Is “This What Democracy looks like?” Is It Really Freedom Of Choice Or Freedom To Intimidate. Is forcing someone to do something that they may not want to do actually Democracy? Isn’t freedom of choice an inherent right in America?
We are hearing the Chants that, “This Is What Democracy Looks Like“. Is going to someone’s home such as an elected official because you may disagree with a vote that elected official made really a founding principle in the Democratic form of society? Is forcing someone into a Union just to have an opportunity to make a living a real principle of freedom in a free society. I am not asking these questions to bash the Unions or its members, I am asking them because we are hearing that this is supposed to be what some would consider a version of Democracy and others may not.
Is forcing people to not have a private vote truly Democratic? When we look at what we are supposed to understand of a society that has the freedom, to not be intimidated to vote by influence, but by personal choice and if that personal choice is taken away by the influence of intimidation, how could we consider that a Democratic principle?
In a free and open society, the individual should have the freedom to make a decision to either join a Union or not join a Union. When it is forced upon a person that is not freedom. You can say go find another job, but what if that whole profession is dominated by forced membership? How does that leave the freedom of choice open to the individual?
Historically Unions have helped in benefiting the workers of America and I will not take anything away from that. Today we are hearing the traditional scare tactic that if Unions go away that we would revert to being slaves to, ” Our Corporate Masters“, but let’s examine that theory a little deeper. Today’s labor battlefield that we see playing out is not between private corporations and private workers, but between public employees and the taxpaying public.
In the private sector collective bargaining between the party’s is done with the understanding that if the company has too much imposed on them they may very well go out of business and it is not in the best interest of the Unions to force that upon the business. In the public sector though for a long period of time it was standard practice that increases in benefits and wages had no ceiling because it has been perceived that the “Corporate Masters” could always find additional income by increasing the tax burden on the public. In good economic times that may have been the case, but in the eventual reality that we all now face that is unsustainable.
The “Corporate Masters” in this case are you and I, according to the Unions it is you and I that want the “Workers” to be slaves. Now this is completely the farthest from the truth that anyone could try to convince any reasonably thinking person into believing. This does not stop those who choose to play this card though in the attempt to get public opinion turned against those that are wanting to do the adult responsible thing of reigning in our fiscal troubles.
Just as it has been asked of those who work in the private sector both Union and Non Union to maintain the viability of the company, concessions have to be made. What is being asked of the public sector employees is far less than what those in the private sector have had to face over the last few years. This has not stopped the intimidation tactics of attempting to keep the status quo alive and kicking though.
The class warfare card is being played on a scale reminiscent of the rise of Communists in Imperial Russia. This should come as no big surprise considering the forces allied together. You have Socialists and Communists allied with the Union leadership that have been the driving force behind the miss information campaign and intimidation tactics that we see prevailing in this current climate. We have those that are in the Unions being led along like Lenin stated, ” Willing Idiots” , without examining the fact that what is being asked of these private sector employees is far less than what has been asked of their private sector counterparts.
When those in the private sector were asked to give up their pensions and take dramatic cuts to maintain their opportunity to collect a paycheck we did not see the riots and blatant disrespect to public property as we see occurring today. We did not see Jesse Jackson show up on the steps of a corporate headquarters for a photo op decrying that this is a racial issue, because it is not even though we cannot expect someone such as he to never miss an opportunity to use an intimidation tactic to try and convince you otherwise.
In Wisconsin alone we have witnessed the tactic of intimidation play out on a scale never seen before in this country. Not only are the Unions and those that are allied with them falsely stating that what Governor Scott Walker is attempting to do by reigning in the debt burden facing his state, but they are stating that he wants to end all collective bargaining in the process and that is absolutely incorrect.
What is not said in the Media and by those that are expressing their “Rage” is that he is not eliminating collective bargaining on wage issues and that he wants to have an environment that teachers can remained employed rather than being forced to lay off due to the overall debt burden of the state and the obligations that were collective bargained in the past when economic times were better, or at least perceived better.
Let’s be honest when we are throwing around the term slavery.
On a continual loop we are hearing that the “Corporate Masters” want to make the “Workers” nothing more than slaves, but is this really reality or is it just a form of intimidation in the attempt to sway public opinion? Let’s be honest when we are throwing around the term slavery. Public sector employees average salaries and benefits than their counterparts in the private sector, and it is those counterparts in the private sector that pay for the public sector employees to be able to enjoy that privilege.
