Krauthammer & The Tyranny of The Supreme Court

Anyone who celebrates this decision, wholly irrespective of where they fall on the issue of gay marriage, is an idiot who has no understanding of the law or the Constitution. If this stands, we are no longer are nation of laws; we are no longer a democracy.
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Democracy, Our Republic & Obama

President Obama, whose party was trounced in last year’s midterm election due in part to poor turnout among Democrats, endorsed the idea of mandatory voting Wednesday.

“It would be transformative if everybody voted,” Mr. Obama said during a town-hall event in Cleveland. “That would counteract [campaign] money more than anything. If everybody voted, then it would completely change the political map in this country.”

. . . [W]e’ve got to have a better debate about how we make our democracy better and encourage more participation.”

Washington Times, Obama Calls For Mandatory Voting In The U.S., 18 March 2015

Okay, I'll bite. Let's talk about "democracy" and suffrage. But to understand those concepts within the context of our Republic, you need to go back to the time that the Founders drafted our Constitution.

The American Revolution, defined by the Declaration of Independence and culminating in our Constitution, marked the pinnacle of the Age of Enlightenment. What our Founders built with the Constitution was not a democracy, it was a Republic underpinned by a carefully limited democracy. One could be excused for thinking that our unreserved reverence for democracy today extends back in time all the way to the Founding Fathers, but that is decidedly not the case.

The Founders certainly believed in democracy as the basis of self-rule. While writing the Constitution, the Founders ignored the issue of suffrage -- i.e., who would be entitled to vote in that democracy. Their concern was with the role democracy itself was to play in our form of government.

Their view of democracy was that it was a double-edged sword that needed to be carefully limited in two respects. One, the purer the democracy, the more likely to lead to "mob rule," something to be shunned every bit as much as an aristocracy. As Thomas Jefferson opined, "democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.” John Adams was even harsher in his criticism:

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty.

Their second criticism of democracy, expressed in countless forums by our Founders, was that the average person, what we would call the "low information voter" today, was not paying intimately close attention to the issues of the day and could be led astray by charismatic politicians who were not fit to lead. Thus, while the Founders thought that democracy worked at the local level -- the town meetings of Massachusetts fame, for example -- they were deeply distrustful of democracy beyond that.

That is why, when they crafted our Constitution, the Founders allowed for direct democratic election of only 1/6th of our federal government, the members of the House of Representatives. Senators were to be appointed by elected Governors. The President was not to be directly elected, but rather a convention was to be held among people either locally elected or, at the State's choosing, appointed by the State to act as representatives at the convention. There, the representatives were to examine the candidates and make an informed decision before casting a ballot in an Electoral College. Once chosen, it was the President who would appoint Judges to the third co-equal branch of our government, but only with the consent of the Senate. At each level, our Founders tried to filter out the worst aspects of democracy, while still maintaining democracy as the foundation upon which our Republic is built.

We've certainly moved away from their vision and in the direction of greater democracy since the Constitution was drafted. We have had direct elections of Senators for the past century. Consequently, we've had a vast expansion of the federal government at the expense of state's rights, the Senators no longer being answerable to the Governors. And the electoral college is antiquated, effecting the selection of President, but with representatives pre-selected for candidates, it is now virtually a purely direct, democratic vote. Thus, the low information voter so feared by our Founders now plays an already outsized role in the formation of our government.

We've also had a vast expansion in suffrage. At the time of the Constitution was written, suffrage was extended only to white male property owners or those who paid sufficient taxes to give them a stake in the rate of taxes and the disposition of the public funds. It was both inevitable and necessary that, in a nation defined by it's aspirational statement that "all men are created equal," with God given rights to "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness," that suffrage would be extended to all irrespective of race, gender, and the like. It was not inevitable that the property or tax requirements would be removed, thus severing the link between those who funded the government and the control over taxes and the disposition of government funds, but in light of the misuse of these requirements to limit suffrage based on race, they too had to go. That said, one could make a strong argument today that, if strictly neutral application of the standards could be enforced, those standards should be returned.

Enter Obama, who would like to see all people required to vote, apparently believing that the left has a much greater edge among low information voters and those voters not paying into the tax base. Allowing his plan would be the final nail in the coffin of the form of government our Founders so carefully crafted. All of the dangers of democracy that they tried to filter out would become our modern reality.

And of course it is not just that which makes Obama's call for mandatory voting objectionable. There's also the little matter that forced voting would also be a violation of our First Amendment, which has been interpreted to protect against enforced "political speech." But it is not like Obama has shown the least amount of concern for our Constitution in other contexts.

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The Magna Carta

Eight hundred years ago, in 1215, King John of England, because of his tyrannical misrule, faced a revolt of his barons. To quell the revolt, he agreed to the terms of the Magna Carta. It was a seminal event in the history of freedom. By signing, King John made himself subject to the laws of the land and agreed to rule only with the consent of the barons. This from the site Mental Floss:

To celebrate the 800th anniversary of the creation of the Magna Carta, the British Library has created two animations—narrated by Monty Python's Terry Jones—about the groundbreaking "Great Charter." The first . . . explores the document's history. The second . . . outlines why the charter was created and what it says.

It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of the Magna Carta. The rights set forth in the Magna Carta, especially the limitation on the power of the King to lay taxes without consent of the barons, lay at the heart of the American Revolution. A direct line can be drawn from the Magna Carta to our democracy, our Republican form of government, and our Bill of Rights.

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Can Democracy Survive - & Do We Want It To In Its Current Form?

In 1933, a German democracy elected Hitler. In about 1980, Iranians democratically elected a theocracy. In 2006, the people of the Gaza Strip elected Hamas. In 2012, Egyptians elected the Muslim Brotherhood. In 2008, Americans elected Obama, and it is looking like we might reelect him in 2012. I gotta tell you, this democracy thing, it's not all that its cracked up to be.

Ours is the worst economy since the Great Depression. Obama, hired to fix it, has not merely failed, he is poised everything worse if, inexplicably, we elect him to a second term. Obama promised to bring unemployment under 8% in 2009; it hasn't been under 8% at any point during Obama's term. Long term unemployment is up almost 90%. Middle class incomes - down over Obama's term. People on food stamps - up by almost 50%. Gas prices - more than doubled. And Obama has grown our national debt by over 50% in just four years, taking it to a level exceeding our Gross Domestic Product. Obama's four years in office have been an economic disaster for America.

And yet . . . there are still people, a near majority at least, who are going to vote for Obama. Something is deeply and systemically wrong with our nation.

Democracy only works if people are well informed and have skin in the game. Far too many of the people who will vote in America this November are not well informed, far too many will be single issue voters, and far too many will vote based on what they can get from government redistribution of wealth. Just to clarify, I am not referring to anyone who has paid into Social Security and Medicare and are, today, merely getting repaid under those programs. But public sector union employees, women like Sandra Fluke, the people filmed in NYC a few months ago holding out their hands for "Obama bucks," crony capitalists . . . there is a sizable portion of the voters who in fact are little more than parasites on society.

