Answer seems obvious

American Thinker: Are Public Unions Speeding American’s Destruction?.

The parasites can only bleed the host for so long before the host expires.   We are approaching that point, but the parasites can’t seem to grasp that fact and keep demanding more and more and more.

Phony outrage

When I read the latest column by the magnificent Robin of Berkeley, I instantly had a sense of deja vu.  I just had exactly one of these debates last week with a longtime friend who is also a raging leftie.

As you might expect, we are on opposite sides with respect to the union controversy in Wisconsin.  He is OUTRAGED (and constantly throws out CAPITALIZED words to emphasize that fact) and went ballistic after I pointed out that much of the unions’ agenda is based on greed.  After another of his rants against “the evil rich”, I told him that he needs to be careful about being caught up in envy.  Not surprisingly, he again insisted he was not envious, just OUTRAGED!!!!

So I instantly could relate when I read this today:

The left’s legendary compassion is politically expedient, though elaborately disguised.   Brutalization of journalists, a Jihad against our soldiers…and yet, so little outrage.   There is no currency in these events; in fact, they must be swept under the rug to hide the truth about the “Religion of Peace.”

But notice how Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell inflames the masses.  Watch sparks fly in the battle for gay marriage.  Wisconsin is exploding because unionized teachers want collective bargaining.  The left’s outrage is self-righteous because it is laser focused on the self.

Not only is the left’s outrage ego-based, but it is rooted in greed.  Take the left’s centerpiece issue, social and economic justice.  What do those flowery phrases actually mean, anyway?   Aren’t they just doublespeak for envy, coveting one’s neighbor,  and a gimme-gimme mentality?

When an injustice serves progressive ideology, we see the outrage in full-color display.   However, at other times, the silence is deafening — or there is disingenuous posturing.     American Thinker: If You’re Not Outraged, You’re Not Paying Attention.

Kudos, Robin.  You nailed it again!

Follow the money

If you really want to know what the Wisconsin controversy is about, follow the money:

The fight in Wisconsin has focused on collective-bargaining rights, but that is not the main event. As Daniel DiSalvo of the City College of New York-CUNY notes in a Weekly Standard article, 24 states either don’t allow collective bargaining for public workers, or permit it for only a segment of workers. Even if Walker prevails, Wisconsin will allow more wide-ranging collective bargaining than these states.

Not to mention the federal government. Obama may lecture Walker about union rights, but he can go straight to Congress with a highly political proposal to freeze the pay of federal workers because they can’t collectively bargain for wages or benefits.

No, the most important measure at stake in Wisconsin is the governor’s proposal for the state to stop deducting union dues from the paychecks of state workers. This practice essentially wields the taxing power of the government on behalf of the institutional interests of the unions. It makes the government an arm of the public-sector unions. It is a priceless favor.

Wisconsin doesn’t collect dues for Elks lodges or the NRA. What makes these organizations different from public-sector unions is that people freely choose to join them and freely choose to pay their dues. They are truly voluntary organizations that don’t rely on the power of the state for their well-being. Walker wants to give members of public-sector unions a measure of this same autonomy. Wisconsin Is About Breaking Up the Union Racket – Rich Lowry – National Review Online.

As a former teacher, I can testify that when I asked if I could just pay the portion of dues that went to actual collective bargaining but not the part to political activism (as was my right under the law), I was basically told to go screw myself.  The union wanted its full pound of flesh so that they could donate money to politicians and causes that the leadership favored, even though these people/groups were in almost every case diametrically opposed to my beliefs.

If you want to know the truth, follow the money!

One chart that says it all

see full article

Truth in a nutshell

The Union Gang.

Wisconsin Myths and Facts

Wisconsin Myths and Facts – Matthew Shaffer – National Review Online.

Excellent article demolishing the media myths being relentlessly repeated.  The best comment, though, came in one of the comment responses posted following the article:

The public unions, through their forced dues and political action to elect union-friendly democrats, effectively have a key to the taxpayer’s vault. They’ve been using that key from time to time to take out money when they want it. The vault is now empty as a result, and we need them to give a little bit back, but more importantly, we need to key back. They’re perfectly willing to give back a little bit of the money, but they insist on keeping the key.

Get the key, change the lock, or it isn’t a solution.

Couldn’t have said it better myself!

Electing your own boss

Jonah Goldberg hits it right on the head once again.  The deeper problem with the situation in Wisconsin (and now Indiana, Ohio, et. al) is not just the amount that it costs for pay and benefits for public employees.  It is the corrupt structure where public employee unions give bazillions of dollars to the campaigns of friendly politicians, to then sit across from the table with those same politicians to “bargain” over increased pay/benefits for the politicians’ benefactors in the union at the public’s expense.

Nice corrupt little circle, don’t ya think?

Private-sector unions fight with management over an equitable distribution of profits. Government unions negotiate with friendly politicians over taxpayer money, putting the public interest at odds with union interests, and, as we’ve seen in states such as California and Wisconsin, exploding the cost of government. California’s pension costs soared 2,000 percent in a decade thanks to the unions.

The labor-politician negotiations can’t be fair when the unions can put so much money into campaign spending. Victor Gotbaum, a leader in the New York City chapter of AFSCME, summed up the problem in 1975 when he boasted, “We have the ability, in a sense, to elect our own boss.”

This is why FDR believed that “the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service,” and why even George Meany, the first head of the AFL-CIO, held that it was “impossible to bargain collectively with the government.”

As it turns out, it’s not impossible; it’s just terribly unwise. It creates a dysfunctional system where for some, growing government becomes its own reward. You can find evidence of this dysfunction everywhere. The Cato Institute’s Michael Tanner notes that federal education spending has risen by 188 percent in real terms since 1970, but we’ve seen no significant improvement in test scores.     Public Unions Must Go

Ironically, during all this hubbub in the streets of Madison, the summary to test results for Wisconsin students came out showing that only 1/3 of the state’s 8th graders are able to read at a proficient level.   Maybe those teachers in the streets ought to go back and actually teach their students some basics!

Now, not only have Wisconsin teachers been corrupted, they, in turn, are corrupting a number of doctors, who have been videotaped giving out medical excuses to anyone who comes up to them on the street during the demonstrations and asks for one.

The teachers who were “sick” and closed their schools should be docked for those days.  The doctors who participated in medical fraud should have their licenses suspended.