10,000 Lies

Does the truth we find in this humor scare anyone else?

I’ve had the following images floating around on my computer for a while, waiting for me to actually post them. It seems to me, in their attempt to paint the liberal and Democrat as the loving, caring, truly human leadership, anybody with a mind will recognize the fallacies and dangers of the blanket statements made in this children’s book.

Children reading this book will be cursed with the feeling there is actual truth to be found in the ideas. They will accept without thinking the lies of socialism and liberal socio-political theory and practice.

Read and weep for America.

What parent wants their children to hurt?

What parent tries to protect the children from the pains of life?

What parent can?

Laudable.

But given the current state of Political-Business relations, wouldn’t it be more accurate to say: “Democrats give the Police Officers’ and Firefighters’ Unions the tools they need to keep dead weight and stupid policies in place hampering the heroes efforts, abilities, skills, and desires to serve as they are called”?

And I would want my children to go to those war-zones, indoctrination facilities, stupid-makers, great-levellers of the people they call schools?

I know what they mean is that we can all go to college. But 1) where is that a constitutional right or a universal requirement, and 2) aren’t there plenty of great colleges for cheap?

There are plenty of jobs in which one can work their way up to a comfortable level of pay which require no college. And the government has neither interest nor right to take money from those who aren’t going to college to give to those who are.

Maybe if there were less “free” money floating around from the government, the cost of education would come down, and only those dedicated and intelligent people would stay in teaching as it became less of a lucrative career option.

Democrats are government, not Mommy. This is a legitimate role for Mommy, not government.

To the extent that Democrats seek to usurp this role, they confuse the nature of society and culture. This is immoral.

Pompous, self-aggrandizing, megalomaniacal do-gooders!

Show me someone who believes this and I’ll show you someone certifiably insane.

First, there is no proof the Earth is “sick” with Global warming. There is proof there are regular and natural cycles of warming and cooling, and there is not proof we are even in a warming cycle.

Second, the temerity of the writer and those who agree with him in assuming a political party which has existed a mere 200 years has the might to enact significant change in an entire planet which they believe has existed 4.5 Billion years.

Someone call the nice men in white coats.

False.

The truth is, Democrats make sure schools cannot fire bad teachers. Democrats make sure children know all about condoms and how to have sex with each other, leaving it to the parents to teach reading and writing and true morals.

Individually, Democrats are generally caring people. But are they busy loving people to hell?

UPDATE:

These are not parodies, these are selections from one of two books for children:

Why Mommy Is A Democrat & Why Daddy Is A Democrat

Asking Too Much

Over at the Evergreen Freedom Foundation blog, Lynn Harsh presents a reasonable argument which will be dismissed as all the others which come against the entrenched and combined strength of the public education establishment and the teachers unions.

What is so difficult to see and understand regarding the benefits that competition would bring to education.

Is it that difficult to see that on average private schools can do and have done more with significantly less money than the public schools?

Is it hard to stomach that the system is broken, and that pouring more money into it is NOT the solution?

Yes it is. Because it is lust for power that drives bureaucracies and unions, fueling and feeding their insatiable appetites. Power is as blinding as it is grasping.

Political Payback

In this video, Tom Bates, President of the Bucks County AFL-IO pledges to show local Democrat candidates how politically powerful the AFL-CIO is. We’ll show the candidates of Bucks County what we can do for them, he dreams.

“And just think what they will do for us later,” he says and recites a litany of union subsidies such as Employee Free Choice, health care, and project labor agreements. “Just think what that will do for labor and working people.”

Money and volunteers may be Tom’s only draw because his presentation style… well, lacks charisma.

UAW Gets $35 Billion In Pocket Change

UAW’s strike against GM didn’t last long, but it caught the nation’s attention. That may not be a good thing, though, because now the nation knows that union health benefits are unsustainable in today’s economy and UAW bosses were given $35 billion in pocket change for assuming responsibility for retiree health care.

A key detail: payouts to the 300,000 retired members won’t begin until 2010 and GM will still have to make contributions if the original $35 billion proves insufficient.

But the union cannot be serious about taking on this responsibility. Throughout history union bosses have proven themselves adept at passing responsibility from themselves to others. And nothing has changed.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the UAW took the $35 billion only on condition that GM help lobby for a national health care plan. Chaching! Why didn’t I think of that? I wouldn’t blink at managing $35 billion so long as a national health care plan is implemented in the next four years. Even if I embezzled it all, I wouldn’t have time to spend it all before Hillary popped in her national plan.

First, this arrangement gives UAW all the more reason to put Hillary in office.

Second, what will become of the $35 billion “band aid” once the union throws its retiree members to the one-size-fits-all government meat grinder? Certainly not the feds and certainly not back to GM!

I’ll leave you to imagine the rest.

While You Were Sleeping

The enviro-wackos and green-commies won big over the weekend. The result: Cars will cost more to buy and maintain, draconian government will continue to grow, and stupidity will continue to thrive.