There is no doubt in my mind that universal sufferage is a failed experiment. As Ben Franklin stated, "When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic." With universal suffrage and the rise of socialism / progressivism, is there anyone who doubts that Franklin had it exactly right?

When Franklin made his observation,, at the inception of our nation, the United States was designed not to have that problem. The vote was limited to white male landowners and tax payers. While the white male bit is an unsupportable anachronism, landowners and people paying income, SSI, or capital gains taxes - people with skin in the game - certainly sounds like an appropriate method of limiting suffrage.

Another variation is the world envisioned by Robert Heinlein in Starship Troopers, a society where the only people with rights of suffrage were those who had served their country in the military. As Wiki explains Heinlein's new world:

There is an explicit contrast to the "democracies of the 20th century", which according to the novel, collapsed because "people had been led to believe that they could simply vote for whatever they wanted... and get it, without toil, without sweat, without tears." Indeed, Colonel Dubois criticizes as unrealistic the famous U.S. Declaration of Independence line concerning "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". No one can stop anyone from pursuing happiness, but the Colonel claims life and liberty exist only if they are deliberately sought and, often, bought painfully by great effort and sacrifice.

Heinlein was nothing if not a keen observer of politics and humanity. But that is not the only other option. There is the world envisioned by a science fiction author, I can't recall his name, where those who wish to live off the public dime are housed in controlled camps, separated from the productive classes of society. They do not vote, but they get to live the life of Julia, swaddled in the protective arms of the state from cradle to grave.

At any rate, man has been experimenting with forms of democracy since at least the days of Plato. Just because universal suffrage is the latest iteration does not make it the best form of democracy. Indeed, given Obama and the state of our nation in 2012, after a century of progressivism clogging our political machine, it is clear that universal suffrage has failed. It may well be that by 2016, we will be far less in need of an election than a revolution. We need to be sure, if and when America 2.0 arrives, that we listen to the wisdom of our founders and not make the mistakes with suffrage that have given us our nation as it is today.

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Obama's Deeply Cynical Manipulation Of Public Opinion On Obamacare

This from Obama today when questioned at a news conference about the Supreme Court's review of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA):



So Obama is telling America that it would be an "unprecedented, extraordinary" act of "judicial activism" were "an unelected group of people" to "overturn a duly constituted and passed law" that was "passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress." This deeply cynical man is attempting to poison the well of public opinion in advance of what may be an adverse Supreme Court decision striking down Obamacare, and he is not letting truth or reality slow him down the slightest.

The central purpose of the Supreme Court since Marbury v. Madison was decided in 1803 has been to review laws passed by Congress for constitutionality. There is nothing "unprecedented" or "extraordinary" about it. And Obama's argument against Constitutional review in this case - that because the PPACA was passed by a "majority in Congress" it should pass Constitutional muster - is ludicrous. All laws passed by Congress do so by a "majority" or they don't become law. If the mere passing of a law by Congress were the standard for constitutionality, then no law would ever be subject to review and our Constitution would be just meaningless words with no constraining effect. Update: As Doug Ross points out, the Supreme Court has acted in an "unprecedented" and "extraordinary" manner to strike down over 1,315 laws as unconstitutional in its history.

And let's be completely clear, this new found left wing antipathy for the "unelected group of people" sitting in Constitutional judgment could not be more hypocritical. The left's entire modus operandi for the past fifty years has been to solicit true judicial activism and use the Courts as an end run around democracy and majority rule. For but one recent example, where was the hue and cry from Obama and the left when an unelected Judge in California overruled the votes of 7 million Californians to divine a heretofore never seen right in the Equal Protection clause to gay marriage? Or for another, where was their outcry when the Supreme Court ruled Congress's laws regarding the procedure for handling terrorist detainees unconstitutional in Boumediene? As I recall, Obama was praising that decision. Apparently, constitutional review is only "unprecedented" and "extraordinary" when the ruling might go against the left.

And lastly, to state that striking down the PPACA for violating the Constitution would be an act "judicial activism" is to completely redefine the term. Obama is using that term to confuse the issue as much as possible. He is using it to create the fantasy that it is conservatives on the Court who seek to act without reference to the Constitution and prior precedent, rather than he and the left. Obama is further using this charge to paint the Supreme Court as the enemy of the people. Sounds pretty Bolshevik, doesn't it? It is all BS by the the truckload.

"Judicial activism" occurs when a Court creates new law not supported by the text of the Constitution or by prior decisions of the Court. That's what Congress has done here, not the Courts.

To uphold Obamacare, the Supreme Court would have to vastly expand the power of the federal government under the Commerce Clause. None of the prior cases under the Commerce Clause allow for the government to force people into an act of commerce (see here, with the relevant discussion beginning at page 20.) As Justice Anthony Kennedy pointed out during oral argument, "the government is saying that the Federal Government has a duty to tell the individual citizen that it must act, and that is different from what we have in previous cases and that changes the relationship of the Federal Government to the individual in a very fundamental way."

What that means is that, if the Supreme Court holds Obamacare unconstitutional, they will not have to overturn existing precedent in any way. The federal government would have - unfortunately - exactly the same expansive powers under the Commerce Clause that it had on the day Obama was inagurated. All the Court would have to hold is that the mandate forcing people into commerce is not supported by the text of the Constitution, nor by any of the prior decisions interpreting the Commerce Clause. To do so would be an act of judicial restraint - the polar opposite of "judicial activism." It is the Supreme Court doing precisely what it is meant to do - to keep our government within the constraints of the Constitution.

Obama's not that dumb. He is a former teacher of Constitutional Law, and I am sure that in between teaching classes on critical race theory, he managed to find some time to lead his class through Marbury v. Madison and the Commerce Clause. Rather, he is lying through his teeth in order to motivate his far left base, to effect the opinion of those in the middle who are uneducated on the law, to appeal to those who see the Constitution as an out dated impediment to achieving their goals, and to warn the Supreme Court that they will be demagogued severely if they don't vote his way.

As to the demagoguery, note that this is the second time Obama has made a boogeyman of the Supreme Court for issuing - or in this case, seemingly preparing to issue - a decision that he does not like. The first was his attack on the Court over the Citizens United decision. For that decision, you will recall Obama publicly criticizing the Court at the State of the Union speech in 2010. Imagine the hue and cry from Obama and the left should the Court strike down Obama's signature achievement as unconstitutional. This is shades of FDR who so intimidated the Supreme Court that they gave up interpreting the Constitution and in the end became a rubber stamp for approving the massive accretion of government power under the Commerce Clause. What Obama is exhibiting is not a respect for the rule of law in America, but like FDR before him, a wholesale disregard for it as an impediment to his remaking of our country.

Obama is so intellectually dishonest, he makes Nixon look like a paragon of veracity. Not a single word this man says can be trusted. And no need to take my word for it, just ask Cardinal Dolan. Democracy only works if people have the relevant facts. What Obama is doing is substituting falsehoods for the facts in an effort to subvert democracy.

