Kudos to Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin
Forum category
I was listening to Kilmeade & Friends on a local radio station on my way back from taking the kids to school this morning—and got more perturbed than I ever have listening to talk radio. I actually called (first-ever radio show phone call)—but couldn’t wait on hold to get on the show.
Kilmeade had Rivera on with him and Rivera was arguing that Gov. Scott Walker has “overeached” and he ought to separate the need to cut government employee benefits from his effort to remove their union collective bargaining power. He also asserted that Walker has chosen to fight an ideological war with the whole union concept.
He’s right about one thing but profoundly wrong about the rest. What he has right is that Walker has declared an ideological war. Several things Rivera and the rest of the country—especially the state of Wisconsin—need to get straight:
1) Ideas have consequences. The ideological wars we fight in politics are the most important ones. Policies come and go but the convictions behind them have enduring impact on countless lives.
2) The distinction Rivera thinks Walker should draw between the fiscal problems and the union philosophy is imaginary. Worse, it’s foolish in the extreme. What sense does it make to roll back benefit and salary costs for members of a virtually all powerful union? As soon as they see fit, they’ll demand it all back again. How does Rivera think Wisconsin got to the point that we have the fiscal problems we do? A huge component has been decades of achievement-punishing and indolence-rewarding policy demanded by powerful unions. Walker has enough sense to think beyond a week from next Thursday and see that a solution that only trims one budget is ultimately no solution at all. Go to the cause.
3) Who is causing the disruption in Madison and around the state of Wisconsin? Rivera speaks as if Walker were causing the schools to be closed and thousands to skip work and protest at the capitol. He speaks as though the likely continuing disruption were some kind of proof of his point. In reality, it’s more evidence that Walker is right. The fact that thousands of these unionized workers believe they have the right to strike illegally and that the Democrats in the legislature believe they have the right to leave the state and hold up in a hotel in Rockford, IL, proves that these are people who do not have the best interests of the students or the state at heart. They are interested in their own power and pocketbooks and think nothing of disrupting education and services for hundreds of thousands across the state in order to keep their power—even by violating existing laws. The disruption is proof that it’s past high time we broke the stranglehold these unions have had on the state’s policies and funds.
4) It’s hard to think of anything more disgraceful in the political arena than preaching the virtues of your constitution and of democracy while running for office, but then walking away and pouting as soon as the people elect legislators with policies you don’t like. You can’t have it both ways. If you believe in the system that elected you and gave you power to pass liberal legislation, you have to uphold the system when it elects your opponents and enables them to pass conservative legislation. Skipping town to avoid a vote is tantamount to saying “We only believe in law and order when it helps further our goals.” They should all be booted from office.
OK, end of rant. Had to get that out somewhere. Oh, for a microphone and some TV cameras!
Kilmeade had Rivera on with him and Rivera was arguing that Gov. Scott Walker has “overeached” and he ought to separate the need to cut government employee benefits from his effort to remove their union collective bargaining power. He also asserted that Walker has chosen to fight an ideological war with the whole union concept.
He’s right about one thing but profoundly wrong about the rest. What he has right is that Walker has declared an ideological war. Several things Rivera and the rest of the country—especially the state of Wisconsin—need to get straight:
1) Ideas have consequences. The ideological wars we fight in politics are the most important ones. Policies come and go but the convictions behind them have enduring impact on countless lives.
2) The distinction Rivera thinks Walker should draw between the fiscal problems and the union philosophy is imaginary. Worse, it’s foolish in the extreme. What sense does it make to roll back benefit and salary costs for members of a virtually all powerful union? As soon as they see fit, they’ll demand it all back again. How does Rivera think Wisconsin got to the point that we have the fiscal problems we do? A huge component has been decades of achievement-punishing and indolence-rewarding policy demanded by powerful unions. Walker has enough sense to think beyond a week from next Thursday and see that a solution that only trims one budget is ultimately no solution at all. Go to the cause.
3) Who is causing the disruption in Madison and around the state of Wisconsin? Rivera speaks as if Walker were causing the schools to be closed and thousands to skip work and protest at the capitol. He speaks as though the likely continuing disruption were some kind of proof of his point. In reality, it’s more evidence that Walker is right. The fact that thousands of these unionized workers believe they have the right to strike illegally and that the Democrats in the legislature believe they have the right to leave the state and hold up in a hotel in Rockford, IL, proves that these are people who do not have the best interests of the students or the state at heart. They are interested in their own power and pocketbooks and think nothing of disrupting education and services for hundreds of thousands across the state in order to keep their power—even by violating existing laws. The disruption is proof that it’s past high time we broke the stranglehold these unions have had on the state’s policies and funds.
4) It’s hard to think of anything more disgraceful in the political arena than preaching the virtues of your constitution and of democracy while running for office, but then walking away and pouting as soon as the people elect legislators with policies you don’t like. You can’t have it both ways. If you believe in the system that elected you and gave you power to pass liberal legislation, you have to uphold the system when it elects your opponents and enables them to pass conservative legislation. Skipping town to avoid a vote is tantamount to saying “We only believe in law and order when it helps further our goals.” They should all be booted from office.
OK, end of rant. Had to get that out somewhere. Oh, for a microphone and some TV cameras!
Discussion