Walker survives recall vote

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I have never liked it. Until the year 2003, my state had the authority to break into my house and charge me as a felon for "crimes against nature" because I offended their murdering, genocidal bastard of a god, and it was a democratically elected legislature that passed and upheld those laws. A Supreme Court ruling struck those laws down...it would never have passed a referendum. To me, that's ultimate proof that "democracy" is a thoroughly stupid idea.

No, I don't give a crap about democracy. I think it's the biggest joke in history. In a world where people in general are thorough asstards toward each other about 80% of their waking hours, I am thankful that I live under a system of government where I can pay off a lawyer to defend my rights in a court of law. At least then I have a fighting chance. Majoritarianism is a crock of s**t.

Frankly, I don't really even care much for the views espoused by the people who got the recall vote thing started. Their collective bargaining law was archaic and out-moded anyway, and it should have had an outright overhaul about a half-century ago. I just think they were dumb to put their cause up for referendum. It only serves to give Walker's side the trappings of legitimacy while their society dissolves into chaos around them. There is only so far these labor goons can be pushed before they start setting off bombs or something.

Dude, we are heading straight for a debt crisis, right now. WHEN the s**t finally hits the fan, you know what is going to happen? Everyone will be covered in s**t. Tada! If the labor faction in Wisconsin is already a powderkeg, that would be the match, buddy. Walker's election win means nothing unless he has the intelligence to smooth over soiled relations with the damn labor goons. Otherwise, he's digging his hole deeper.

You should just consider yourself lucky it won't be President Santorum or Bachmann.............this time.

I realize I'm probably the one being naive now, but I believe in democracy. Maybe not always in practice, but in theory, at least. But then, that may be because, in theory, democracy (or the way most American scholars understand it, at least) does not refer to putting minority rights up for referendum. Supposedly, everyone in the US is constitutionally guaranteed the rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness", regardless of whether they are white, black, Asian or Native American, male or female, Christian, Jewish, Muslim or atheist, straight or gay, Republican or Democrat, rich or poor, NT or Aspie. Under those parameters, I think democracy is actually a pretty good system. Certainly not perfect, but how close have we ever come to perfection in regards to a system of government?

The real problem here, as you've pointed out, is that in practice we are now conflating "democracy" with the practice of majoritarian voting on minority rights-- and the Republicans are leading that charge, and they have rich and powerful interests backing them and skewing the voting process so they get their way more often than not. That isn't supposed to be how the system works. That's not really even democracy anymore-- that's a plutocracy.

Was it ever a democracy?

Well, okay, the closest we ever came was probably FDR.

Unbelievably wrong.

FDR was an American style neo-fascist. Think of fascism with a smiley face.

ruveyn

The so-called "labor goons" are only a minority of the people Walker managed to piss off. Most government workers (union extremists notwithstanding) are willing to take cuts in the name of helping the budget. The problem is that isn't Walker's agenda. He is a right wing ideologue who wants to redistribute the cuts in the form of tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations. All the Tea Party affiliated republicans come off as opportunists exploiting the budget crisis in order to pursue their radical "bleed the beast" agenda.

Good to see Wisconsin has their act together.

Wouldst thou be +r0ll1ng?

Any opinion that opposes the left on this forum is seen as trolling.
Gotta suppress that free thought ya know.....

Is that why you got a spanking for calling someone a tr***?

But, thank you for your admission.

Most of government union workers(that I know at least) were personally more upset about the cuts to benefits than anything else. They had to begin contributing to their pensions and a bigger share of the healthcare, both still well below their private sector counterparts but that's what they felt on a personal level. Pretty much all of them would rather the state laid off worker(preferably not them) as opposed to them making a shared sacrifice.

The union leadership, on the other hand, were more upset about the ending of automatic deductions of union dues from worker's paychecks and the power of collective bargaining. The problem with these automatic deductions is that it's taxpayer money that gets handed to the union that the union uses to fund politicians that in turn vote to give more money to the unions. It was a broken system and it's a problem with fundamental problem unionized government workers, they're not dependent on economic growth and don't benefit from any fiscal responsibility like any private entity would be. They depend on the taxpayer carrying the burden and it's bankrupting many parts of this country.

The reforms in Wisconsin are working and many municipalities now have been able to keep their head above water because of them. Tom Barrett, the Democratic candidate and mayor of Milwaukee, used the reforms to help balance his own city's budget.

The tax cut issue, equal pay, and 'corruption' investigation were all drummed up most to energize the democratic base and weren't really based in fact. It just turned into a typical partisan election, the democrats didn't run on the issue that sparked the recall to begin with. Honestly, the 2010 election between Barrett and Walker was a lot more nasty.