We’ve been entertained for the last while with the goings on in Wisconsin. The Mobs ransacking the capitol there… the protests… the threats of violence… and worse is the flotsam and jetsam that floats to the top. This time it’s Jesse Jackson and Mike Moore. These people are talking about Democracy… but they are showing us what they are really about. To them, Democracy is a code word for straight up Communism.
Just look at the similarities between the what they are doing in Wisconsin, and what the people were doing at the early stages of the Communist Revolution is Russia.
At best, Democracy is the Rule of the Mob. The Majority running roughshod over the Minority. In this case, it’s the Minority threatening and intimidating the Majority Leadership. It’s ugly and it’s wrong, and it’s not the American Way… because America is not a Democracy. We need to stop teaching that to School Kids. Public Education has programed kids to think we are what we are not. We are a Constitutional Republic. There is a huge difference… and that difference is what’s clashing in Wisconsin.
Exactly ogre. It’s part of the ongoing problem of words not meaning anything any more. I don’t think it even applies correctly to the method of election.
Like you, this really ticks me off. What is wrong with these people? I used to hear people saying that the US public school system was actually superior to that in Japan despite per-student expenditures way higher than in Japan and low scores on reading, writing and math tests. The reason commonly given is that rather than teaching “just the facts”, American kids learn “how to think”. Then we see videos of teachers saying that Walker is just like Hitler because Hitler banned labor unions… Based on this “logic”, since FDR rejected the idea of public sector unions, he was just like Hitler, too! If these are the people teaching our kids how to think, we’re in deep trouble. The taxpayers need to get off their behinds and put serious pressure on their representatives to reform public education, starting with “busting the unions” and firing the morons (both teachers who can’t teach and administrators who waste all the money).
I recently excoriated some relatives for using the word “democracy” in my presence. So sick of hearing that term. I reminded them that they should re-visit their American history, that we are a Republic and not a democracy. That democracy’s fail wherever they have been tried and it is the precise reason we are failing now.
One of my pet peeves is cussing, (for me, my kids are helping me to quit) and to me, “democracy” is a cuss word and I’m sick and tired of every GOP politician using that word. The GOP leadership should ban its use because its meaning is anathema to a free and flourishing society.
I’m happy to say that my kids have been correcting adults and their teachers at school when that word is bandied about.
Glad to see it is a burr under somebody else’s saddle besides mine.
Be grateful that the constitution to your republic was written by men who really valued freedom.
If it were written today, by today’s politicians how many of the rights protected by it would be included?
Recent events remind me of news reports I’ve seen of third world nations where a government has been voted out of office and they can’t accept the fact that they lost. So their supporters take to the streets to ‘protest’ ie. try to overthrow the newly elected regeime, because the election produced the ‘wrong’ result.
This isn’t confined to the US either. In the UK public sector unions are threatening strike action because the new slightly-less-socialist-than-the-last-lot government wants them to pay more towards their own pensions and the unions aren’t happy.
Of course in 1997 when private sector pensions were destroyed by the previous more-socialist-than-the-current-lot government to pay for a massive expansion of the public sector the unions were quite happy because it meant more money for them.
I don’t like how groups of people can game the system, accumulate power for themselves by getting just enough people to vote themselves in. Democracy is supposed to empower the People, take power away from leaders and dictators. But when it’s the cool kids club in power instead of King Whoever, is it that much better?
Representatives are supposed to represent the interest of the public, but instead so many of them regard public office as the ultimate plane of existence and they fight to do whatever it takes to get themselves re-elected. I guess this wouldn’t be too much of a problem with an engaged electorate, because they would stay on their toes and do what was asked of them. But when the public isn’t really paying attention, then the people who are paying attention really get a lot of pull.
I live in a small town. With 18 signatures, we can put a warrant article on the next town ballot. We had them turn off and remove some useless street lights, this past election. But some folks also got some spending increases passed.
Next year, I want to put on a warrant article to see if the voters will (literally) vote themselve “bread and circuses.” I expect it will be defeated, but I expect it will get all too many votes…
Did anyone notice how very few (if any) of the protesters that were being arrested and dragged away actually looked like they were employed anywhere … let alone look like teachers? Most of them looked like unwashed, hippie college students. Yes, there certainly were teachers and other unions represented at the state capital but the ones climbing through windows, shoving their way through security and dangling from the balconies sure didn’t look like middle class America.