Why must Republicans always play defense? Seemingly on the wrong side of any argument?
Education; you?
The pending sequester cuts have the President and his minions, like a flock of Chicken Littles, running to and fro, spinning tales of planes falling out of the sky.
For some reason - whether they’re too polite, too incredulous or just too inept - I barely hear a peep from the loyal opposition.
So I wrote this little story to help Republicans explain the scale of sequester cuts to their constituents and hopefully help them put things in perspective:
George Finds Out He’s getting a 2% pay “cut”
George was expecting to get a $10/week raise, because he’s gotten a $10/week raise every year since he went to work for the Ace Car Company. (See “What does $40 a month mean to you?” from our last manufactured fiscal crisis.)
Then George’s boss tells him that - due to budgetary constraints imposed on Ace by corporate - he’s forced to cut everybody’s raise by 2% (as agreed to by George’s UAW union president in the last round of contract talks - when nobody figured the sky would actually fall). So now, instead of the $10/week he was counting on, George will only be getting a $9.80/ week raise this year.
On hearing this awful news George immediately shifted into crisis mode: he pulled his son out of day care forcing his wife to quit her job to stay home with the kid, canceled the family trip to Disneyworld which they could no longer afford since his wife wasn’t working, and sold his car and the house to save money. Then, having no reason or will to live, George quit his job, starting using drugs and alcohol and went on welfare.
Good news Detroit: We’re #1 again! In a head-to-head contest with real contenders like Chicago, New York, Cleveland (At Least We’re Not Detroit!) and Atlanta, Detroit once again grabbed victory through the misery of defeat. Numero uno on Forbes Most Miserable City in America. Heady stuff for a city on the verge of insolvency and far beyond societal breakdown.
Much should be made of the fact that Detroit, along with the other top-10 miserable winners, is reaping the fruits of decades of liberal husbandry. Unfortunately all that carefully cultivated fruit has been left to ferment on the ground.
Oddly, few people in the media seen interested in discussing this ‘as ye sow so shall ye reap’ phenomenon. Even though the evidence in Detroit’s case is quite staggering, as I’ve recounted before (here, here and here).
Democrats care about the environment
Take Charlie LeDuff for example, who has just published a book called Detroit: an American Autopsy. When asked about the connection between liberal Democratic policies and Detroit’s collapse on Fox last week, he deftly glossed over it by responding that Detroit’s last Republican mayor also went to jail for corruption.
Ex-mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his father, on trial.
Charlie is a street wise and at times entertaining local news reporter with impeccable journalistic creds. Still, he’s not ready for prime time, unless you’re looking for another talking head capable of spinning an artful dodge of the inconvenient truths that plague liberal politics.
And not to disparage Charlie’s intellect – which I’m sure is awesome because he has degrees from two very prestigious universities - but anyone stupid enough to be “urinating in the dark” in Detroit isn’t exactly the sharpest utensil in the drawer. Unfortunately, in a knife fight with Steve Doocy even a spoonwins.
So here’s Charlie’s conclusion: While Detroit probably was done in by corrupt politicians, it doesn’t matter whether or not they were Democrats or Republicans (again, for the record, they were Democrats, exclusively, from 1962 on) because everyone in the country is corrupt: “This is a national sickness. We’re just corrupt cheaters. That’s what we do now.”
It looks like the stay-at-home “independent” non-voters have found their spokesman in Charlie - it doesn’t matter who you vote for – you’re gonna get screwed, man!
Because of his excellent education (which may or may not have been made possible in part due to his Ojibway heritage) I’m sure Charlie is aware of the fact that one of the founding principles of this great country is that it was to be a nation of laws, not men. I wonder what he thinks that means, though, and if he even finds it to be relevant anymore?Because to glibly disregard the bad ideas and political corruption that brought Detroit to its knees strikes me as a very cynical view of not just human nature but the entire concept of “a nation of laws.” It seems as if he might be acknowledging, if not actually condoning, the ruling class’ ability to play by their own rules.
If the governing elite - “our betters” - are not required, or even expected, to obey the laws implemented to guard against the very type of personal corruption that has ruled Detroit for decades, how can we expect them to uphold other rules of law? What’s to prevent them from circumventing or disregarding legal restrictions on their inherent power? Or the Constitution?
Indeed: who’s watching the watchers?
Shrugging your shoulders at corruption seems a slippery slope. But what if resistance is futile? What if we all adopt Charlie’s attitude of concerned resignation? What if we accept the premise that all politicians are bad, and there is clearly nothing to be done about it so you might as well just go about your business?
