Sheilbh's Scott Walker Lovefest and Union Bashing Megathread

[Valmy]

I just had a great idea to reform democracy.
Actually, several ideas.
I'm fucking brilliant!

1- Only people that is not on welfare can vote. Accepting goverment welfare means forfeiting your right to vote for as long as your are on the dole. This eliminate buying votes with welfare, so poor people stop selling their votes to whoever promise them mo' money.

2- People can own several votes depending on wealth. So if we agree a poor persone not on welfare is worth 100,000, a person who's wealth is worth 1 million can vote 10 times, or cast 10 different votes, and so on. This will means that people who create the most wealth and contribute the most in taxes gets to bigger voice in how to run the nation.

3- Instead of basing the number of vote in the amount of owned wealth, base the number of votes in the ammount of money contributed to the state. This way the people that pays the most taxes get a bigger voice.


I am a fucking genious, and Jacob is going to have a heart attack!

I think we already tried this plan back in 1788.  Alexander Hamilton approves.

[frunk]

I just had a great idea to reform democracy.
Actually, several ideas.
I'm fucking brilliant!

1- Only people that is not on welfare can vote. Accepting goverment welfare means forfeiting your right to vote for as long as your are on the dole. This eliminate buying votes with welfare, so poor people stop selling their votes to whoever promise them mo' money.

2- People can own several votes depending on wealth. So if we agree a poor persone not on welfare is worth 100,000, a person who's wealth is worth 1 million can vote 10 times, or cast 10 different votes, and so on. This will means that people who create the most wealth and contribute the most in taxes gets to bigger voice in how to run the nation.

3- Instead of basing the number of vote in the amount of owned wealth, base the number of votes in the ammount of money contributed to the state. This way the people that pays the most taxes get a bigger voice.


I am a fucking genious, and Jacob is going to have a heart attack!

Bill Gates, Dictator for life of Washington State!

[Jacob]

I just had a great idea to reform democracy.
Actually, several ideas.
I'm fucking brilliant!

1- Only people that is not on welfare can vote. Accepting goverment welfare means forfeiting your right to vote for as long as your are on the dole. This eliminate buying votes with welfare, so poor people stop selling their votes to whoever promise them mo' money.

2- People can own several votes depending on wealth. So if we agree a poor persone not on welfare is worth 100,000, a person who's wealth is worth 1 million can vote 10 times, or cast 10 different votes, and so on. This will means that people who create the most wealth and contribute the most in taxes gets to bigger voice in how to run the nation.

3- Instead of basing the number of vote in the amount of owned wealth, base the number of votes in the ammount of money contributed to the state. This way the people that pays the most taxes get a bigger voice.


I am a fucking genious, and Jacob is going to have a heart attack!

So you want to make it so rich people can buy influence directly and legally. They'll then create a regulatory environment that benefits them, so they'll get richer (and can buy more influence) while the poor stay poor or get poorer (with no way to influence their conditions).

That's what you call genius?

[Berkut]

In a shocking turn of events, Seedy plays the race card in a discussion that previously had nothing to do with race until he joined.

In a shocking turn of events, Berkut does his White Guy's Rolleyes "only racists bring up race!" shtick.

Teaching and nursing are professions heavily weighed by gender and race, while public sector government is the largest employer of the African American workforce after health and education.  And why?  Because these sectors were the first and best defenses from discrimination in hiring practices.   Funny how these are the same ones that Scott Walker, the GOP and union-haters are targeting for elimination.  It's all about race and gender, asshole.

So go fuck yourself you nasty fuck, you piece of shit Employer Rights assfuck cocksucker.  You fucking hate unions so fucking much, eliminate the cops and firefighters unions, too.  You know, the ones that vote GOP.

Perfectly happy eliminating them as well. The race distinction is 100% yours, not mine.

[Siege]

I just had a great idea to reform democracy.
Actually, several ideas.
I'm fucking brilliant!

1- Only people that is not on welfare can vote. Accepting goverment welfare means forfeiting your right to vote for as long as your are on the dole. This eliminate buying votes with welfare, so poor people stop selling their votes to whoever promise them mo' money.

2- People can own several votes depending on wealth. So if we agree a poor persone not on welfare is worth 100,000, a person who's wealth is worth 1 million can vote 10 times, or cast 10 different votes, and so on. This will means that people who create the most wealth and contribute the most in taxes gets to bigger voice in how to run the nation.

3- Instead of basing the number of vote in the amount of owned wealth, base the number of votes in the ammount of money contributed to the state. This way the people that pays the most taxes get a bigger voice.


I am a fucking genious, and Jacob is going to have a heart attack!