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The Virginia Republican Massacre

Just what the hell is going on in Virgina? As it stands now, the ONLY people on the Republican ballots for the Super Tuesday primary will be Mitt Romney and Ron Paul. Both Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich have been disqualified from the Virginia primary ballot. This is the death of democracy by bureaucratic chainsaw massacre. "Virginia’s 49 delegates, handed out proportionally based on election results, make up more than 10 percent of the 475 delegates up for grabs on Super Tuesday." The ultimate effect of this could be to give Romney, who was not leading in Virginia polls, a huge and unfair boost towards winning the Republican nomination. This stinks like a cesspool in 100 degree heat.

Both Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich provided signed petitions of over 10,000 people in order to be included on the Virginia ballot. I will assume for this post that they complied with the additional specification that at least 400 of the petitions came from each of Virginia's 11 Congressional districts. Yet in the past 12 hours, the three member Virginia Board of Elections, chaired by Charles Judd, with Kimberly Bowers as Vice Chair and Don Palmer as Secretary, has ruled that neither Perry nor Gingrich presented enough valid petitions to qualify for the ballot. They have not announced any of the specifics underlying their decision.

None of the other third tier candidates, Huntsman, Bachman or Santorum, bothered to turn in petitions before the deadline. Thus their failure to be on the ballot is not at issue. But in the space of a few hours, reviewing the combined 23,000 plus petitions of Perry and Gingrich, both get the axe? This stinks to high heaven. It is time for some enterprising reporters to give a full rectal exam to Mssrs. Judd, Bowers and Palmer as well as taking an electron microscope to the reasoning behind the axing of both Perry and Gingrich. I want to see the hanging chads.

Update: So indeed it does appear that there is much more to this story. Moe Lane has the story here. Prior to November, any candidate who turned in 10,000 signatures on a petition was deemed to have met the requirements without further checking. An internal change to the rules in November kept the 10,000 signature requirement, but made the cut-off for checking the signatures for validity 15,000. Indeed, neither the Romney nor the Paul campaign were subject to any review of their signatures, nor have they requested such a review. As Moe comments:

I think that John Fund’s general comment is correct: this is going to go to the courts. John was not discussing this specific wrinkle, but his larger point that Virginia’s ballot access policies have systemic problems gets a big boost when it turns out that the state party can effectively increase by fifty percent the practical threshold for ballot access – in a day, and in the middle of an existing campaign.

I say again, this stinks like a cesspool in 100 degree heat.

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Heh - Wisconsin's Dems Trying To Run

This is so good on so many levels. And as Powerline points out:

Cartoonist Phil Hands of the Wisconsin State Journal is a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, yet he is onto the Wisconsin public sector unions and the Democratic Senators who don't want to show up for work. . . . One may hope that if the Democrats have lost Wisconsin's editorial cartoonists, they have lost Wisconsin.

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Wisconsin - What Is At Stake

What is going on in Wisconsin is the first battle in what is a much larger, existential war for the soul of our country. Such are the stakes that we see, this week, the Obama administration applauding the breakout of democracy in the Middle East, yet at the same time fighting tooth and nail to undermine democracy in Wisconsin. What it boils down to is this - who owns our government? Is it the voters in their exercise of democracy, or is it the unions as part of a permanent Democrat entitlement? Do the voters excise control of the economic future of their locales and states? Or is their vote trumped by the public sector unions and their Democrat Party constituency. That said, for the left, questions of democracy are irrelevant. For Obama, the DNC and the Democrat Party, this is about preserving their single most important cash cow.

The electorate in Wisconsin voted to give Republicans all the levers of power in the state by a substantial margin. And the Republicans in that state have proposed legislation that will:

- Ask government workers to pay half the cost of their pensions - still less than private employees pay for their pensions

- Ask government workers to pay 12% of their own health insurance premiums - the national average for the private sector is over 20%

- End collective bargaining for government unions for pensions and benefits. Allow bargaining only for raises that are less than inflation.

- End forced union dues, collected by the state. Union dues would become voluntary.

- Union members get to vote yearly on whether to keep their union

Those proposals have Obama and the left interfering in Wisconsin state politics to thwart this legislation. Across the U.S. today, it appears that our politics and democracy itself are deeply distorted by public sector unions. And if Obama, the DNC and the left have their way, public sector unions will trump the democratic process.

There was a time when public service was considered a noble but lower paid calling. While benefits in the public sector were always good, public servants historically could expect to trade some level of wages in exchange for job stability. No more. Today, public sector union workers earn more than their private sector counterparts, they have far more job stability, and their benefits and pensions far outshine the average in the private sector. Looking specifically at Wisconsin, for instance, the "average Milwaukee Public School teacher will be receiving $100,005 in compensation this year – $56,500 of that is in salary, and a whopping $43,505 is in benefits." Note that a teacher's salary only covers a little over 9 months of employment. When adjusted for that, "teachers are among some of the most highly compensated employees in the state." And as far as quality for the tax payer dollars spent, it is notable that, according to Juan Williams on Fox News Sunday today, the reading test scores for black children in Milwaukee are the lowest in the country.

The left may portray this as fighting for a decent living or "for the children." Both are pure bull. For Democrats, what is going on in Wisconsin is about money, power, and, in an existential sense, their national economic foundation. And that is why virtually the entire Democratic Party, from Obama through the DNC and numerous other organizations, have nationalized Wisconsin state politics this past week.

It is impossible to overestimate how important public sector unions are to the Democrats. Public sector unions give Democrats a near inexhaustible source of taxpayer dollars to use for their own purpose, and they have used that money to deeply distort politics in America.

It is no surprise that the most money spent in 2010 federal elections came from a single public sector union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, and that it was spent in support of Democrats. Nor is it any surprise to find public sector unions spending the most money in state and local elections. For example, in California, "the California Teachers Association spent $211,849,298 on lobbying and political spending to get its way in California in 2009. Along with the CTA, the Calif. State Council of Service Employees and 13 other organizations spent a total of one billion dollars on political lobbying of the State House at Sacramento."

And lastly, it is no surprise to find the states with a history of democratic control and public sector unions over the past decades today have high tax rates, crushing deficits and massive looming unfunded pension liabilities. The economic basket cases of Illinois and California top the list, though New York, New Jersey and many others are not far behind.

This is how it works. Ms. Jane Doe gets a job as a teacher in, say, Wisconsin. The local Wisconcinites are forced to pay taxes, and those taxes go to pay Doe's salary and benefits and to put funds towards her retirement pension and healthcare benefits. Ms. Doe is automatically enrolled in the existing union, she is not given a choice. The government automatically deducts $750 to $1,000 of taxpayer funding annually from her pay and they send those tax dollars to Doe's public employee union. Neither Ms. Doe nor the taxpayers have a say in that, nor in how the union uses that money. And in fact, the union then takes the money and uses it to stump to get their favored candidates elected - something that they have done with remarkable success.

That newly elected politician then sits across from the union at the negotiating table when it comes time for union and government to negotiate new contracts. Absent from the table are the taxpayers. The politicians are motivated to placate the unions in all of their demands. This becomes particularly insidious in regards to promises regarding pension and retirement benefits that won't come due until long after the politician is gone from office.

