(Warner Todd Huston/The Union Label) – One cannot be a leftist without being a hypocrite. It really is just that simple. The last several days in Wisconsin has again born that truism out, too, as teachers union thugs in the Badger State have indulged every manner of behavior that they have constantly condemned the right for engaging in — even as no one on the right has actually done the things the left charges them with doing.
With the protests that swept down upon the State Capitol in Madison we are seeing the sort of behavior that is the antithesis of democracy. These teacher thugs are flooding into the capitol disrupting the state senate chambers, these teacher thugs are sporting signs with Governor Walker depicted as Hitler, these teacher thugs are attempting to thwart the will of the voters that put a Republican Governor into office to do exactly what he is trying to do, these teacher thugs are even making a pig sty out of the capitol grounds with piles and piles of garbage.
So what is all this about? Simply that the State of Wisconsin is out of money and can no longer afford to pay public employees more in wages, benefits, and pensions than anyone in the private sector can make. Newly elected Governor Scott Walker ran on a platform of reigning in the greedy, overpaid unions and he is now making good on that campaign issue.
Worse, these teacher thugs have shut down the schools and taken the kids from the schools to the state capitol to whine for the union agenda. Imagine how up in arms the left would be if conservatives had taken kids out of school to take them to a political rally!
Interviews with some of these kids also proves that they really haven’t a clue why they are there, either. Rush Limbaugh played some TV news reports of these kids being interviewed at the capitol and the kids just didn’t know what was going on at all.
Patrick McIlheran of the Milwaukee Sentinel correctly notes that these union thugs are trying to upend the results of the elections by force.
The public-sector union tantrums, meant to make lawmakers wobble, have an inadvertent message for the rest of us: Voters can vote all they want. We can elect a cheapskate governor and a Legislature to match. But come the moment, unions will have the last, loudest word.
McIlheran also notes that this whole attack on democracy perpetrated by these union thugs is also built on lies and subterfuge. Governor Walker is not proposing to eliminate the union (though I would certainly support that move) but is only trying to require that these public employee union members pay more into their pensions and healthcare plans.
In fact, Walker’s goal, he has said, is to avoid laying off public employees. He hopes that by asking union members to pay a tiny bit more into their own pensions and healthcare will take pressure off the bankrupt state’s coffers. He hopes that the hike in premiums will help keep the employees at work. If he cannot get these concessions, though, he’ll be forced to begin massive layoffs.
Sadly, instead of seeing reality writing on the wall, unions are doubling down on their anti-democratic, greedy, unsustainable demands. They realize that they are fast losing the complete lock on power they once had and instead of making logical concessions they are making it war to the hilt.
The American people are about sick of these union thugs. Prepare for the teachers to lose all sympathy from the voters.
(Video and audio has been edited. To view, please visit The Union Label. – Ed.)