Choosing the path of least resistance has led Detroit to insolvency. The State of Michigan is about to appoint an Emergency Financial Manager to take over the City’s financial affairs. Imagine what would become of America if the rest of the country adopted the attitude of the citizens in America’s most miserable city.
Imagine what would happen if everyone just looked the other way when leaders make a mockery of their fiduciary responsibilities to the citizenry;
Democrats care about jobs
if they continued to allow the ruling class to violate the laws they swore to uphold, or reinterpret them to their own purpose.
Forward!
Thankfully, you don’t even have to imagine. All you have to do is look at Detroit.
Detroit: We had to destroy it in order to save it.
Keep spending recklessly, without considering the long term effect of huge deficits.
Detroit: the urban frontier of homesteading; and recycling
Keep ignoring the basic laws of economics at your own peril.
Keep out: no business welcome here
Keep flouting the rule of law.
The halls of justice are empty
What you will be left with is exactly what we have in Detroit. The artists call it “ruin porn.”
To the untrained eye, it just looks like decay.
But you probably don’t think it could happen “here” do you?
Neither did the citizens of Detroit, 50 years ago.
Michigan Central Station, located in the heart of Detroit, then and now:
Democrats stand for progress
Most of us can’t do great things, but all of us can do something. Do something. If you don’t, you, or your children, will wake up one day on the other side, staring into the abyss that was once a great civilization.
In Detroit, God has left the building.
This is Dewey, from Detroit; reminding you that we are the ones we’ve been waiting for.
How quickly the time goes! Here you are, all grown up and of voting age already. I set out to write a brief letter explaining why I believe Romney is a better choice for your future and a better choice for America. I realized immediately that to do that properly would require at least a book; and even at that it would be unlikely I could reverse the lifetime of propaganda and proselytizing most of you have been exposed to via the education system and popular culture.
So I decided to focus on just one key economic concept that separates the thinking of our progressive Democratic President and his conservative Republican opponent. That concept is the notion of how to carve up the economic pie that progressives think of as a fixed size but conservatives believe has an ever growing radius.
This fundamentally different view is the basis of the class warfare that spawned the OWS movement, the vilifying of the rich and the President’s mantra that the “1%” can “afford to pay a little bit more” to take care of the deficit and, by proxy, the other 99%.
Put aside the fact that the math on the 1% rule doesn’t work:
At the rate we’re racking up the federal deficit (in part to ostensibly “help the 99%”) you could confiscate 100% of the 1%’s income and never come close to breakeven. But the entire argument is based on a false premise. The unspoken assumption in the progressives’ pie game is that the economy is made up of a fixed sized pie that has to be “spread around.” If you get a larger slice of the pie, someone else must correspondingly get a smaller slice.
That’s nonsense. The entire concept of democratic capitalism is that we can continue to grow the pie. Indeed, America has demonstrated that to be the case for over 230 years. That’s how America became the greatest economic engine the world has ever known. But now the Left wishes to change the rules of the pie game. They feel that the meritocracy of the marketplace leaves too many people behind, so their progressive agenda is pushing us towards the democratic socialist model of Europe which, in case you haven’t noticed, is on the verge of bankruptcy – morally as well as fiscally. Ah yes, they still have wonderful art,
Liberty leading the People, Eugene Delacroix
fine pastries and charming bistros, but they are broke and broken. The piper will be calling in his chits pretty soon because they didn’t heed theIron Lady’s warning about socialism.
Greece: it’s what happens when you run out of other people’s money.
But back to our pie: we do not have to rob Peter to pay Paul. It is not, repeat, not a fixed size. If it were, instead of watching the election returns on our big screen TVs we would all be sitting around arguing over who was going to inherit our ancestors’ plowshares (if you don’t know what they are, you can look it up on the innertubz; just be sure to H/T Bill Gates and Steve Jobs - two guy’s who made our pie much, muchbigger).
The ability to expand the size of the pie is, in a nutshell, the brilliance and utility of capitalism:
ideas+capital+risk+reward=innovation.
It’s the product of that formula – innovation - that creates the bigger pie. Innovation creates jobs and additional wealth. It is that simple. All it requires is capital - and a lot of work. Which is why President Obama was wrong when he told business owners that “you didn’t built that yourself.”
So once we have a bigger pie does everybody get an equal size slice? No. If everybody got the same size regardless of their contribution, that would be communism (or “social justice” as it’s known in some circles). Is that fair? Sometimes, but not always. Life isn’t fair, didn’t your mom teach you that? It isn’t government’s job to make life fair. If you don’t believe me read the constitution.
And since we’re speaking of the constitution, let me take this opportunity to remind you that democratic capitalism is the cornerstone of our constitution: democracy entails economic rights of individuals separate from the state that cannot be infringed. It is an elegant political system encompassing economics, philosophy, morality, ideology and institutional forces. You can’t tinker with it without dire consequences to the body politic. And yet the progressive philosophy of the Democratic party wishes to turn it into a “living document” and in fact has already begun to do so.
