Trouble in the Nanny State
By Ann Coulter
Like the proverbial monkey typing for infinity and getting Shakespeare,
Mayor Bloomberg's obsession with reforming New Yorkers' health has
finally produced a brilliant ad campaign.
Posters are popping up in subway stations and bus stops giving
statistics about teen pregnancy that show cute little kids saying things
like, "Honestly, Mom ... chances are he won't stay with you. What
happens to me?" and "I'm twice as likely not to graduate high school
because you had me as a teen."
(Based on a recent CBS report, the kid could add, "Then again, I'm in
the New York City public school system, so even if I graduate I won't be
able to read.")
It's one thing to stigmatize "Big Gulp" drinkers, but liberals are
hopping mad at this attempt to stigmatize teen pregnancy, 90 percent of
which is unwed. To put it another way, if you're a New York teen with a
distended belly these days, it had better be because you're pregnant.
Planned Parenthood's Haydee Morales complained that the ads are
creating "stigma" and "negative public opinions about teen pregnancy."
(I'm pretty sure that's the basic idea.)
Instead, Morales suggested "helping teens access health care, birth
control and high-quality sexual and reproductive health education." Like
the kind they got before becoming pregnant, you mean? Are you new here,
Haydee?
Coincidentally, Planned Parenthood happens to provide reproductive
health care! Liberals act as if gun owners, soda-guzzlers and smokers
are innocent victims of the gun, food and cigarette industries, but the
$542 million-a-year birth control industry is a quarry of angels.
The New York Times' Michael Powell explained in a column that, as a
parent of teenagers, he's learned that the stupidest thing to do is
resort to "the shame-and-blame game." Teenage pregnancy, he states
categorically, is a "problem of poverty."
I think we have a chicken-and-egg problem, but let's stick to liberals' newfound opposition to shaming campaigns.
Far from opposing stigmas, liberals are the main propagators of them --
against cigarettes, guns, plastic bags, obesity, not recycling, Fox
News, racist "code words," not liking "Lincoln" and junk food.
The stigma against smoking has gone so swimmingly that you can't enjoy a
little tobacco pleasure 50 yards from another human being without some
bossy woman marching over and accusing you of poisoning her.
California is currently running a series of "Reefer Madness"-style
anti-smoking ads, including one that shows cigarette smoke going from a
woman outside on her porch, up a story, through the door of another
apartment, across the living room, down the hallway and into a room
where a baby is sleeping. That would be the equivalent of the Bloomberg
ads claiming teen pregnancy causes genocide.
And what exactly was the purpose of the Journal-News publishing the
names and addresses of every legal gun owner in various counties in New
York state a few months ago? To congratulate them? To start a hunting
club?
No, I believe it was to stigmatize legal gun owners. The fact that we
didn't already know who they were proved that the problem isn't legal
gun ownership. All those legal guns -- and no rash of drive-by
shootings!
Los Angeles has banned plastic bags at supermarkets, even though
reusable canvas bags are portable bacterial colonies. But a little ad
campaign describing the downsides of teenage pregnancy -- which is still
subsidized -- and liberals howl in protest.
One begins to suspect that liberals aren't as interested in stopping
teenagers from having illegitimate kids as they claim. Do they believe a
teenager who gets pregnant out of wedlock is harming herself and her
child as much a teenager who smokes? How about an unwed teen who smokes
at a landfill?
It's only a "shame-and-blame game" when liberals secretly approve of the behavior they pretend to oppose.
Unwed mothers have been the perennial excuse for big government, going
back to Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, who plotted in the 1960s
to create broken families, welfare dependency and urban riots to pave
the way for socialist revolution.
That's why single mothers are revered victims -- victims in need of an
ever-expanding social safety net, staffed with well-pensioned government
workers. As described in that great book, "Guilty: Liberal 'Victims'
and Their Assault on America," liberals concoct fake victims in order to
victimize the rest of us.
The only thing single mothers are "victims" of is their own choice to
have sex with men they're not married to. Liberals seem to believe that
drinking soda is voluntary, but getting pregnant is more like catching
the flu.
It would be hard to make the case that fast food, plastic bags and cigarettes do more damage than single motherhood.
-- Controlling for socioeconomic status, race and place of residence,
the strongest predictor of whether a person will end up in prison is
that he was raised by a single mother.
-- At least 70 percent of juvenile murderers, pregnant teenagers, high
school dropouts, teen suicides, runaways and juvenile delinquents were
raised by single mothers.
