Wisconsin Commentary

I was going to construct a whimsical tale to illustrate the absurdity, but truth is stranger than fiction here. Besides, it's less sensational than just plain dirty.

There once lived a good, honest, noble people who desired to protect their natural rights. They wanted to protect their property, their lives, and their ability to pursue happiness. So, they pooled their money and established a government. It worked well. Everyone chipped in a portion of their earnings, and they built things that benefited everyone. They built courts for justice, and roads for transportation. Then, they hired teachers to educate their children. Generations grew old and died, and more teachers were hired and more roads were built using a portion of the money people had earned. Everyone's life, property, and ability to pursue happiness were protected.

Then, the public workers and teachers got together and asked for more money. The people's elected representatives said "OK, here's more money to build things we all need and educate our children." The teachers and workers were delighted. They wondered if they could get more money, so they asked again. The taxpayers...the people who employed these workers and teachers...said "fine, take more of our money for what you do because we think you are worth it." Then, the workers and teachers asked for benefits like pensions and health care and a whole bunch of things. And, the people still said "sure, you're doing a good job." Then, one day, when the public workers and teachers asked for even more money, the taxpayers said "I'm sorry, we simply can't afford to pay you more. We're out of money." Instead of trusting the testimony of the elected representatives, for some reason, the public workers and teachers didn't believe them. They really wanted that money. They even felt like it was their right to have the money that other people earned.

(While, of course, education has an actual value, the way society had been governed set the compensation of teachers not on merit, but on a scale of experience and education level. Other compensation, in the form of benefits, rested not on effective teaching, or experience, or education level, but ability to get together and threaten the public with lack of education altogether in the form of a strike. This would not have been conceivable a century earlier when local communities and parents handled education.)

So, all the public workers and teachers got together and formed a gang to take the taxpayer's money anyway. They called it a "union." The union was smaller in number than the taxpayers, but it was organized and determined. It spared no expense in time and effort to get that money. Because they caused such a ruckus and only asked for a little bit of money at a time, the taxpayers' representatives agreed to give them the money even though many people who were employing them with taxes said they couldn't afford it.

Since the union method worked, people were naturally attracted to unions. More unions were formed, and more money was asked for, and more money was confiscated from the taxpayers, and this became very lucrative for union members so even more people joined unions, and before long, half of the people in the population were part of a union, determined to pilfer as much money from the taxpaying people as possible.

When the taxpayers formed their own unions, the public worker and teacher unions, who had learned to be effective with the whole 'union' thing, demanded the privilege to gang up on the taxpayers' representatives so that they could confiscate as much money as possible against the consent of the taxpayers. They called this "collective bargaining," and it worked very well at confiscating property from neighbors against their consent and distributing it to union members.

A couple generations went by and soon hardly anyone could make much money unless they joined a union to gang up on the legislators who represented the taxpayers, who were growing smaller and smaller in number compared to the union members. Furthermore, the teachers, who liked the way unions confiscated property from other people for their own benefit using coercive means, somehow failed to educate the young people about the methods they were using to make a living. Consequently, a generation of young people grew up assuming the privilege of taking other people's money without their consent was a 'right,' like a right to one's property, life, and pursuit of happiness, instead of a privilege. At the same time, they were depriving taxpayers of their property and pursuit of happiness by using unions to gang up on representatives in order to confiscate other people's earnings.

The government that was created to protect property was now being used, on behalf of a minority, to confiscate it from the majority.

Then, another generation passed, and the government was bankrupt, because everyone knew you could make the best money for your effort if you were part of a union. And there wasn't any money left to afford any of the roads and bridges and things that benefited everyone (just the union members). So, the people paying for the public workers and teachers got together and said: "we really think it's fine that you take so much of our money, but we would prefer it if you didn't gang up on us and use coercive means to deprive us of our property without our consent."

Then, the union members stopped working and marched on the capital demanding their 'right' to confiscate other people's property and slept on the floor and engaged in other pathetic, desperate means to gain the sympathies of the population, reduced to bums and beggars.

And this is how a once good, honest, and noble people was reduced to a pitiful mob of loathsome, confused, angry knaves.

I just can't even stand it. I'm sorry. If they are educators and don't understand what is going on, they have no business teaching. If they know what's going on, how dare they set this example for their students. Yes, Wisconsin is a sedentary moose in a shallow pond that has been collecting leeches for decades. Killing off the moose isn't the objective here. If they were protesting for the survival of their families and livelihood, I could understand. COME ON PEOPLE. Taking away the legal privilege to gang up to confiscate the property of neighbors is not worth 5 minutes sleeping on a marble floor.