Who at that point is the slave master and the slave? Where is the freedom afforded to those taxpayers that have to continually sacrifice so that a small fraction of society is allowed to continue along the path that allows them the privileges that they and their children are not afforded, due to the increased burden to give up any extra wealth that they may have? Is this “What Democracy” really looks like?
It is one thing looking at the private sector and examining the incomes of corporate heads and the difference in range of wages between those that are employed by them and that of the public sector. When the Unions come to the table to collective bargain in the private sector they have to take into account that if they push it to far the corporations and business have the freedom of choice to close the business.
The Unions in all of its “glory” cannot change this fact and have to walk a tight line unlike when they do so with the public sector. The tactic of intimidation only goes so far and this is why we do not see in the end the same scenarios playing out as we do throughout the states as the government works to reign in the liabilities of the promises made during “good” times.
The “Days Of Rage” and the borderline rhetoric of revolt that we see prevailing out of the “protesters” are built upon a false ideal that a utopian environment could prevail on the backside of a “Workers Uprising”. History has shown this to be false time and again, but many would not understand that as history has been revised to fit a different version in our schools and in our media. Today all you have to do is to look to Europe and see that the so called Utopia just does not exist.
As I stated , I am not bashing Unions or its members, I am a member myself and a student of history. I believe in the accomplishments that the Unions in the past afforded to all of us, and I support for the most part many of the ones that they work for each and every day today. I am also someone that looks at things from both sides of the isle and I see that certain things do have to occur in both the private sector and in the public sector that we may not like, but is essential for the long term viability be it a business or our fiscal health as states and as a nation. Union members need to examine just who may be standing next to them at these rallies.
Union members need to really examine what it is that they want this country to look like, do they support Socialism and Communism and do they fully understand the repercussions that it entails? They need to ask themselves are they willing to go so far as inciting civil unrest that leads to even more loss of freedoms. Are these members fully and truly aware that they are being played as the pawns in the bigger chess match that is going on and in the end it is they who will suffer right along with all those they think they are aligned against.
It is up to all of us to take the steps that allows for us to be able to have a chance to stay a Union of fellow free citizens.
We are at a crossroad and Union Members need to look at the leadership and question what is the real underlying motivation to the use of intimidation and the back to back tactic of divide that class war and racial division brings about. How willing in the headlong path of dividing this nation are they willing to go?
Will they be willing to take up arms against their fellow citizens? Will they be willing to go out in the streets and cause physical harm to their neighbors just because they were unwilling to give up some of the perks they may have enjoyed in the good times, but are being asked to temporarily sacrifice as their neighbors have. Let’s face reality here for a moment, our country and our states are all on the brink of crumbling under the fiscal debt that we all helped create. It is up to all of us to take the steps that allows for us to be able to have a chance to stay a Union of fellow free citizens.
We cannot keep kicking the problem down the road and we cannot keep teaching the next generations revised history to fit an agenda that favors Socialist or Marxist ideals because that is not what “Democracy Looks Like!” Intimidation and forcing people not to have the right of free choice is not what freedom is made of. Disrespect to our public spaces and our elected officials going so far as threatening death just because you disapprove of something that they may have enacted has no place in our society and should not be exercised by either side of the issue.
We are a body of citizens that for the most part respect each other, once we lose that respect we will spiral down in the depths of allowing forces to step in that will take away our freedoms and will be willing to impose a form of slavery upon each of us that all those who came before us fought against.
This includes Union members and non union members, this includes all the “willing idiots” that Lenin spoke of that today are calling for this type of thing to occur. It is a shame that more people do not fully understand the game that is being played. They have been denied the truth that history has shown to exhibit when we become willing accomplices in the transformation from the free, though not perfect society, that we live in now to a society where you are not afforded the freedom of choice or individual liberty. To not be burdened by having to fuel the crack addict behaviors that keeps us in the perpetual cycle that have led us to this juncture.
Ask yourself is this what Democracy looks like when we decide that any means is justifiable as long as we get to the end goal and what really is that end goal? Do you really know? Was “Change” ever defined? Was “Hope” ever defined? What is it that you really want to allow this country to transform into? Is it freedom or is it a form of servitude that all citizens union and non union will be dealt.