-- A study back in 1990 by the Progressive Policy Institute showed
that, absent single motherhood, there would be no difference in black
and white crime rates.
So liberals don't try to make that case. They just say they're against
"shaming" and then go back to shaming gun owners, non-recyclers, smokers
and "Big Gulp" aficionados -- while subsidizing illegitimacy.
http://townhall.com/columnists/anncoulter/2013/03/13/trouble-in-the-nanny-state-n1532906/page/full/
PK'S NOTE: The utter ignorance is astounding:
Bill Gates: ‘Some days I wish we had a system like the UK’ to give Obama more power
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, the wealthiest American, said
on “some days” he wishes the U.S. political system were like England’s,
so that President Barack Obama could have “slightly more power
.”
Gates was asked for his assessment of President Obama’s job
performance during an interview at Politico’s “Playbook Cocktails”
event.
“Some days I wish we had a system like the U.K. where, you know, the
party in power could do a lot and you know, you’d see how it went and
then fine you could un-elect them,” said Gates on Wednesday.
“Now, over time, our system has worked slightly better than theirs,
theirs has worked okay but so it’s ironic that right now it feels like I
wish there was slightly more power in the presidency to avoid some of
these deadlocks. So I think what he [Obama] wants to do and what he’s
actually able to do, the gap is so big there that it’s hard to know in
some ways.”
Gates praised President Obama for his education policy and commended former President George W. Bush for The President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).
“I think the education piece is probably the most unappreciated piece
there where Bush, he was definitely unappreciated for the AIDS work. I
went to an AIDS conference where somebody mentioned Bush and the
audience was like, ‘boo’ or something like that. Well that is deeply,
ironically unfair.”
He called PEPFAR a “phenomenal thing” that would not have happened without Bush’s “leadership.”
“I feel the same way about a lot of the education things that have happened in the last four years,” Gates said.
Jay Carney Did Not Like ABC Reporter’s Question About Cost of Obama’s Golf Outings: ‘You’re Trivializing an Impact Here’
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney
on Wednesday refused to entertain a question from ABC News reporter
Jonathan Karl regarding the cost of one of President Barack Obama’s
common golf outings.
Several reporters were questioning
Carney over the Obama administration’s decision to cancel White House
tours in order to avoid Secret Service furloughs and cutbacks due to
sequestration cuts.
“The Secret Service told us that the
tours cost $74,000 a week. How much is it going to cost for the
President to travel later this week to Illinois?” Karl asked.
“Well, the president is the President
of the United States,” Carney replied bluntly. “And he is elected to
represent all of the people. And he travels around the country,
appropriately. I don’t have a figure on the cost of presidential travel.
It is obviously something, as every President deals with because of
security and staff, a significant undertaking. But the President has to
travel around the country. He has to travel around the world. That is
part of his job.”
“How much does it cost for him to go and play golf?” Karl followed up.
“Jon, again, you’re trivializing an
impact here. People will lose their jobs. Three-quarters of a million
people will lose their job,” Carney said.
“This is about choices. You have a certain amount of–” Karl began before being interrupted.
“Right. The law stipulates what the
costs will be for each agency. Those jobs will be lost, okay? And you
can report on White House tours, or you can find out what the impacts
are out in the real world, additional impacts are. This is a real-world
impact here, and it is unfortunate. And it is an unhappy choice,” Carney
added.
Carney went on to say “Congress made
this choice” in regards to sequestration. Carney never did respond to
Karl’s question about the cost of Obama’s golf trips.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/13/jay-carney-did-not-like-this-abc-reporters-question-about-cost-of-obamas-golf-outings-youre-trivializing-an-impact-here/
What We Still Don't Know About Benghazi
Yesterday,
President Obama nominated a new
ambassador to Libya to succeed Christopher Stevens, who was killed in the
terrorist attack in Benghazi last September 11. Six months after that attack—and
two federal investigations later—we still have an alarmingly small amount of
information about it.
The Obama Administration made quite a mess in the
media with its conflicting
accounts of the attack, originally blaming a controversial YouTube video for
sparking protests abroad.
After it came
out that it was, in fact, a terrorist attack with ties to al-Qaeda,
then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton shocked Americans with her statement, “What
difference, at this point, does it make?”
As Heritage expert James
Phillips said,
Clinton’s brush-off “indicates that the Administration misunderstands the nature
and scope of the Islamist terrorist threat.”