That scenario has played out across the country thousands of times. It is why today public sector union employees are, as a group, thriving, in contrast to the average private sector worker. And it is why unfunded pension nightmares threaten the long term fiscal solvency of many of our states. The total of unfunded retirement liabilities now tops $1 trillion among all states. A very large portion of that comes from California, now estimated to be $500 billion.

On the flip side of this unholy alliance, public unions invariably advocate for more government spending and taxes, since that is where their interests lie. Unions in the private sector are limited in what they can ask for by the realities of the marketplace - the need for the business to profit or go bankrupt. Public sector unions face no such limitation on their demands. As we can see happening across the U.S., when states and localities are operating in the red, public sector unions simply agitate for higher taxes to be imposed on the populace. It does not matter what is good for the community, the county or the state - only what is good for the unions.

Public sector unions are a toxin in our society of recent vintage. Many who argue today that public sector workers have a fundamental right to organize into unions are either deeply ignorant of history or lying through their teeth. While all people in this country have a right to free association and to petition the government, none have a right to force others to join their association and then demand payments from our nations tax payers. Whether public sector workers have the right to organize in America is anything but a "fundamental right" that is sacrosanct and beyond the reach of voters to change. Indeed, as a NYC Judge wrote in 1943:

To tolerate or recognize any combination of civil service employees of the government as a labor organization or union is not only incompatible with the spirit of democracy, but inconsistent with every principle upon which our government is founded. Nothing is more dangerous to public welfare than to admit that hired servants of the State can dictate to the government the hours, the wages and conditions under which they will carry on essential services vital to the welfare, safety, and security of the citizen. To admit as true that government employees have power to halt or check the functions of government unless their demands are satisfied, is to transfer to them all legislative, executive and judicial power. Nothing would be more ridiculous.

This sentiment was hardly unique. No less a person than FDR refused to allow collective bargaining for the public sector on similar grounds and, indeed, it "was orthodoxy among Democrats through the '50s that unions didn't belong in government work." It required legislation to allow public sector unions to organize in our country. In the states, ironically, it was Wisconsin that led the way, becoming, in 1959, the first state to allow public sector workers to unionize. At the federal level, it was JFK who gave us the toxic legacy of public sector unions when, in 1962, he signed Executive Order 10988.

This is the defining issue of our era. Do we control our destiny through the democratic process? Or is the ballot box subject to being trumped by public sector unions? The Democrats want the latter, for the economic life blood of their party depends upon it. Our nation's return to economic and political health requires that they be defeated.

Update: According to Ben Smith at Politico:

A new poll from the Washington-based Clarus Group asked:

Do you think government employees should be represented by labor unions that bargain for higher pay, benefits and pensions ... or do you think government employees should not be represented by labor unions?

A full 64% of the respondents said "no."

That includes 42% of Democrats, and an overwhelming majority of Republicans. Only 49% of Democrats think public workers should be in unions at all.

That suggests that the public understands what is at issue with public sector unions. That is very bad news for the left, and suggests that this will be a major issue in 2012 if the left continues to make this a national cause celebre - which they most assuredly will do. (H/T The Coffee Shop)

Good updates on the progress of the left-wing assault on democracy at Nice Deb, Michelle Malkin, and Ann Althouse.

Related Posts:

1. Public Sector Unions: A Toxin, A Crisis & An Opportunity
2. Read'n, Writ'n & Unioniz'n
3. What, Marx Or Lenin Weren't Available?
4. Gov. Chris Christie, What Leadership Looks Like
5. California: From Riches To Public Sector Unions To Ruin
6. Detroit's Public School System, School Board & Teachers' Union
7. Unions & Teachers: The Alpha & Omega
8. Living With Public Sector Unions
9. Public Sector Unions
10. Obama, The Stimulus & Teachers' Unions
11. Yet Another Reason Why Public Sector Unions Should Be Done Away With
12. Grand Theft Democrat
13. Another Win For Teachers Unions, Another Defeat For DC Students
14. Reason 10,001 Why Public Sector Unions Need To Be Outlawed
15. Public Sector Unions Go To War To Prevent Democratic Change In Wisconsin
16. Change You Can't Have: Obama & The DNC Interfere In Wisconsin State Politics
17. Do Public Sector Workers Have A Fundamental Right To Organize?
18. An Instant Classic
19. Boehner, Obama & The DNC: The State Public Sector Union Issues Gets Nationalized

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Boehner, Obama & The DNC: The State Public Sector Union Issues Gets Nationalized

The fight over public sector unions is now fully nationalized. That is not surprising, given what is at stake. Public sector unions are the single most important part of the modern Democratic power base. Their political power is huge and they uniformly support Democrats. Moreover, their money is ultimately appropriated from all taxpayers through mandatory union dues taken from public worker salaries.
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Update: This from the Foundry:

Government unions are simply a parasite on the U.S. economy. When President Obama came into office, he shielded government unions from transparency by ending their reporting requirements to the Department of Labor. As a result it is impossible for the American people to know for sure how much of their taxpayer revenue is being diverted into union coffers. But if you assume that each union member pays between $500 and $750 annually, taken involuntarily directly from their paychecks, that means the government union industry in Wisconsin is worth at least $100 million a year.

If government employees want to voluntarily form associations and lobby the government for higher pay, better benefits, and working conditions, that is their constitutional right. But they have no right to force all employees to join their organization and take money from their paychecks every week.

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Pull the rug out from under public sector unions and the modern wing of the Democrat Party is doomed. Thus do we see Obama challenging Wisconsin's "assault on unions" and his organizing arm in the DNC going all out to organize protests, including bussing in union thugs from other states. But it is not just limited to Wisconsin. The DNC is repeating this throughout numerous states with new Republican majorities, including Florida, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Ohio, Missouri, New Hampshire, Maine, and Pennsylvania.

This is a direct assault on democracy and state's rights, something Speaker of the House John Boehner makes explicit in his press release on these acts:

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) issued the following statement in response to reports that ‘Organizing for America’ – President Obama’s political operation – is helping to incite protests against reform-minded governors across the country:

“The President of the United States has a unique opportunity and responsibility to lead this nation. President Obama has acknowledged the challenges we face, but – thus far – he has done nothing to offer solutions. Now, worse, his political organization is colluding with special-interest allies across the country to demagogue reform-minded governors who are making the tough choices that the President is avoiding.

“This is not the way to begin an ‘adult conversation' about solutions to the big challenges facing our country. Rather than inciting protests against those who speak honestly about the challenges we face, the President and his advisers should lead.

“When the American people watched the people of Greece take to the streets to protest cuts to unsustainable government programs, they worried it might foreshadow events in our nation’s distant future – but today, we see the same sort of protests on the streets of Madison, fueled by President Obama’s own political machine.

“Rather than trying to ‘win the future,’ the President’s political allies are trying, desperately, to cling to a failed past by fighting reforms our nation needs to liberate our economy from the shackles of debt and create a better future for our children and grandchildren. The President should make it clear to his friends that the people of Wisconsin, and states across America, can handle their own affairs without Washington special-interest money and meddling. . . .