The only silver lining is that Wisconsin teachers are less dangerous at the capitol than in the classroom.

Quote of the Day

Inspired by events over there across the St. Croix...

A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable. -Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Apparently the employers of Wisconsin's government (the taxpayers) are exercising their 'rights.' I say more power to them.

Busy Doing Things

My father used to say: "It's not what you say, it's what you do." Well, he said it at least once. He is what you might call the 'strong, silent type.' He proved to me long ago that fear and love are not opposites, but one-in-the-same, and even difficult to distinguish from one another. It made for a humble and temperate youth. At some point, probably in college, I realized that I did learn from his example exclusively, yet couldn't remember anything he ever said other than a few stories. I liked the stories from his childhood on the farm. I didn't know if they were true, other than the testimony from his brothers, always having some fleeting resemblances to my father's version. It was a fact that stories were and are novel and inconsequential compared to what he did/does/is (even if telling stories is some tiny part).

Is it really "not what you say?" Not at all? At first I found that disappointing. If this is true, and what you say means nothing at all, it means terrible things for aspiring authors. It means nothing you say or write has merit. It means all verbal communication is vacuous and trivial. It means you can say anything you want. Hey, wait. What was that? It means you can say anything you want! That's a nice spin on it...

Complete freedom! The U.S. Constitution even backs it up. "Freedom of speech," motherfucker! Stories, lies, damn lies, statistics, it's all fair game. If it ain't defamation, go for it...sweet. If it really "isn't what you say," knock yourself out. Right?

But, in that case, what's the point of saying anything at all? Why waste the time mumbling this after that (unless you're a commercial screenwriter). If it ain't for cash, and it leads nowhere but to more words, it's all in vain. What's the point? Hm. Vanity.

Is that the true meaning? Maybe what is said is all in vain unless you actually do something. It is true, that actually doing something can be inspired by what is said/written. Or, perhaps what is said is the reason the thing was done. But, at that point, is it important that anything was ever said in the first place? After the building has been built, what use are the blueprints? Hm. Well, to make another building, I guess. But, if something was done because what was said was reasonable, it certainly would have been reasonable even if nothing was said in the first place. Or, is it possible that a thing that is done requires previous spoken/written reasoning in order for it to be reasonable? I don't think so. An action, it seems, is either reasonable or it is not, regardless of what is said about it, before or after.

Maybe "it's not what you say, it's what you do," simply implies a disastrous inadequacy of language to accomplish anything at all, or possibly as much harm as good. Or, maybe more harm than good, in which case I am in trouble. But, I believe that writing, is, to some extent, doing, so much as it results in something done. And, if what is done is good, and somehow aided by the writing in some way, it is not altogether in vain. I guess that depends on whether you think vanity can be good. Another post. Well, time to go do something.

Egypt

With the transfer of power from an Egyptian autocrat to the Egyptian military, we watch a united and jubilant population celebrate their supposed liberation from the clutches of tyranny. The elite ruling class of Egypt apparently overestimated the people's tolerance for poverty, and now must concede some political power to an enormous and unorganized mob. It seems the one thing holding them together is a hatred of their former autocrat. Now, with his departure, the business of reorganization begins. Who assumes the power? Since the mob itself does not have hands, the power must be placed into the hands of an individual either representing the mob, or capable of subduing it. The question free people must ask is: will this person comprehend the obligations and challenges of a truly representative government? And, do the people of Egypt really have the courage, ability, and will to build and maintain one? Do they really want to shoulder the responsibility, and realize the "liberation" they believe they have earned? The truth is, they have not yet earned it. They have only glimpsed a small and fleeting opportunity. Without swift organization by very clever statesmen, and the capacity for the Egyptian people to identify and support them, the power vacuum created by their "revolution" will fall quickly into the hands of an even-more-vicious tyrant, who will be obligated to rule with an even stronger iron fist. A country tends to get the government it deserves, and it is a sad fact that an impoverished population of slaves scarcely has the electorate, or the leadership, to earn a government ruled by the consent of the governed. In the near future we will see whether Egypt's revolution will bury them even deeper in poverty and subjugation, or whether it has enough capable, service-minded leaders to free themselves and their neighbors, and usher a new age of prosperity. A capricious revolution is a tyrant's dream. Let's hope there was enough thought behind this to prevent such dreams from coming true.