With a new Secretary of
State and a new Libya team on the way, Benghazi can’t just be swept under the
rug—because the safety of all of our diplomats is at stake.
Both the
State Department and the Senate have tried to figure out what went wrong in
hopes of ensuring that such a tragedy would not happen again. So far, they have
failed.
Heritage experts note in a detailed
new paper that “Fully understanding the September 11, 2012, terrorist attack
on the U.S. facility in Benghazi is vital to preparing for future security
threats to American embassies, consulates, and diplomatic missions.” Lives
depend on what the government learns from this attack.
Scott G. Erickson,
Jessica Zuckerman, and Steven P. Bucci explain that four
key questions remain unanswered:
- Which counterterrorism and early-warning measures were in place to
address security threats?
- Which risk assessments were performed and which risk-mitigation
measures were adopted before the attack?
- What kind of contingency planning was undertaken and exercised to
respond to armed assaults against U.S.
facilities in
Benghazi?
- How was the interagency response to the incident organized and
managed?
These are fundamental questions—questions
that should have been answered by now. And as the authors note, the conflicting
accounts produced by the Obama Administration have made this inquiry unsettling
from the start:
Given the conflicting narrative produced by the Obama
Administration, there are two possible explanations. One possibility is that
officials within the White House were uninformed, meaning communication with the
State Department was woefully lacking. The other is that individuals within the
White House consciously and deliberately promoted a public explanation of the
Benghazi attack that was at odds with reality.
Our experts recommend
that Congress establish a Congressional Select Committee to find answers. This
type of committee steps in when there are sensitive issues relating to
security—Select Committees investigated both Watergate and the Iran-Contra
affair.
When dealing with the lives of American personnel abroad, it is
not enough to issue a committee report. The State Department needs thorough
answers, and then it needs to put the recommendations into action.
The
life of the new ambassador to Libya may depend on it.
http://blog.heritage.org/2013/03/14/morning-bell-what-we-still-dont-know-about-benghazi/?roi=echo3-14877713947-11822123-81ad13eb51f9d8490fdc33fd9e7abf73&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBel
It's Time to Stock Up on Precious Metals, Guns, and Ammunition
If you are a regular reader of American Thinker, you already know that our nation's debt
and deficit problems are unsustainable. We need to look no further
than the European Union to understand the problems associated with
welfare states run wild. The violence in Greece is a harbinger of
things to come in the United States if we fail to take action to get our
nation's fiscal house in order.
It's as simple as 1, 2, 3. No nation can spend its way out of a debt
and deficit problem. It is true, however, that a growing economy
produces increases in tax revenue that can be used to eliminate deficits
and pay down debt. Unfortunately, while our economy was rapidly
growing, members of Congress and our presidents including George W. Bush
and Barack Obama increased spending at an even faster pace than revenue
growth. It was foolish; it made no sense; and it brought us to where
we are today.
Unfortunately, President Obama doesn't think we have a problem:
Obama has now admitted that he doesn't want a balanced budget -- even eventually. He also doesn't think we should worry about the national debt
because it's not an "immediate crisis". In fact, Obama thinks we're in a
"sustainable place" -- his words, not mine. This kind of ignorance
will force the rest of us to pay economic hell, eventually.
Ignore
everything this individual screamed at the top of his lungs in 2006
when another party was in the White House -- suddenly, he doesn't care
about radically exploding debt, and doesn't think you should either. His
economic maturity is like a child who refuses to take medicine for an
illness because he isn't dying yet. It could kill us -- or at least the
economy.
I wrote a book
in which I addressed Obama's adolescent behavior hoping that we would
elect a president with more common sense, but I overestimated typical
voters in the U.S. This is what I said about the president:
Childish
behavior is something we don't want or need in our president, and
Barack Obama has behaved childishly since the day he took office. At
home and abroad, he has disgraced himself and our country with his
juvenile antics. Unfortunately, he seems to be unaware of his problem,
but leaders around the world are. So are people in this
country--everyone who isn't an Obamanista, that is.
I'm
not a psychiatrist or a psychologist, so I won't make any attempt to
psychoanalyze the president. I'll leave it to professionals to try and
figure out the root cause of Obama's problem, but as a citizen of the
United States, a taxpayer, and a person who cares deeply about the
effects of our nation's policies on people in other countries, I think I
have a duty and a responsibility to address the problems I
see--problems that are readily apparent. The issues we face as a nation
and as a world are too important and the risks are too great to place
them in the hands of a juvenile or a person who thinks and acts like
one.