Related Posts:

1. Public Sector Unions: A Toxin, A Crisis & An Opportunity
2. Read'n, Writ'n & Unioniz'n
3. What, Marx Or Lenin Weren't Available?
4. Gov. Chris Christie, What Leadership Looks Like
5. California: From Riches To Public Sector Unions To Ruin
6. Detroit's Public School System, School Board & Teachers' Union
7. Unions & Teachers: The Alpha & Omega
8. Living With Public Sector Unions
9. Public Sector Unions
10. Obama, The Stimulus & Teachers' Unions
11. Yet Another Reason Why Public Sector Unions Should Be Done Away With
12. Grand Theft Democrat
13. Another Win For Teachers Unions, Another Defeat For DC Students
14. Reason 10,001 Why Public Sector Unions Need To Be Outlawed
15. Public Sector Unions Go To War To Prevent Democratic Change In Wisconsin
16. Change You Can't Have: Obama & The DNC Interfere In Wisconsin State Politics
17. Do Public Sector Workers Have A Fundamental Right To Organize?
18. An Instant Classic
19. Boehner, Obama & The DNC: The State Public Sector Union Issues Gets Nationalized

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An Instant Classic

This is hilarious. A union leader in Wisconsin is interviewed by CNN and seems to be able to hear quite well, until she is asked to opine on the fact that Wisconsin Senate Democrats have gone into hiding in order to thwart democracy in the state. Huh? You're breaking up?

I do hope every taxpayer in the U.S. is paying very close attention, not only to left-wing idiots like this one, but to the role of Obama and the DNC in fanning this assault on democracy.



(H/T Hot Air)

Related Posts:

1. Public Sector Unions: A Toxin, A Crisis & An Opportunity
2. Read'n, Writ'n & Unioniz'n
3. What, Marx Or Lenin Weren't Available?
4. Gov. Chris Christie, What Leadership Looks Like
5. California: From Riches To Public Sector Unions To Ruin
6. Detroit's Public School System, School Board & Teachers' Union
7. Unions & Teachers: The Alpha & Omega
8. Living With Public Sector Unions
9. Public Sector Unions
10. Obama, The Stimulus & Teachers' Unions
11. Yet Another Reason Why Public Sector Unions Should Be Done Away With
12. Grand Theft Democrat
13. Another Win For Teachers Unions, Another Defeat For DC Students
14. Reason 10,001 Why Public Sector Unions Need To Be Outlawed
15. Public Sector Unions Go To War To Prevent Democratic Change In Wisconsin
16. Change You Can't Have: Obama & The DNC Interfere In Wisconsin State Politics
17. Do Public Sector Workers Have A Fundamental Right To Organize?

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There Is Just Something About Our Form Of Government They Don't Seem To Get

Obama and the left don't seem to understand any number of things about our form of government - such as the what the phrase "rule of law" means or how that democracy thing works. The Obama administration returning to the court of Judge Vinson, who near three weeks ago ruled Obamacare unconstitutional in toto, asking for the court to rule that states have to begin complying with Obamacare anyway. In other words, they are asking Judge Vinson to rule that he didn't mean what he said when he said it. As to how democracy works, you have Wisconsin's Democratic legislators in hiding to prevent the functioning of the state government, and you have the left, from Obama through the DNC, and all labor organizations falling on Wisconsin in an effort to thwart democratic change in that state that is both constitutional and the will of the voters as expressed in the 2010 election.

I would suggest that somebody needs to send these jokers a couple of copies of the Constitution, but I have no doubt whatsoever that it would not make a wit of difference.

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Change You Can't Have: Obama & The DNC Interfere In Wisconsin Politics

More thugogracy from Obama and the DNC. The voters of Wisconsin spoke in November, asking for a change from Democrat controlled politics in the state that had run up a $3.6 billion tab. Now Obama and the DNC have insinuated themselves into Wisconsin politics, saying that there is some change that voters just shouldn't have, regardless of election results. Specifically, Obama and the DNC want to protect their piggy bank - public sector unions that threaten to bankrupt the state.

To understand just how despicable this federal effort to interfere in Wisconsin state politics is, know that Wisconsin's voters, in November, voted overwhelmingly for Republicans. Going into the 2010 elections, Democrats held the governorship, a 3 seat majority in the Wisconsin State Senate, and a 5 seat majority in the State Assembly. Scott Walker, in his campaign for governor, did not hide how he intended to address the budget shortfall, nor the issue of public sector unions at the heart of Wisconsin's budget woes:

. . . UW political scientist Barry Burden said. “It was part of Walker’s campaign message that he was going to ask state employees to contribute more … and that he was going to tackle unions.”

The voters of Wisconsin responded. By the time the election was over, Republicans had swept the Democrats from power, taking the governor's race, a four seat majority in the state Senate, and a massive 22 seat majority in the State Assembly. The people had spoken.

But that didn't suffice for the state's Democrats. During their 2010 lame duck session, they tried to tie Walker's hands in dealing with unions by approving 17 new union contracts. That effort to circumvent Wisconsin's voters ended only when two Democrats refused to countenance such a despicable act.

When Republicans took office, Gov. Walker proposed a Budget Repair Bill, the terms of which are more fully outlined here. It would require public union employees to contribute to their health and pension benefits, it would cap wage increases to inflation unless approved by a state wide referendum, it would require unions to annually recertify and to collect their own dues. With that restriction, unions could still collectively bargain for wage increases, but benefit increases would be solely within the purview of the state. As far as wages and benefits, this still leaves Wisconsin's public sector employees better off than Wisconsin's average private sector employees.



While Wisconsin state politics is strictly a local affair, anything that threatens public sector unions is a national threat to Obama and the DNC. This from Ben Smith at Politico:

The Democratic National Committee's Organizing for America arm -- the remnant of the 2008 Obama campaign -- is playing an active role in organizing protests against Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's attempt to strip most public employees of collective bargaining rights.

And indeed, if you go to Organizing For America's website at my.barackobama.com, you find:

Organizing for America is mobilizing on the ground in Wisconsin to defend the rights of public employees from an attempt by the governor to take away their right to organize.

Jessie Lidbury, regional field organizer, explains why this is so important:

We’ve got a fight on our hands and it’s personal. Over the past few days serious developments have surfaced of Governor Scott Walker presenting a “Budget Repair Bill” that will essentially gut collective bargaining for public employees here in our own backyard of Wisconsin.

Over the next couple days nurses, teachers, snowplow drivers, prison guards, and public servants will be standing together to let Governor Walker, know what is at stake: livelihoods, heath care, our children's education, and the rights of all workers. . . .

Our job as organizers is to take action, and what better way than to help out our friends in the labor community. . . .

And the "action" the left is taking shows the civility for which they are so famous:



This federal level engagement into Wisconsin state politics, between Obama terming the proposed legislation as an "assault" and the DNC's direct action, is outrageous. I would like to see Gov. Walker go the full monty and just outlaw public sector unions in Wisconsin, the way such unions were deemed unlawful for much of our nation's history. Really, that is the only answer this toxin in our society.

