Hard work, sacrifice, and the freedom to rise

     I had to endure listening to a “liberal” coworker endlessly lament the shrinking of America’s middle class because the rich were too rich. I finally had to intervene and correct his ill-conceived thoughts. I began by discussing America’s last wave of immigrants circa the 1900’s. We both agreed that they were incredibly hard working. Our grandparents were incredibly hardworking and frugal. Their parents even more so which continues with each previous generation. Hard work, sacrifice, and the freedom to rise created the middle class and hard work, sacrifice, and the freedom to rise created this nation, its wealth and power. What is destroying the middle class, I explained, is not the rich creating too much of the pie. Rather, it is an ever growing percentage of the population creating too little of the pie. 

     They are becoming ever more dependent on entitlements, hooked on government-provided services, and have to work less and less and less because our nation’s massive and growing safety nets now provide a cradle to grave decent living. A large percentage of our population expects a materialistically high standard of living yet doesn’t want to do the backbreaking labor, rigorous studies, penny pinching, or sacrifice earlier generations had to do to acquire it. We are succumbing to the warm feel-good of socialism and because of this an ever growing percentage of the population no longer saves for their children’s education, their own retirement or retirement healthcare, they no longer have to worry about where the food on their table comes from, who’ll pay their utility bills, or even the roof over their head. The audaciously aloof attitudes within our massive and exponentially growing low income neighborhoods is all the proof you’ll need to see that this is, in fact, a very real phenomenon. 

     As the horsepower of our nation’s workforce dwindles and they become more entitled, our nation will decline, government spending will continue to rise, and we will continue to veer wildly off our founding path by over-burdening and over taxing our shrinking pool productive workers, violating their Constitutional right to equal protection under the law and their right to own and keep their own property. As this phenomenon continues to spread unabated, we face a mortal threat when the unproductive dependents produce socialist electoral landslides who’ll use their unchecked power to turn the page of our nation’s history into something rotten. Much to my surprise, my “liberal” coworker agreed.

 CB

Repeal of SB 5 Isn’t the Victory Labor Thinks: Service Cuts & Tax Increases Likely to Follow

New York, NY: With the repeal of Senate Bill 5, a new collective bargaining law signed by Governor Kasich earlier this year, public-sector unions will claim that this is the final verdict that will end efforts to change the terms of employment for unionized public-sector workers. In his new Manhattan Institute issue brief, “Storm Clouds Ahead: Why Conflict with Public Unions Will Continue,” City College political scientist Daniel DiSalvo argues that instead this will be the latest in a series of ongoing conflicts that will arise between governments and public-employee unions in states where the public workforce is heavily unionized. Slow economic growth will cause persistent budget problems—especially as pension and health benefits limit the availability of funds for core government services.

DiSalvo says that these conditions will pertain to New York, California, Illinois, Rhode Island, Michigan, Ohio, and Washington State. If government spends more on the salaries, pensions, and health care of its employees, it cannot spend on public transit, schools, and assistance for the poor.

According to DiSalvo, there will be ongoing conflict between public-sector unions and government because of the fundamental differences between unions in the public and private sectors. In times of fiscal pressures, these differences make it very difficult for elected officials and government labor unions to resolve disputes, in contrast to private-sector negotiations where compromise has started to take root between management and workers. Because public employees have become a majority of America’s union members and because their unions are now the principal financiers of political efforts, compromise is not likely. Collective bargaining at the center of the SB 5 controversy is fundamentally different in the public sector than in the private sector.

While public employee unions may be able to stave-off major efforts to address employee compensation costs in the short term, the need for states to make their budgets more resilient and their workforces more efficient will remain. By rejecting structural reform, as voters have in Ohio, states force a choice between either the “austerity” path blazed by California, leading to a deterioration of services; or a model that is heavy on tax increases, as seen in Illinois and Rhode Island. These approaches are better for public employee unions—or at least for the majority of their members who don’t get laid off due to austerity-- but they are worse for the taxpayer. Public-sector unionization can distort policy choices toward special interests at the expense of the general public good.

Daniel DiSalvo is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute's Center for State and Local Leadership and an assistant professor of political science at The City College of New York. He received his doctorate in politics from the University of Virginia and was previously Andrew W. Mellon Visiting Professor at Amherst College. His work focuses on American political parties, elections, labor unions, state government, and public policy.

see original link here

The Evidence Is In At UC Davis

 h/t to The Right Scoop

First let me offer up the evidence (so far):

• We have police warning the protestors.

• We have this telling interview "We had encircled them [campus police], and they were trying to leave, and they were trying to clear a path. And so, we sat down, linked arms, and said that if they wanted to clear the path, they would have to go through us"

• We have more video of the protestors being clearly warned and they were cool with it

• Then we have the video that everybody has seen, over and over.

Which video do you think the #Occupiers and the Main Stream Media is publicizing the most? What a surprise, right? This is a perfect example, in my opinion, of how the left leaning media (which is just about all of them) is manipulating public opinion. How many "humorous" Photoshopped pictures of the cop pepper spraying someone have you seen? All based on what the media has chosen to report, what they have chosen for you to see. Bias by omission.

We have video proof that the protestors at UC Davis purposely did not comply, were warned repeatedly, they provoked and surrounded the police officers leaving them (the police) no choice but to follow through with their warnings. Yet we have MSM talking heads calling the police pigs. Why is the media not reporting these events leading up to the pepper spraying? Because it doesn't fit the leftist, liberal narrative... #OWS, Democrats and the media NEED the public opinion to be in favor of these protestors, after all they're "the reason" Obama "ran for office in the first place.”

The protestors are useful idiots being used by the Marxist unions, the Democrats and a long list of other nefarious groups and organizations. The media is manipulating public opinion because after all, the main stream media IS one of those nefarious organizations.

Don't be one of the manipulated. Don't take the complacent, water carrying media's word for it, DO YOUR OWN HOMEWORK.