As things stand now, we have a president who fails to recognize economic reality, Democrats in both houses
of Congress who go along with the president on everything, a Senate
that is controlled by Democrats who make Obama look like a wise man, and
a population that is addicted to entitlements. That is a recipe for
disaster. Seth Mandel said that as long as Democrats control the Senate, things aren't likely to change:
But that brings us to the other way to balance the budget:
the old-fashioned way, by simply spending responsibly. The challenge
here is twofold: first, it does not have the enforcement mechanism the
amendment would (hopefully) have. And second, the Senate is controlled
by the Democrats and President Obama still has no plans to dramatically
cut spending. Entitlement reform is necessary, but it's also easy to
demagogue. As President Obama has made all too clear, if the Republicans
want to reform entitlements, they have to control Congress and the
White House; they won't have any help from Democrats who are always
thinking about the next election.
Mandel
is correct. To deal with our fiscal crisis, we must elect Senators who
understand that we are facing a crisis. That means electing
Republicans. That's not a political statement because I'm not a
Republican. It's a factual statement that can't be refuted even by
dimwits like Paul Krugman of the New York Times. In the
history of the world, no nation that routinely spends without regard for
resources has survived. It's foolish to think that the United States
will be the exception.
I
had hoped that after four years of dismal performance in office, Barack
Obama would not be re-elected, but as I said, I didn't appreciate how
ignorant voters in the U.S. are. Judging by the 2012 presidential
election, I am not overly optimistic about the odds of Republicans
taking control of the Senate in 2014. I'm not saying that it can't
happen. I'm just pointing out that it makes no sense to believe that it
will happen.
Even
if Republicans do take control of the Senate, maintain control of the
House, and convince the president to act responsibly, we still face
daunting challenges because people who are addicted to entitlements
aren't likely to give them up without a fight, and by that I don't mean a
political battle. I'm referring to violence on the streets of cities
and towns across America.
I'm
not a pessimist. I'm a realist, and that's what I think is likely to
happen. As I said, we can look to Europe and see what takes place when
entitlement addicts are forced to accept austerity measures. If you
think that it can't happen here, you need to think again. If I am
correct, we are on the verge of chaotic conditions in this country that
could easily spiral out of control.
That's
why I believe that now is the time to acquire precious metals, guns,
and ammunition while we still can. Think of it as buying insurance.
If what I fear will happen doesn't occur, then you will own assets
that are likely to increase in value, and you can actually use the
guns and ammunition as a form of recreation. If what I fear will
happen does take place, you will be in a position to buy the things you
need and to defend your family. In any event, at this moment in time,
precious metals, guns, and ammunition look like good bets to me.
Progressivism's Equality Paradox Smothers Freedom
With
the historical record of the last century and a half of political and
social experimentation behind us, the fundamental question for Western
civilization has come down to this: How free do people want to be? Partially free or completely free? Furthermore, is it even possible to
be considered truly free if one is only partially free? Democratically
based societies around the globe need to decide which they value more --
liberal/Progressive equality or freedom. There is no happy medium that
will sustain both. One need only observe the contention, the
hyper-partisanship, and the social and economic decline of societies
that have attempted to balance the two concepts to recognize that it is a
fool's errand.
The
concept of freedom used here means that each individual owns his or her
own life (body and mind, including that which he produces with his body
and mind) while existing in a condition in which voluntary courses of
action can be chosen without physical compulsion, coercion, or
interference from others.
It
is obvious that freedom is meaningless in a society without rights to
protect it. A right has, therefore, been defined as a moral principle
defining and sanctioning a person's freedom in a social context. Past
Supreme Court justice George Sutherland stated it eloquently when he
said, "The right to life, liberty and property are bound together to be
essentially one right. To give a man his life but to deny him his
liberty is to take from him all that makes life worth living. To give
him liberty but to take from him the property which is the fruit and
badge of his liberty is to still leave him a slave."
Both
freedom and rights are futile without the principle of equality of
rights. Though people possess a vast array of individual differences,
all members of a free society should be treated equally in two respects:
in the equality of their individual rights, and in their equality of treatment
before the law. Freedom cannot exist for those whose rights are
subordinated to the rights or objectives of others. Observing the
equality of rights also means that any alleged "right" of one person,
which necessitates the violation of the rights of another, is not and
cannot be a right. For example, no person can have the "right" to
impose an un-chosen obligation, an unrewarded duty, or involuntary
servitude on another person. Armed with this understanding, we can
begin to clear the fog of Progressivism and understand how its agenda of
collectivism and redistribution is corrosive to freedom.
