Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Extortion

Thy name is public employee union.

Michael Barone has a splendid essay in the Washington Examiner about how taxpayers are being forced to support the Democratic Party through the latter’s incestuous relationship with government unions:
Follow the money, Washington reporters like to say. The money in this case comes from taxpayers, present and future, who are the source of every penny of dues paid to public employee unions, who in turn spend much of that money on politics, almost all of it for Democrats. In effect, public employee unions are a mechanism by which every taxpayer is forced to fund the Democratic Party.
Thomas Jefferson wrote that “to compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.” Democrats and their union pals might want to mull that one over before the people begin taking to heart another of Jefferson’s beliefs: “A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high virtues of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation.” And this one: “I hold it that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.”

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh, sure, quote that white racist Jefferson. He's, like, the original teabagger or something, man.

Paco said...

Yeah, I know. But even old, dead white guys get it right sometimes.

RebeccaH said...

Yeah, and he or his nephew sired half-black children. Maybe. Which is a sin, or a no-no, or something. So why would reality-based people listen to him?

Seriously, why isn't this a 2012 campaign issue? Why aren't a LOT of these revelations a 2012 campaign issue? Are the Republicans brain-dead?

Oh. Wait...

bruce said...

Big Labor has totally corrupted Australia's political system. We should adopt Jeffersonian ideas to free ourselves from the morass.