Oh You Mean We Must Be Civil Too?

Remember after Rep. Giffords was shot by a psychopath last month? There was much talk about the tone of politics and the horrors of incivility, particularly on the right. But civility is a neutral value. It’s supposed to apply to everyone. And it has some value, so long as it is not code for stopping all harsh criticism rooted in facts. There is always a problem in application: the left thinks it’s goodness personified and that its opponents are not merely stupid or mistaken, but deeply evil and mentally ill. So for them civility is just a tactical position; the real goal is silence and disempowerment, as we’ve seen in university settings and other places where the left has dominance.

So isn’t it interesting that when thuggish mobs have taken over Wisconsin’s capital and derailed a democratic process, that Obama has said nothing of their tactics–which apparently involve intimidation and threats–but rather celebrates the power of unions and takes sides, in a matter wholly unusual for an American president and wholly at odds with his civility talk last month. Of course, unions have traded in violence and threats since day one. This has always been their modus operandi. Go watch Hoffa sometime. Or read about the Greyhound strike. It’s for real, but the left is so convinced of its rectitude that they don’t even realize the double standards that they are purveying in their calls for civility, while they celebrate the thuggish unions that are the bane of America, particularly when transported into the government sector.

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Wisconsin, Who Knew?

Who knew Wisconsin would be the sight of the latest showdown between necessary budget cuts and totally unrealistic, head-in-the-sand unions?  Indeed, why do we have public sector unions?  Why do we tolerate strikes by teachers, who work for the public, and thus the public good should be foremost in discussions of overall education budgets, salaries, and benefits? And why are unions allowed in other realms like police and firefighters?  The public and the government should abide by its contracts, but, as in the private sector, money does not grow on trees.  Budgets must be balanced.  And public sector wages and benefits have outpaced those of the private sector in this time of austerity and uncertainty.  Indeed, their generous pay and retirement benefits have much to do with this time of austerity and uncertainty.

Unions make no sense in the public sector realm; they amount to the pursuit of a narrow, private interest at the expense of the general public.  When businesses do this it’s called an unlawful antitrust conspiracy.  But somehow in both the public and private sector, conspiracies to prop up wages are hailed as sacred rights.

A friend notes that for all these teachers taking the day off to protest in Wisconsin, there are 20 or 30 women working 10 hour shifts for $30K a year struggling to find babysitters who are not terribly sympathetic with the 9 month workers complaints about making a mere $50K a year.

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