In
order to be acceptable in a culture that valued individual liberty and
self-reliance, Progressives realized that collectivism had to be cloaked
in "the common good of society," and egalitarian redistribution
disguised as "fairness" necessary to achieve "social justice."
Unconcealed, these objectives are offensive to a free society in which
individuals follow their own values and preferences and are not bound to
follow someone else's. This principle is founded on the belief that
adult individuals of sound mind are the ultimate judges of their own well-being and that their own views should be paramount in governing their actions.
The
proponents of liberal/Progressive equality, on the other hand, want to
govern the actions of others in order to organize society and its
resources to achieve their specific objectives, which are often
loosely defined as the "common good." The writings of several renowned
modern thinkers have pointed out that, in a free society, the common
good can mean only the sum of the various goods of all of the
individuals involved. When the common good is regarded as something
apart from and superior to the individual good of its members, it means
that the good of some takes precedence over the good of others. A free
society does not require the sacrifice of anyone's interests, be it to
another powerful individual or even to a majority. It leaves no
possibility for any person to serve his or her interests by
subordinating the interests of others.
Herein
is the Equality Paradox, the central contradiction of
liberal/Progressive ideology. Though the Progressive version of
equality is presented to society as "fairness," it paradoxically
requires unequal treatment by the force of government to subordinate the
rights of some to the dictates of others in order to facilitate the
latter's aims. The objective rule of law is bent to accommodate
preferential treatment of chosen groups who, in turn, reward their government benefactors with electoral support.
Once
established, a "system" such as this eventually becomes the inverse of
the one prescribed by the Constitution and Bill of Rights. A
democratically based, constitutionally limited republic is replaced with
statism, where authoritarian government mandates know few limitations
and obedient citizens are cultivated through increasingly restricted
freedom of action and a diminution in the protection of individual
rights. The consequence, which is lost on many good-intentioned people
who support Progressive policies, is that it matters not if individual
rights and freedom of choice are subordinated to the arbitrary whims of a
monarch, a dictator, or to a government under the banner of societal
good -- they are subordinated nonetheless.
Committed
Progressives will often concede that the rights of some may be
subordinated and freedoms abridged, but they defend this as necessary in
the transformation into a fairer society. Once the transformation is complete,
they say, everyone will enjoy equality and live in a society where
material needs will be met through cooperative effort guided by
benevolent government action. Their assertions demand an answer to
these questions: Of all the societies that have attempted similar
transformations, are there any examples where this has gone to
successful completion? Furthermore, does the modern Progressive welfare
state represent such a completion?
Interestingly,
social scientist and author Charles Murray has referred to the last
century of experimentation with collectivism and egalitarianism as
modern civilization's era of adolescence -- an era when parental advice,
based on the practical lessons learned through life experiences, is
discounted as irrelevant to the "modern times" in which the adolescent
and his or her cohorts live. Intellectual immaturity, hubris, naivety,
and the youthful rebellious desire to be uninhibited by conventional
standards eventually give way to an appreciation of the value of one's
parents' timeless wisdom.
Will
America mature in a parallel fashion through this
Progressive-influenced phase of societal development and regain an
appreciation for the timeless wisdom of her founding principles? Or
will America venture farther away from freedom and down the path toward
liberal/Progressive equality?
King Arthur's Court and Emperor's Clothes
As a corporate budgeter, I learned decades ago that only a few
people can look at an organization's money, corporation's money or someone
else's money and spend it as if it were their own money -- i.e., very
deliberately, based on the priorities and values of the organization.
One of my favorite memories from my time as a corporate planner
occurred when an organization, which was not meeting budget, rented horses
to ride on stage for an internal employee meeting. King Arthur lived
again!
Aligning priorities and budgets has never been hard for me.
Possibly it was my childhood experiences: wearing my sister's
hand-me-downs from grade school until I became taller than her and
starting my work life at age 13 cleaning bathrooms.
Possibly it was my college experiences: working at the switchboard
(yes, we still had one where I went to school), working one or two jobs
during the summer and cleaning my car (or my friend Suzanne's) to find
enough change in the cushions to go to Fast Fare (the local drive-through
restaurant).