The Detroit Automakers lost in state court a “trial of experts” in which they hed tried to establish legal precedent against strict environmental  regulation by states. Reading the comments by two winning attorneys, I am struck by a few things:

• A judge thinks they can understand the intricacies of technology and innovation and control its progress. As I’ve postulated before, the current government and resulting business climate in America is stifling to to innovation, and to force or coerce innovation results in shoddy design and poor quality. This does not excuse the reticence of Detroit to actually innovate as long as they can keep the lines to their dealerships to buy already shoddy cars for way too much money, but we’re focused on the government problem right now.
• Lawyers are a sharkish and unloyal breed. One of the commenting attorneys quips ”
  

  Vermont, California and the other states have crafted new rules that will force the US automakers to catch up. They should start now, by firing their lawyers and hiring more engineers.

  I’ve got nothing against unloyal lawyers, but the smug superiority embodied in this response, the idea that “I know best” is thick and ugly.

• Unions are now an ugly blight on America. One particularly difficult problem is that of unions. Nearly all useful and necessary worker change supported by the unions has been enacted and codified in law and precedent, unions exist now to protect the lazy, the incompetent and their own power structures. The WSJ article on this ruling briefly mentions that the automakers are now in negotiations for a new union contract. I’m all for paying an employee what they’re worth and for caring for employees. That is the responsibility of the business and should be a sign of a good employer, not regulated by the government and used as a screen, hiding bad employers.

I’m all for companies innovating and making their cars more efficient and safer.

The problem is that coercing innovation does not work. Environmental regulation is misguided at best and evil at worst, focusing on the wrong thing and exacting a toll greater than the benefits that can be attained just by common sense and practicality. And government is not the answer now, it has not been in the past, and what evidence do we have that it will be the answer in the future?

Gay, Gay, Gay!

After the twisted1ogics earlier post on the abuse San Diego Firefighters experienced at the Gay Pride orgy parade in San Diego, this series of news articles highlights an event with related significance. The first presidential debate with the specific intent of highlighting the homosexual in current American society. Hosted by a pro-homosexual organization and a cable TV channel catering to homosexuals, Democrat Presidential hopefuls met in Hollywood last night.

Here’s the rundown on where most of the Democrat Presidential candidates stand on the issue of homosexuals and alternative lifestyles:

All six candidates present voiced their support for civil unions with the same rights as marriage. This puts the lie to the claims of opportunists and incrementalists who keep saying that civil unions are not going to be “marriage by a different name”.

Cynical Liar Moment: Clinton said that her husband signing the Defense Of Marriage Amendment (DOMA) helped deflect Republican criticism of Democrats during the 2004 elections: “DOMA provided great protection against the Republican strategy to cynically use marriage as a political tool.” So she is not interested in being honest and telling us what she really means to do. She will do whatever necessary to accomplish her ends. How do we know she’s telling the truth ever, if she will publicly say that she lies to suit her own ends?

Dogma Moment: Bill Richardson, asked if homosexuality is a choice or biological, answers that it is a choice, uncomfortably. The questioner says “I don’t think you understand the question” and proceeds to reiterate the same question. This isn’t up for decision, she’s saying, any answer but the one I want to hear is unacceptable. First, this is a forum where your whole purpose is to see WHAT they believe. And if they believe what you’d like them to believe, that is good for you, and if they don’t believe what you want them to believe, it is honest of them, but you still have to accept the answer as being a valid answer. Even wrong answers are valid, they’re just wrong. This shows the close-mindedness and bigotry so often pointed out in the pro-marriage side is rampant in the homosexual side.

Telling Truth:

All the Democrat candidates voiced their support for homosexual-friendly civil unions with all the rights and privileges of traditional marriage, two voiced support for actually calling homosexual unions “marriage”. Compare this to the arguments of incrementalists and opportunists claiming they are not seeking “marriage by a different name”. This is what we face. This is the truth right now. Any Democrat nominee for President will support nation-wide civil unions allowing homosexual couples to marry in America. Or at least we cannot trust them not to support them. Liars can only really be trusted to lie.

The tacit acceptance of the claims of homosexuals that by not giving their choice of couple-hood the same benefits and responsibilities as heterosexual married couples we are somehow denying their basic rights is at once both the most insidious and untruthful argument in their arsenal. First, a homosexual has exactly the same rights of any other human and American. They are allowed freedom and liberty in what they believe and what they say. They are granted protection under the law and under the law-keepers. They are allowed to live however and with whomever they please. A heterosexual is not allowed to be a pedophile any more than a homosexual is (NAMBLA would love to change this). Within the law of nature and nature’s God, all humans are equally blessed and equally responsible. What causes this idea that by denying a romantically/sexually involved homosexual couple the legal benefits afforded to heterosexual couples you are denying their basic rights is an identity born from sexuality. Rights are based on whether one is human or not, and may be modified of reduced morally if you have violated another’s rights. Rights are not based on sexuality or gender or color or any other subdivision of humanity.

