I have no evidence. Just paranoia. But just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get me.
My point is, though, that our political system allows for legalized bribery. Just because it is legal doesn't make it right. I think we can both agree that lobbyists, on both sides of the aisle, often have more to do with what laws get passed than the will of the people.
I agree with you on these points. This is why I've argued that public sector unions should be illegal. To quote what I said earlier:
Personally, I think public sector unions should be banned. It was a nice experiment, but it failed. Here's the problem with public sector unions. I think we can all agree it would be wrong, not to mention illegal, for a worker or a union to bribe a company's management into giving higher salaries and benefits. That screws over the company's stakeholders. But with the public sector unions, that's exactly what's happening, except it's legal. Politicians give unions what they want and unions reward politicians with campaign contributions and political support. They both win and the taxpayers get screwed.
I also agree that special interests and lobbyists have too much influence. That's why I'm in favor of reducing the power of the government. You can't outright ban lobbying because it's a constitutionally protected activity. The only thing you can do is lower the incentive to lobby. When Congress has the power to destroy businesses or industries, sending lobbyists is a matter of survival. When they control that much money, of course you're going to have special interests and lobbyists coming to suck at the teet of the government.
You're certainly right about this situation. The people in Wisconsin elected Scott Walker and the Republicans to the legislature. They campaigned on reigning in the unions. Currently, they're unable to do that because the unions (a special interest group) applied pressure and Democrats decided to skip town to help the special interest group.
You make a good case, and I'd like to agree with you, but we both know that there are plenty of instances where the person with the most cash wins. Like what happened in, um, presidential elections for 2000, 2004, 2008... Yes, you CAN buy elections.
Correlation does not equal causation. Looking at 2008, Obama's supporters were a whole lot more excited about Obama than McCain's supporters were about McCain. That means Obama supporters were a lot more likely to send money and to show up on election day. Besides, given the environment, do you really think McCain could have won if only he had twice as many commercials on TV? When politicians lose, they love to blame "messaging". Yes, you need money to get your message out, but if your message doesn't resonate, all the advertising money in the world won't save you.
But illegal striking? Hmm, I don't really believe striking should ever be considered "illegal." Workers always have the right to refuse to work. This isn't China. Sure, they can be punished, so punish them, but their right to strike is inherent.
If a strike is legal, it means the workers can't be fired. An illegal strike means the workers can be fired. A factory strike is one thing. It hurts the bottom line and it sucks for the shareholders and the consumers, but at least it doesn't affect the security of the people, the general stability of society, or the education of children. We can't have cops strike and let the criminals have a field day or have teachers skip out on school and let kids have a field day.
Also, they are striking for much more than just the benefits issue. They're striking because this is an assault on their right to collective bargaining. Essentially, this is an assault on unionization. People in this country do not get riled up about things this easily. The stakes must be high in order to cause this sort of passion and audacious disregard for rules.
Yes, to be fair, that's also one of their big complaints, and I did leave that out before, but the two complaints are connected. They want that right to collective bargaining because they want to continue this dysfunctional arrangement that shields them from economic reality and allows them to legally bribe their way to ever-growing compensation. Either way, it's still about them getting money.
I think the stakes are high because of politics. The unions and the Democratic party have a symbiotic relationship and if a union stronghold like Wisconsin breaks the power of the unions there and it catches on, it could hurt the Democrat party everywhere. That's why the President's OFA group and the Democrat party are sending buses of protesters to this thing- it will have huge repercussions. Now, I don't think hurting the Democrat party should be a motive in this. I think the motive should be fixing a broken system and that's exactly what they're trying to do. On the other side of the coin, I would hope that Democrats would also base their position on what system works best, not what political party it hurts or helps. Luckily, if this poll is any indication, at least 40% already do see it that way:
Poll: Public unions a hard sell - Ben Smith - POLITICO.com
Wow, long post. Well, I'm off to bed. Have a good night.
Then this really is just a ploy to bust the unions, and the more Walker and the corporate thugs backing him try to lie about it, the worse they look. How exactly will not getting rid of the collective bargaining rights lead to thousands of layoffs? That doesn't make any sense at all to me.