Why is that a bad idea? Here are the words of a real constitutional scholar (as opposed to one who played one for several semesters while teaching “Current Issues in Racism and the Law”):
“If the Constitution’s meaning can be erased or rewritten, and the Framers’ intentions ignored, it ceases to be a constitution but is instead a concoction of political expedients that serve the contemporary policy agendas of the few who are entrusted with public authority to preserve it.” (Mark Levin, Liberty and Tyranny)
I realize it is unpopular to deal in absolutes in our 50 shades of grey culture, but the constitution is a contract – the original “contract with America” if you will – that is by design absolute. It cannot be easily broken or revised; nor should it. Finding “nuanced” ways to skirt the intent of the constitution’s statutes is dangerous business for our freedoms and way of life.
I’m old. I have nowhere near as much “skin in the game” as you youngsters. Yet I want you, your children, and your children’s children, to grow up in the kind of America that I did. The kind that cherishes liberty and freedom above “fairness.”
While “liberty” and “freedom” are terms defined by the constitution, fairness is not. It is an undefined, relative state that progressives wish to have you believe is an absolute. That means that one day it will come to be defined by some government bureaucracy, at which point it will be neither fair nor absolute. By then you may have been complicit in the demise of your own liberty by not paying adequate attention to the type of people you allowed to govern this great country.
If even the ever burgeoning national debt required to make life “fair” for the 99% doesn’t worry you, at least be frightened for your future by the continual drip, drip, dripping away of your liberties that once gone will be gone forever.
Don’t vote against Obama because I say so, vote for Romney for a smaller, more responsible government, for sound economic policies and for a commitment to our constitutional principles. Don’t do it for me: do it for the children; the ones you have or the ones you hope to have.
Vote to keep the America our founders envisioned, not the transformed America of the progressive Left. If you believe the environment is worth protecting and preserving, please believe that our constitution is at least equally important for our survival.
I leave you with this oft-quoted line from Ronald Reagan, in case you haven’t heard it, or have simply forgotten:
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”
Although I’ve put myself on sabbatical for the past few months I thought you might enjoy this feel-good story that explains succinctly why unions have outlived their usefulness by at least 40 years.
In Bay City, Michigan the teachers contract expired in June, and is currently under re-negotiation. Check out some of the terms that have been included in every teachers contract since 1997:
Forget zero tolerance. Bay City Public School teachers for years could be caught repeatedly under the influence of illegal drugs or alcohol without being fired.
Teachers in possession or under the influence of illegal drugs could be caught three times before they lost their job, and they got five strikes if they were drunk on school grounds before being fired.
Because, let’s face it, nothing says “it’s all about the children” like showing up stoned. And nobody, other than the “United Federation of Teachers, a Union of Professionals,” would be able to guarantee your right to do so.
"They must have had been high to approve that contract because no sober person would agree to that kind of policy," said Leon Drolet, chairman of the Michigan Taxpayers Alliance. (snip)
"That is an absolute disgrace," he said.
And since we’re talking about absolute disgraces, be sure to check the sidebar item on the Mackinac Centers CapCon site that shows how much money the SEIU has sucked out of homecare givers since Jennifer Granholm’s (yes, that Jennifer) administration passed this disgusting piece of legislation in 2005 that forced home health care givers to join the SEIU:
Being “Governor” was just an 8 year audition for a permanent slot with the State Run Media
Looks like Ms.NBC material to me
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) "organized” Michigan's self-employed Home Help Program providers for the purpose of skimming dues from their ailing and disabled clients' Medicaid subsidy checks. The majority of these providers are relatives or friends taking care of loved ones. It’s been estimates that less than 25 percent of the providers are hired in an employment setting.
Also note that, despite the fact that the Michigan legislature passed a law overturning this arrangement last April, the SEIU continues to collect their dues to this day because U.S. District Court Judge Nancy G. Edmunds – in a case of tortured logic - ordered the State of Michigan to continue deducting dues from Medicaid checks. I’m not making any accusations, but I do wonder if any unions have contributed to her campaign.
But let’s get back to the teachers, shall we?
"The role models are held to a lower standard than the students. That just sends a horrible message. If anything is indicative of how far school boards are willing to bend to kiss the rings of union leaders, this is it."
And if anything is more indicative of how far down the ladder of mediocrity teachers are willing to go to protect their precious wages and benefits, it would be the inclusion of these absurd substance abuse rights.
Disgraceful. And they call themselves “professionals.”
Education; you?