In fact, most cultural jealousies these days are born from a a desire to have different rights than another group of humans, and some of the greatest most respected crusaders through history were those who sought to and succeeded in causing the sea change rectifying disparities in the rights of various groups of humans.

There is no just or moral basis for any difference in rights based on any criteria besides our humanity.

News articles on the forum:

• National Journal: Don’t Ask, They’ll Tell
• Variety: Democrats Gather In Hollywood
• CQPolitics.com: Six Democrats At Candidate Forum Wear Shades Of Gray On Gay Marriage
• Philadelphia Enquirer: Democrats Get Tough Questions At Gay Forum

A Publicly Funded Political Party?

I don’t know where this video was taken, but I know these organizing and lobbying schools are common. California funds a labor center at the University of Berkly and Washington state funds another at its Evergreen College. Should the state be taking sides in the labor/management debate particularly in funding labor organizers and lobbyists?

It is not the government’s job to pick the winners and losers in an economy. It’s responsibility is to merely level the playing field so everybody can compete.

Unions Vs. Competition

I’m reading an intriguing study on the decline in the labor movement over the last 50 years. The author says it is not because of the change from an industrial economy to a services economy. Nor is it the result of a better educated workforce, management opposition or government regulations. Rather, the decline is the result of competition.

The union heyday, between 1945 and 1955, was the result of “corporatist” policies. This title describes the combination of policies in three areas.

• Above-market price controls (limiting competition between companies)
• Pro-labor policies (limiting wage competition by mandating above market wages)
• Suspension of anti-trust laws (necessary to legalize the above two policies)

The original corporatist policy passed by Congress was ruled unconstitutional and, a few years later, the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) was passed to replace it.

But, the author argues, while generally pro-labor, the NLRA was actually the beginning of the decline of Big Labor. Why? Because the NLRA only included the labor prong of the original corporatist policies. It abandoned the price controls and limitations on anti-trust laws.The resulting competition into the consumer market sparked the beginning of the end of Big Labor’s influence. Corporations now had to compete for profit and all expenses were scrutinized for potential savings, including labor costs.

Now don’t buy the rhetoric against profit (Oil companies anybody?). A free market will automatically adjust wages and prices (a global market complicates the equation, but it remains a truism). Why? Because:

• On one hand, companies must keep wages low enough to attract customers.
• On the other hand, companies must pay employees enough to maintain a competent and stable workforce.

Although it may take time, these two forces will balance out (Take the effect that the increase in gas prices and the government mandates for ethanol has had on the food market. Wages are increasing accordingly as the cost of cost of living increases and workers demand more.)

The conclusion: so long as the purpose of unions is to mandate wages above the market rate, unions will continue to decline because:

• Employers will become less efficient and
• Increased wages will decrease the number of employees an employer can hire with an available pool of money, reducing the number of potential union members.

Colbert Congratulates Carpenters For Finally Becoming Management

A follow-up on last night’s post…

Colbert, from Comedy Central, spoofed the contradiction congratulating the Carpenters for reaching the echelons of “management.”

Carpenters’ Union Outsources Picket Lines

In this video, one union boss oversees a picket line of homeless and transients the union hired to do work the union’s members won’t do themselves. When a reporter tries to ask the picketers questions, they say that they will be fired if they talked to him. The union boss remains tight lipped too.A few notes to complement this video…

Shopfloor’s Carter Wood did some research on how old this story is and poses the question: “The federal minimum wage went up yesterday. Did the carpenters give their homeless picketers a raise?”

Other mentions:

• Miami, Fla., October 2004: “When it comes to picketing, the Carpenters’ Union has discovered it’s smart to outsource. …That’s part of the strategy behind a flurry of protests outside a few Brickell Avenue towers in recent months. But complaints have filtered to Miami police regarding abusive language and use of the homeless to hold signs. “Maybe some are homeless, but not the majority,” Kuzmik said.
• Indianapolis, Ind., May 2005: “The labor group hires demonstrators–including many homeless and unemployed people who have little or no connection to the construction trades–to picket various projects, carrying giant fake rats on sticks or even wearing rat costumes.”
• Columbus, Ohio, August 2006: “Ohio and Vicinity Regional Council of Carpenters is upset that some contractors and property-management companies don’t pay carpenters the $22.50-an-hour standard wage and, perhaps, don’t pay for health insurance or pensions. So the union is picketing these companies. Well, sort of. The union itself is not doing the protesting. Rather, it has hired more than 160 nonunion people — the jobless and the homeless — to do its picketing.”
• Louisville, January 2005
• Denver, January 2006
• And as we noted yesterday, Street Sense, the self-help homeless tabloid, reported the story in August 2005.

Bret Jacobson at Laborpains.org also notes another newscase from back in August 2006. (Video here.)