RIGHT TO WORK VS. PUBLIC OBSCENITY

There was an article under the heading of "Political Intelligence" at Boston.com, about a businessman who is campaigning for a so-called "right to work" bill. Here's the link: http://www.boston.com/Boston/politicalintelligence/2011/08/union-protests-company-owner-who-backs-right-work-bill/L2nrR9evkjGaptw1b1sCsM/index.html

and here's my response:

First, only two of the union leaders' statements were published, and one of them was, "...there’s going to be a price to pay for that,” said Kurt Ehrenberg,..." I would interpret that as a threat of something more than peaceful protests. There is also a reference to the incident when 300 unionists (to use a 19th century term) swamped a Legislative hearing last year. Contemporary reports of that incident described it as very nearly violent, and most emphatically intimidating.

Now this is a bit more abstract: As the law reads right now, the unions can not force people to join them, but they CAN force people to pay dues, whether or not they are members of the union. In my opinion, any defense of such a practice, no matter how eloquent or civil, is obscene and should be punishable by imprisonment, at least.

Consider this - which I do not mean to be a definitive argument, but merely an example: Telling people what they can eat, what they do with their spare time, or what kind of art they may hang in their homes would violate any number of articles of the Constitution, not to mention basic laws of human decency. So the union is allowed to tell people, "You know that 20 bucks a month you were going to use to take your wife to dinner, or put in your vacation fund, or decorate your home? Well, screw you. Give it to us."

Now consider this: what if it weren't a government-sanctified union, but a street thug, demanding dane geld? I believe a citizen would be justified in setting the law on that thug, and if it turned out the law were in collusion with the thug, I believe a bit of gun play would be fully justified.

In this particular case, while the immediate behavior of the union HINTED at thuggery, their moral principles are, as they say, "in the tank" for thuggery.

MY QUEST FOR CIVILITY

Set humor and sarcasm to "off." I struggle with this every day. When I got out of the Marines, I'd been so brutalized BY Blacks for 4 years that I was filled with hatred - a real candidate for the KKK. A string of miracles (that I used to call "coincidence") pulled me back from the edge of that pit. When I was finally able to get some distance from myself and see what I had almost become, it filled me with shame and regret. I never became what you'd call a pacifist, or anything close to that, but for the past 35 years or so, I have worked very, very hard at rooting out and exorcising the racism and hatred from my thinking and my character.

As the old saying goes, "God knows I'm not what I should be, but I thank God I'm not what I used to be."

In about the last 4 or 5 years, though, that old devil has regained a lot of lost ground. The Scriptures tell us that, "...there must needs be opposition in all things." If there is a love that transfigures and saves a man's soul, mustn't there also be the polar opposite of that love? I think this is one of the greatest tasks Heavenly Father has set us: to practice the one extreme while denying the other. For much of my life, this challenge has been beyond my ability - and vastly beyond my faith!

So I find myself in the position of having found an earthly love that is the greatest I've ever known. It has, literally, transfigured me and brought me to my knees in supplication that I might be worthy of the smallest part of it. The love of which I speak is what I feel for my children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. (For those about to castigate me for calling them mine when they aren't - you're right. They are my step-children and grandchildren. But if you who bite from behind at the sinews of my heart had the faintest notion of the love that drives me, you might close your serpent's mouths, and wonder.)

The great love that has moved me so far demands that I do all I can to leave these precious ones a legacy - an inheritance - of the the best I have - the firstlings of my life, as it were. I have no money or worldly wealth to leave them. I have only honor and liberty. If they have these, they will find their own way to those other virtues: forbearance, charity, gratitude, humility, and all of those other traits that prove Mankind to be the child of our Father.

What do I see now? I see that honor attacked and ridiculed on all sides. I see that liberty thrown down and trampled under the feet of entities not worthy of the phlegm of those who gave it birth - who sewed the stripes of its banner with their muscle and bone, and dyed it with their blood. I see the liberty that ought to be guaranteed to my precious ones defiled and perverted with a wanton maliciousness that would make the demons of the pit hang their heads in shame. I see the future of my children squandered for cheap, ephemeral political glory and power.

I see the sacrifices of generations of men and women who shed oceans of sweat and blood to secure the liberty decreed by My Father in Heaven as the birthright of His children. And I see those sacrifices, not just disagreed with - not just pushed out of style - but kicked through the sewers of the vilest imaginations of the human mind.

Then the emotions that swamp this old scrapper's heart turn hard and hot, and I say things that I know are wrong, and think things that have no place in a Christian mind. I fight these things at the same time I'm fighting what gives them rise. Some days are better than others.

I ask you, though, my dear and gentle friends: do not think me so low and savage that I would feel these things because of a disagreement, or a difference of opinion.

TRICKLE DOWN

A comparison: Secenario 1 - the government takes money from them that has it and gives it to them that don't. Them that has just gotten it spends it on... whatever, and then they don't have it no more. Them to whom it was spent has it now, so they spends it on... whatever. So on and on.

In this scenario, the money was placed in the hands of a chosen elite, and from there, it distilled out across the economic society - or, dare I say, "trickled down."

Scenario 2 - the government lets them that made the money keep it. Some of it they spends on... whatever, then they don't have so much no more. Them to whom it was spent has it now, so they spends it on... whatever. And so on and on. Now, them that made the money didn't spend all they had 'cause they's so stinkin', flithy rich. So what does they do with the rest of it? They invests it. What does that mean? It means that the money is loaned to them that needs it to start new businesses or expand existing businesses, or buy houses, or take vacations, or send their babies to college, or... whatever. And, as in every case, them to whom the money was given spends it, and them to whom it was spent spends it... and so on and on.

In this scenario, the money was left in the hands of the organizers (or creators) of wealth, and from there, it distilled across the economic society - or, dare I say, "Trickled down."

In spite of the apparent equivalency of the bottom line, the two scenarios are vastly different. In the first, there is chattel slavery of anyone the government chooses to call "rich." In the second, there is liberty.

In the first, decisions on the seizure and redistribution of wealth are made by government flacks who are known, beyond any shadow of a doubt, to be stinkin' crooks. In the second, some distributions may also be made my corporate flacks who are stinkin' crooks, but some will be made by those who understand things like honor, courage, integrity, risk, desire, drive, and persistence.

And here is a difference that I have never read anywhere else: In the first scenario, graft is a recognized, institutionalized part of the culture, to be aided, edified, sucked-up to, and bartered for more of the same.

In the second scenario, graft is a crime, and is punishable to the extent that the people have the will to punish it.