As I have written before:

Unions in the public sector are a growth industry with 39% of all state and local public employees belonging to unions. What can possibly justify public sector unions in 2010? This is not the era of sweatshops and 80 hour work weeks. And indeed, today we see public sector union employees earning significantly more than their private sector counterparts.

Public sector unions are particularly insidious. They are not subject to market forces and they have every reason to seek growth of government. This from a 2009 Heritage Foundation article:

. . . As Heritage fellow James Sherk reported earlier this year, for the first time in history most union members work for the government, not the private sector. The days when “union member” meant an American working in a steel plant, or coal mine, or auto factory are gone. Today, unions are dependent on government, not the private sector, for their livelihood. Therefore, unions have little interest in private sector job growth. Private sector jobs don’t help fund political campaigns. But government jobs do. The change in incentives has been devastating to American taxpayers. Manhattan Institute senior fellow Steven Malanga explains why:

In the private sector … employers who are too generous with pay and benefits will be punished. In the public sector, however, more union members means more voters. And more voters means more dollars for political campaigns to elect sympathetic politicians who will enact higher taxes to foot the bill for the upward arc of government spending on workers.

This is why you see big labor supporting Obamacare and cap and trade taxes. Private sector job growth does nothing to increase union dues … only the further expansion of government does.

This is public theft on a grand scale. The Democrats are laundering our tax dollars through public sector unions via mandatory union dues from public employees. Bet you didn't realize that you were funding Democratic efforts to keep Obama and the far left in power, did you. At any rate, the Democrats are horrified at the thought that it may soon unravel. In fact, they are far more horrified at that prospect than they are concerned with allowing the Wisconsin voters be heard through their newly elected government. Democracy be damned. Apparently in the world of hope and change, there is some change that is just not acceptable.

Related Posts

- Public Sector Unions: A Toxin, A Crisis & An Opportunity
- Read'n, Writ'n & Unioniz'n
- What, Marx Or Lenin Weren't Available?
- Gov. Chris Christie, What Leadership Looks Like
- California: From Riches To Public Sector Unions To Ruin
- Detroit's Public School System, School Board & Teachers' Union
- Unions & Teachers: The Alpha & Omega
- Living With Public Sector Unions
- Public Sector Unions
- Obama, The Stimulus & Teachers' Unions
- Yet Another Reason Why Public Sector Unions Should Be Done Away With
- Grand Theft Democrat
- Another Win For Teachers Unions, Another Defeat For DC Students
- Reason 10,001 Why Public Sector Unions Need To Be Outlawed
- Public Sector Unions Go To War To Prevent Democratic Change In Wisconsin

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Obama, Revolution & The Promotion of Democracy

Mubarak hasn't been out office 24 hours, and already the left is making their paean's to Obama's leadership as being one of the decisive factors in motivating the Egyptian revolution and bringing down Mubarak. Wolf Blitzer pondered on CNN whether "Obama’s Cairo speech had something to do with this." Chris Matthews, apparently with tingles up both legs, stated that, "in a way it’s like it took Obama to have this happen." And one unnamed Dem operative e-mailed to Politico:

Great news for the administration/president. People will remember , despite some fumbles yesterday, that the President played an excellent hand, walked the right line and that his statement last night was potentially decisive in bringing this issue to a close. The situation remains complicated and delicate going forward, but this is a huge affirmation of the President's leadership on the international stage.

This is historical revisionism on a scale with writing today that the South won the Civil War. First off, Obama's Cairo speech wasn't a call for democracy. It wasn't even a walk back from promoting democracy in the Middle East. It was a run back from it. Condi Rice, at a speech in Cairo in 2005, called for democracy. This is what it sounded like:

For 60 years, . . . the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in the [Middle East]. And we achieved neither. Now we are taking a different course. We are supporting the democratic aspirations of the people.

What Obama did in Cairo was pay lip service to human rights and democracy after announcing that "no system of government can or should be imposed by one nation by any other." If there was any ambiguity in that statement, it should have been clarified in 2009 when Obama cut funding for promoting democracy throughout the Middle East.

As to Iran, as I wrote back when the Green Movement was dying in the streets while Obama played golf:

Obama defunded all the programs to promote democracy in Iran and has not reinstated their funding. Obama actively prevented other countries from imposing sanctions on Iran, and as recently as two months ago, cut off funding to an organization documenting human rights abuses in Iran. He has given legitimacy to the regime by reaching out to them, even after they brutally repressed demonstrations. And, of paramount importance, he has been all but silent when he should have been using the bully pulpit to excoriate the bloody mad mullahs for their murderous acts at every opportunity. When the world needs a Churchill, we instead have a Chamberlain.

And Obama did essentially the same with funding for promotion of democracy in Egypt. Bush left office with a budget of $45 million for promoting democracy in Egypt. In 2009, Obama not only slashed that amount to $7 million, but in a tip of the hat to Mubarak, he limited its dispersion only to civil groups that were approved by the Egyptian government. This from Jake Tapper at ABC News:

The Obama Administration has not done what they should have in terms of support for civil society,” said Jennifer Windsor, associate dean of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, who served for ten years as the executive director of Freedom House, an independent group dedicated to the advance of freedom. . . .

Says Windsor: “The attitude of Obama administration toward the pro-democracy movement was to put them at arm’s length, and make sure that US interaction with the pro-democracy movement did not in any way ruffle the feathers of a dictatorial regime.” . . .

So anyone that suggests that Obama played a unique role in motivating the revolution in Egypt is being far less than honest. As to Obama's performance during the past eighteen days of the revolution, this from Jennifer Rubin:

One can scarcely imagine how the U.S. in its handling of the Egyptian revolution could look more inept and less effective. If the stakes were not so high the last few weeks would be material for high farce. (And indeed, a recounting of events by a faux "Joe Biden" does just that.)

Initial caution was followed by insistence that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak "transition now." That, in turn, morphed into agreement to a very gradual transition. . . .

Ross Kaminsky at American Spectator is equally as critical of the Obama administration's performance during the 18 days of revolution. I am inclined to cut the Obama administration far more slack in this difficult situation, but perhaps that is only be because of how the situation ended. This from the WSJ yesterday, prior to the coup, gives a bit more insight into the pressures the administration was under and how difficult it was to influence events:

. . . The White House is now squeezed between Arab and Israeli allies, who have complained that Mr. Obama was pushing Mr. Mubarak too hard to step down, and lawmakers who accuse the White House of not pushing hard enough. Now, the White House finds itself largely a bystander.

"This is really bad," a senior U.S. official said after Mr. Mubarak's address. "We need to push harder—if not, the protests will get violent."
The official advocated raising U.S. pressure to force Mr. Mubarak from power, though other officials acknowledge Washington had little clout in Cairo. . . .

In the White House, frustration is giving way to a sense of powerlessness.

"The mystique of America's superpower status has been shattered," said Steve Clemons, director of the American Strategy Program of the New America Foundation, who has attended two meetings with the National Security Council on Egypt.