As a planner, I spent other people's money as though it were mine.
I constantly asked myself: How could it best be spent? Did the strategy
and budget align?
This week, I conducted an unscientific economic experiment using
my two children. We went to Chick-fil-A after school for a snack, which we
do about once a week, and instead of paying for their food, I explained
that we would split the cost.
Most times, the two of them finish the chicken sandwich and
nuggets portion of the meal, but often leave half-eaten fries, drinks and
shakes. As a child of the "clean-your-plate" generation, who still too
often does just that (hence my use of salad plates for dinner; I'm
thinking of moving to saucers), I did not want to require that they eat
everything that they ordered, but I wanted them to have some skin in the
game.
My son Robert decided to get a small order of fries instead of the
medium, no drink and a small ice cream cone, as it was less expensive than
the shake. My daughter Maggie decided to just get the chicken sandwich.
She ate the entire chicken portion of the sandwich (which was the norm),
but also the pickle and the bun. In order to get the most out of her
money, she threatened to eat the wrapper, too, but thankfully decided she
was full.
My unscientific conclusion: It's always easier to spend other
people's money. After all, if the money belongs to someone else, then
there are no real consequences to how it's spent. You don't have to
determine if you really need a small order of fries or medium -- just get
the medium. And go ahead and get the medium shake, too, just in case. When
faced with choices that have consequences (you can spend either here or
there), then one tends to allocate limited resources more efficiently.
Scarcity is the restraint that leads to allocations that reflect
priorities.
If restraints are taken away, then real decisions can be avoided.
So I have a confession to make: I've changed my mind. Last Friday,
I tweeted that Eric Bolling's and Sean Hannity's offer to pay for the
White House tours was excellent. The government-funded tours were
cancelled effective this past Saturday due to the sequestration, according
to the White House website.
Robert and I toured the White House last month. We also toured the
Capitol and the Supreme Court. My new perspective is that government is
paid for by the American people (and corporations) and therefore the key
government buildings should be open to the same people who pay for them to
be operating in the first place.
While a private payer might allow the White House to stay open,
doing so would artificially remove a constraint on how our (not the
government's) money should best be spent.
Based on my experience in budgeting, I feel pretty sure that,
somewhere in our federal government, horses are being rented for members
of King Arthur's Court to ride upon -- if not literally, then
figuratively. Before the government buildings are closed to the people who
fund them, we should first round up all the theoretical horses and those
who ride upon them.
We might just find out that the emperor who rides the horse has no
clothes.
http://townhall.com/columnists/jackiegingrichcushman/2013/03/14/king-arthurs-court-and-emperors-clothes-n1532700/page/full/
Note to Union Teachers: If You Want to be Treated Like Professionals, Act Like It
I was deeply troubled when video surfaced last week of striking
Strongsville, Ohio teachers heckling substitute teachers who were
applying to be their temporary replacements.
Over 300 teachers are on strike because the school board is refusing
to give them automatic raises, and the school board undercut their mass
temper tantrum by hiring substitutes to keep schools open.
The substitutes, complete with police escorts, had to endure heckling
and jeering by the strikers. The unionists often followed alongside the
substitutes, berating them and yelling in their faces as they headed to
the local police department for mandatory background checks.
The entire scene had that 1957 Little Rock/school integration “walk of shame” feel to it.
Ironically, one striker yelled at a black substitute, “Rosa Parks would be ashamed!” (See the video here.)
Perhaps, but her shame probably would have been aimed at the obnoxious striker.
It marked a bottom-of-the-barrel moment for me as a five-year
education reform activist. Are these people on the picket lines steel
workers or degreed professionals? The irony of the American Federation
of Teachers’ slogan – “A Union of Professionals” – could not be more
profound.
Sadly, many of today’s public school teachers have embraced a
hard-core mentality and defiant attitude toward anyone who disagrees
with their demands or tactics. They have the influence of their union
leaders to blame for that.
The unions carefully arrange adversarial environments, pitting
teachers against administrators. They constantly remind everyone that
teacher “morale is low,” and complain that realistic salary offers from
cash-strapped school boards are a sign that teachers aren’t “valued.”
That often leads to childish behavior, like having “votes of
no-confidence” on a superintendent or school board, picketing outside
board members’ homes and workplaces, or wearing all black clothing to
school to display their displeasure.
Grow up. Let the kids be the kids. You be the adults.
