Wisconsin As Radical Conservatives See It

Public employee unions are sucking us dry. They control government services, exercising monopoly economic power over the rest of us. They threaten to strike, grabbing high pay and high-cost benefits, because governments don't go bankrupt, they just cave--and raise taxes.

Taxes are theft, especially disproportionate (unfair) taxes on anyone who's made something of himself, and never got a hand out. And their money goes to all those good-for-nothings and scumbags who whine that they can't make it on their own.

So, of course Governor Walker cuts taxes on businesses and people with high incomes. He should; he's helping the people who create jobs.

Those liberals and socialists whine about 'inequality;' sure there's inequality: of skill, smarts and sheer hard work. That's why some people do well and others can't seem to get off the government's tit.

Cutting collective bargaining rights for teachers and such, is urgently needed. It'll curb those monopoly powers they've been abusing, demanding those high wages and killer pensions. They're all lefties, too, and the teachers probably would indoctrinate our kids if we didn't watch them like hawks.

That's why we're going bankrupt, these socialist unions are holding governments hostage.

That's the argument.

First of all, among workers of comparable age and education, public employees are paid slightly less on average. Sometimes, their pensions make up some of the difference, but they aren't extravagantly exploiting the people working in the private sector. And they don't hold governments for ransom.

The reason that private sector workers aren't paid more, and don't have good pensions, is not, at all because of the public employee unions. That doesn't even make sense. It's because private sector employers have been more and more aggressive banning unions, so they can pay workers less, and contribute less to their health care and 401(k)'s (preferred by employers to pensions, because they are only present, not future obligations).

While the wealthy do pay more dollars in income taxes than most, those dollars are a smaller proportion of their incomes, so they hurt less. Our tax system, on the whole (including payroll, sales, sin and property taxes) means: the wealthy pay a smaller proportion of their income the higher it gets.

But Wisconsin isn't about money; it's about power. People with money think they should be able to buy what they want with it, including lax regulations in their industry and cheap hard-working workers who don't talk back. They also want Pax Americana everywhere: it protects their overseas ventures and enables high profits from the huge military resulting.

Why do conservatives think people will simply surrender their rights? Because, many already have? The explosion was inevitable: Americans may be gulled, but they haven't been cowed. Yet.

If the Walkers win, contemporary Roman Senators will try to lord it over the serfs, but will Americans let them?