At a meeting with outside advisers Monday, four National Security Council officials were pressed on what U.S. diplomacy had accomplished. The officials said their efforts had helped avoid "catastrophic" bloodshed by helping to restrain Egyptian security forces, two participants said.

Possibly the real lesson of the Egyptian Revolution is that we need to reinstate the Bush policy of aggressively promoting democracy throughout the Middle East. That would likely leave us in a much stronger position than we find ourselves in Egypt, where there the secular parties are disorganized and we have very limited influence over the events.

All of that said, the Obama administration, from Sec. of State Clinton calling Mubarak stable to Biden stating that Mubarak was "not a dictator," were clearly caught flat footed when the massive demonstrations began in Egypt on January 23. And between Gibbs suggesting that the Muslim Brotherhood needed to be included in a "reform government" and the DNI portraying the Brotherhood as peaceful and "largely secular," it was clear that the administration was not exactly on top of the events in Egypt. Indeed, those latter two examples suggest that the Obama administration was considering pushing a contingency that would have proven disastrous.

In the end, the school solution to this revolution was, as I wrote from day one, a military coup that could then oversee time for secular parties to organize. That is what seems to have happened - and indeed, it was the most likely outcome from the day the Army replaced the police on the streets, then refused to act against the protesters. I saw nothing to suggest that Obama was anything more than following these events, rather than leading them. That said, he didn't get in their way, and that has to count for something. Thus while I am far less critical of the administration than Jennifer Rubin, I think anyone who credits the Obama administration for a successful conclusion to this stage of Egypt's revolution is being disingenuous in the least.

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Democracy versus Democracy Founded Upon Individual Rights

When you come down to it, for as much as we laud it, democracy is, by itself, nothing more than mob rule. Lots of places have democracy, many of which are far removed indeed from a "liberal democracy." From Villagers With Torches, an insightful post pointing out that it is not "democracy" that we should be pushing, or at least not democracy alone:

It MAY be too late for Egypt. It may be impossible in Islamic majority nations (and if so the sooner we know the better), but someone in the USA in leadership or potential leadership positions had better speak up so that we have a 30 second sound byte as to the difference between a mob intimidation rule of the masses, and a democracy whose PURPOSE is the protection of the individual while having majority rule.

Very well put. We pushed in 2005 for elections in Gaza and ended up with Hamas. It is quite possible that we could see the same in Egypt unless the call for democracy is irrevocably coupled with an even stronger call for individual rights.

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A Tale Of Two "Conservative" Parties - Part 1: The UK

At a time when the left has swung the pendulum hard to the left in both the UK and the US, at a time when the electorate of both US and UK appears poised for a massive move to the right, the "conservative" parties - the Tories in the UK, the Republicans in the U.S. - seem far from up to the task. When we need Churchill and Reagan, we instead have leaders in the mold of Clement Attlee and Herbert Hoover. The problem is particularly acute in the UK.

The UK's political structure has failed systemically. Democracy in Britain does not result in a "representative" democracy. The people of Britain only get a vote for their own local representative. The position of Prime Minister is never voted on by the people, but rather is chosen by the party. The people get no say in the House of Lords - and it is a body that has been politically emasculated by the socialist Labour Party at any rate. Britain has no constitutional limitations on the power of government, despite centruries of agreements that specified such limits and that enshrined individual rights, begining most famously with the Magna Carta. That is because, over two centuries ago, Britain's Parliament declared their decisions the paramount law of the land, thus enshrining what is today a tyranny of the majority. Indeed, it should be noted that the U.S. Bill of Rights is little more than an amalgam of the rights of Protestant Englishmen that existed as of 1776. Unfortunately, many of those rights are circumscribed in Britain today. What all this means in the aggregate is that the wants and desires of the electorate are significantly minimized, the role of a left wing media is greatly magnified, and the desire of politicians to accrete power goes all but unchecked in the UK.

Labour has spent its years in office deconstructing Britain with multiculturalism - including as part and parcel thereof active discrimination against the indigenous population of Britain - open borders immigration, a massively expanding welfare system with incredibly perverse incentives, an ever more intrusive nanny state, huge increases in government spending, an insane energy policy centered on the canard of global warming that is driving up enery costs exponentially and threatens the viability of their energy infrastructure, a war on Christianity, and the transfer of Britain's sovereignty to the EU without the promised referendum of the people. On top of that, only a few short months ago, an MP (Member of Parliament) expense scandal rocked the Labour Party and brought the popularity of the Labour government already at or near its nadir, to a level of popularity slightly below that of the ebola virus.

By all accounts, Labour should be knocked from government in the next election in a blood bath. Yet so weak are the alternatives that it is actually an open question today, but a few short weeks from Britain's next election, whether Britain's conservative party will manage to pull a defeat from the jaws of what should be a victory so vast as to result in a banishment of Labour from political power for years to come. Indeed, EU Referendum reports that the Tories maintain only an 8% lead in the polls over Labour as of today.

When speaking to a very close friend the other day - a woman of uncommon perceptiveness and intellect born and living in Kent - she stated that, while the electorate is poised for a radical move to the right, the problem is that there is no political party to lead them. She thinks that David Cameron, the head of the Tory Party, is the worst kind of unprincipled political opportunist. The Tories, she said, have done nothing to differentiate themselves from the socialist Labour Party and are promising, in essence, to continue many of the same policies that are destroying Britain. The Lib Democrats are even worse. The UKIP is perhaps the only true conservative party, but they are wholly ignored by the media and stand little chance of making significant gains. The BNP is demonized by the media and, while many of their policies are good, their history of racism and anti-semitism makes them an unacceptable choice. In short, the people of Britain are, at a critical moment in their history, being disenfranchised by a broken political system.

My friend recommended a recent article by Simon Heffer as accurately summing up the situation (or, in her vernacular, "spot on.") This from Mr. Heffer at the Telegraph:

. . . The Labour Party has failed utterly in government. It has not merely wrecked the economy, with long-term consequences: it has taken a path of repairing the damage that will, through its emphasis on high taxes, borrowing and public spending, cause more harm before it does any good – if it does any good. It has also been derelict on matters of such significance as our schools, our universities, law and order, immigration and our Armed Forces. . . . Mr Brown's stewardship of our nation has been shocking. He does not deserve to have it renewed.

Yet, despite this atrocity, the Conservative Party has, in the five years since its last debacle, done remarkably little to convince the public that it understands what is going on, let alone that it has any concept of how to make our country more prosperous, better run and generally happier. When David Cameron spoke to activists on the Embankment yesterday morning, one was at once splashed in the face by the cold water of the obsession with image: almost everyone in sight was young, several of them (including a man Mr Cameron ostentatiously embraced with that warm insincerity that is his trademark) from ethnic minorities, a correct proportion of them women. His approach has always been about ticking the boxes of militant superficiality. His main argument is that he is not the Labour Party. Well, not in name, at any rate.