Sadly, unionized teachers throughout the nation have made sure the
debate over public schools is centered on their desires rather than
student needs. Does anyone really think the striking Strongsville
teachers were yelling at the substitutes on behalf of the students?
Collective bullying
But asking the adults to act like adults may be too much. The examples
of teacher union pettiness and intimidation – dare I say bullying – are
all too frequent.
In 2012, in the midst of a fight with the Chicago Board of Education
over a plan to close failing schools, Chicago Teachers Union Vice
President Jesse Sharkey held a bullhorn in front of the TV cameras and
declared his union would “expose” the billionaires pushing for school
reform in the city, then told school board members, “We’re coming after
you!”
Earlier that year, teachers in the Eagle Point, Oregon school
district went on strike and heckled replacement teachers. The protesters
did their best to disrupt classes by shouting from the nearby sidewalk.
In the fall of 2011, CTU President Karen Lewis gave a speech to a
group of “social justice” teachers in which she mocked –in a bullying
fashion – U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s lisp. She was forced to
apologize.
That same year, members of the Michigan Education Association
protested outside the insurance business of then-State Rep. Marty
Knollenberg because he supported Gov. Rick Snyder’s education reform
agenda.
Three months ago in Lansing, Michigan, a group of union members at
the state capitol protesting Snyder’s “right to work” legislation
violently tore down the tent of an organization that supports
right-to-work, trapping some people inside.
At a California “Tax the Rich” protest, a teacher said she thought
the home addresses of billionaires should be made public. She didn’t say
why, but presumably it wasn’t to add them to her “holiday card” list.
Earlier this week in Strongsville, a teacher was arrested after
allegedly swerving his vehicle at another vehicle filled with
replacement teachers. Fliers were also passed out in the neighborhoods
of replacement teachers, asking residents if they knew that a “scab”
lived among them.
And let’s not forget the ugliest mass temper tantrum of all, which
occurred in Madison, Wisconsin two years ago this month. Union
protesters banged drums, issued death threats, tried to tip over buses
full of legislative staffers and climbed through the state capitol
windows, all in an effort to preserve union power.
We should be able to expect more
The late author and activist Saul Alinsky always insisted that the ends justify the means.
If protesting outside a board member’s house, and frightening his
children in the process, means securing a bigger raise, then do it. If
scoring better contract terms means tracking board members to their
health clubs – to make them “feel the same stresses we have” – then what
are you waiting for?
Ethics be damned; bring on the victory. Decency is for suckers.
The sick part is that our nation’s largest teachers unions have been
embracing Alinsky and his temper-tantrum approach for years.
The National Education Association has Alinsky’s books on its
“recommended reading” page. Union groups teach his tactics and put them
into practice virtually every day.
The tactics are frequently effective, but they don’t impress anyone.
Do union leaders ever worry about public relations? Do they realize that
their tactics often leave taxpayers and parents shaking their heads in
disgust? Do they really think making public fools of themselves will
strengthen the labor movement in the long-term?
But somehow that type of logical thinking never occurs to them. Like a
spoiled child in a grocery store, they throw themselves on the floor
and kick and scream until their humiliated parents buy the candy bar.
Mission accomplished. That’s all that matters.
But pride should come into play at some point. Why would
self-described “professionals” conduct themselves in such an
unprofessional manner? And what are their actions teaching their
students?
The situation is undoubtedly worsened by school boards across the
nation that routinely give in to the labor tantrums. That means the
unions can be counted on to apply the same tactics when their new
contracts expire.
I’m the parent of three young children. Like many parents, I know
that rewarding a child’s temper tantrum or other bad behavior is sending
a very bad message. The worst thing anyone can do is reward the behavior. It’s
reinforcing the idea that continued application of the obnoxious
behavior will lead to the desired outcome for the child.
This isn’t some complicated psychological study – it’s common sense.
Maybe I am expecting too much from the union “professionals” who are
contracted to deliver services in our schools. After all, they organize
themselves in industrial-style unions, just like blue-collar workers.
The irony is that many blue-collar union workers conduct themselves with
more dignity, even when they’re on strike.
But I still can’t shake the nagging feeling that we, as taxpayers,
should be able to expect something more from people who earn their
living from tax dollars and have so much influence over our children
every day.
http://townhall.com/columnists/kyleolson/2013/03/14/note-to-union-teachers-if-you-want-to-be-treated-like-professionals-act-like-it-n1532838/page/full/
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