And the Liberal Democrats? They have a flexibility of principle that leaves even that of Mr Cameron standing; a record of opportunism and incompetence in local government (the only place they have had any power) that puts Mr Brown's moral and intellectual inadequacies in the shade. One would be inclined to ridicule them entirely were they not likely to do as much damage to Labour in some parts of the country as the Tories are, and because of the far from impossible prospect of Vince Cable having some say in the running of our economy in a month's time. With various useful independents standing in certain seats, with the Greens in with a chance in Brighton Pavilion, with Ukip a not impossible prospect for the Speaker's seat in Buckingham, with votes being split in a way they have rarely been split before, not just by the Greens and Ukip, but also by the knuckledusters of the BNP, anything could happen.

As I am not an astrologer – and also because I genuinely don't have a clue – you must forgive me if I don't predict the outcome. We shall know soon enough. All that is certain (and here comes another rare fact) is that we shall end up being governed by a social democratic government of some sort. This is not because I expect a coalition including the Lib Dems, though that joy may well await us. It is because the likely programmes and conduct of another Labour or a new Conservative administration will be broadly social democratic. By that, I mean that the state will play a large role in the management of our country; there will a strong redistributive element to policy; levelling down, whether through the education system or the welfare state, will continue. What this means is that a significant proportion of the electorate that wants none of these things will have been effectively disfranchised. Our understandable boredom is tempered by a frustration that none of the main three parties seems to want to represent what so many of us believe in. . . .

For the frustration of the non-social democratic majority in this country has only just begun. No one from the main parties will tell the truth about the need to sack hundreds of thousands of people on the public payroll in order to ensure we live within our means. Nobody will tell the truth about how lower taxes increase revenue, because there are too many cheap votes in bashing bankers who earn lots of money. Nobody will properly defend capitalism as an essential ingredient of a free society. Nobody will champion selective education, which gives such a chance in life to bright children from poor homes, and nobody will be truthful about the pointlessness of much university education.

Nobody will dare to be radical about the corrupt effects of the welfare state. Nobody will take the radical approach needed to counter the results of unlimited immigration. Above all – and that last point leads on to this – nobody will confront the public with the realities of our membership of a European Union governed by the Treaty of Lisbon, which has left us with a choice of staying in on Europe's terms, or getting out.

All these things matter to people who are honest, hard-working, love their country, and seek only to be allowed to get on with their lives, undisturbed by the state, and to keep more of what they earn. There will be millions of voters missing from the polling booths on May 6 because there is an agenda missing from the discourse of our leading politicians, all of whom fear challenging a consensus that exists more in their minds, or those of their teenage advisers, than in reality.

The tedium to come can be obviated by not turning on the television for a few weeks. Newspapers, believe me, will ensure the diet of politics is kept to the minimum: our readers are precious to us, and we wish neither to bore them with the self-importance of politicians nor to insult them by bombarding them with propaganda. Strong drink and martial music may be useful. That still leaves the problem of how Britain will ever be run properly, whether by a tribal introvert who wishes to suffocate us with his "values", or a PR spiv whose "big idea" is to appoint 5,000 commissars to assist the development of "communities". There will be more absurdity yet. "Democracy," wrote Carlyle, "which means despair of finding any Heroes to govern you!" How right you were, Tom, how right you were.

These are dark days indeed in Britain. And there is no light at the end of the tunnel. I would highly recommend the blog EU Referendum for following this election and the various issues associated therewith.


See: A Tale Of Two "Conservative" Parties - Part 2: The U.S.

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When Politics Ends & Violence Begins

There is a surprisingly good article in the NYT, When Does Political Anger Turn to Violence? I expected it to be another article claiming that the the Tea Party groups are right wing militias in thin disguise who spend their evenings passing around dog eared copies of the Turner Diaries. There were some suggestions of that, but overall it was a serious article articulating one of the points I have made on this blog several times before - that when a group feels their voice is silenced and their vote is stolen or dilluted, that they are shut out of the political process, blood in the streets will likely follow. The NYT agrees:

. . . So far, experts say that the discontent pooling on the right (anti-Washington and anti-Wall Street) and to a lesser degree on the left (anti-Wall Street) has some, but not yet all, of the ingredients needed to foment radicalism.

“As long as there is some possibility of getting results by political means, the chances that any group will turn truly radical are small, and maybe vanishingly small,” said Clark McCauley, a professor of psychology at Bryn Mawr College. But if those efforts to engage are thwarted, he said, the equation changes.

The risk that angry words themselves will incite violence is higher when they are aimed at a despised minority, or a feuding enemy, if history is any guide. . . .

Furthermore, the psychological distance between talk and action — between fantasizing about even so much as brick heaving and actually doing it — is far larger for a typical, peaceable citizen than many assume. In the aftermath of the July 2007 London subway bombings, for instance, polls found that about 5 percent of Muslims living in England said that they believed violence was justified in defense of Islam. “That projects to about 50,000 Muslims in the U.K.,” Dr. McCauley said, “but very, very few of them are acting violently.”

Kathleen Blee, a sociologist at the University of Pittsburgh, said the same was true even for groups that consider violence a central tenet. “In the white power groups I study, people can have all kind of crazy racist ideas, spend their evenings reading Hitler online, all of it,” she said, “but many of them never do anything at all about it.”

Protest groups that turn from loud to aggressive tend to draw on at least two other elements, researchers say. The first is what sociologists call a “moral shock” — a specific, blatant moral betrayal that, when most potent, evokes personal insults suffered by individual members, said Francesca Polletta, a sociologist at the University of California, Irvine, and author of “It Was Like a Fever: Storytelling in Protest and Politics.”

This shock may derive from an image . . . It can also reside in a “narrative fragment,” like the Rodney King beating, which triggered a riot all on its own. . . .

The second element is a specific target clearly associated with the outrage. A law to change. A politician to remove. A company to shut down. “If the target is too big, too vague — say, the health care bill, which means many things — well, then the anger can be hard to sustain,” Dr. Polletta said. “It gets exhausting.”

Not that the rage, or the risk of escalation, necessarily goes away. If a group with enduring gripes is shut out of the political process, and begins to shed active members, it can leave behind a radical core. This is precisely what happened in the 1960s, when the domestic terrorist group known as the Weather Underground emerged from the larger, more moderate anti-war Students for a Democratic Society, Dr. McCauley said. “The SDS had 100,000 members and, frustrated politically at every step, people started to give up,” he said. “The result was that you had this condensation of a small, more radical base of activists who decided to escalate the violence.”

Given the shifting political terrain, the diversity of views in the antigovernment groups, and their potential political impact, experts say they expect that very few are ready to take the more radical step.

“Once you take that step to act violently, it’s very difficult to turn back,” Dr. Blee said. “It puts the group, and the person, on a very different path.”

As I wrote recently in concuring with a Powerline post, violence has no place in our democracy. But unlike the authors of Powerline, I could see acts by our government that could lead to blood in the streets. In my 40+ years, I never entertained such a thought. That changed when Obama speculated that he might give in to calls on the left to actually prosecute the prior administration over political differences on the Iraq War. An act like that - criminalizing political disputes in an effort to destroy their opposition, could well have led to political violence.

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