Bill Gates, Dictator for life of Washington State!

Oh, he is a damm liberal!

[Valmy]

So you want to make it so rich people can buy influence directly and legally. They'll then create a regulatory environment that benefits them, so they'll get richer (and can buy more influence) while the poor stay poor or get poorer (with no way to influence their conditions).

That's what you call genius?

That's different.  Rich people deserve public money since they create jobs and stuff.

Though we keep getting richer and richer rich people and they are not creating richer and richer jobs for us to do.  Jerks.

[Valmy]

Oh, he is a damm liberal!

Is he?  Damn liberals can succeed in business.

[Berkut]

Yeah, the elected politicians are involved in the negotiations the working conditions with public sector unions that may have contributed to their election.

But they're also involved in the setting up of legislation governing the businesses that may have contributed to their election, or the individuals who have extensive commercial interests that legislation can impact.

I don't really see how the employer-employee relationship is more egregious than any of the other ones.

The results speak for themselves.

Trying to throw in other problems seems dishonest to me - like we cannot try to solve problem A, because problem B exists. And we can't solve B because of C, etc., etc., etc.

So let's just not do anything about anything.

[DGuller]

Yeah, it's always the teachers.  Or the nurses.  Or the laborers.  It's never the cops or the firefighters or anybody else who traditionally votes conservative as a bloc.   Amazing how that shit works.

Therefore what?  They both suck, or they're both great, or you only dislike Republican unions?

Therefore the arguments against unions get downgraded to pretexts.  Enforcement is legitimate only when it is not selective.

[Admiral Yi]

Ii don't see why there is any real distinction between corporation and public (or private for that matter) union campaign contribution.  They both expect obvious and clear quid pro quo for their contribution, and it erodes the ability of citizens to influence their politicians.  Do you think an oil company is making a political contribution because they like the politician's stand on non-oil related items?  The big difference between the two is that in the past unions were the big contributors but that isn't nearly as true now.

I would agree if the only type of corporate lobbying were over the price of an F-35.

[Siege]

I just had a great idea to reform democracy.
Actually, several ideas.
I'm fucking brilliant!

1- Only people that is not on welfare can vote. Accepting goverment welfare means forfeiting your right to vote for as long as your are on the dole. This eliminate buying votes with welfare, so poor people stop selling their votes to whoever promise them mo' money.

2- People can own several votes depending on wealth. So if we agree a poor persone not on welfare is worth 100,000, a person who's wealth is worth 1 million can vote 10 times, or cast 10 different votes, and so on. This will means that people who create the most wealth and contribute the most in taxes gets to bigger voice in how to run the nation.

3- Instead of basing the number of vote in the amount of owned wealth, base the number of votes in the ammount of money contributed to the state. This way the people that pays the most taxes get a bigger voice.


I am a fucking genious, and Jacob is going to have a heart attack!

So you want to make it so rich people can buy influence directly and legally. They'll then create a regulatory environment that benefits them, so they'll get richer (and can buy more influence) while the poor stay poor or get poorer (with no way to influence their conditions).

That's what you call genius?

When you put it that way...
I see your point. Dictatorship of the rich is as bad as the dictatorship of the poor.
How can we limit the damage that buying votes with welfare creates, the route to Greece, without falling under a financial oligarchy.

[Berkut]

The only claim that it is selective has been made by Seedy though - nobody arguing against public sector unions has actually made the distinction Seedy as invented.

I don't think anyone has said these problems only apply to Seedys raceions.

[Valmy]

How can we limit the damage that buying votes with welfare creates, the route to Greece, without falling under a financial oligarchy.

Get people off welfare.

Of course I don't think welfare recipients vote in large numbers.  The elderly, with their social security and so forth, do vote and you better not touch their benefits.

[DGuller]

However, the issue with public sector unions is not the same thing at all. They are a special case since there is such a obvious "quid pro quo" in that the very people responsible for negotiating the employment agreement with the public sector unions are in fact the exact same people who are getting elected (and largely beholden to these powerful public sector unions), so there is a problematic and significant conflict of interest. And the results pretty much speak for themselves. States with large and powerful public sector unions get into a position where it is nearly impossible to be elected without the support of those unions, and the price for that support is a abandonment of any actual attempt to rationally negotiate on behalf of the non-union citizens when it comes to labor agreements.

How is such a conflict of interest any different from, say, easing regulations affecting your corporate campaign donors?

[Jacob]

The results speak for themselves.

Trying to throw in other problems seems dishonest to me - like we cannot try to solve problem A, because problem B exists. And we can't solve B because of C, etc., etc., etc.

So let's just not do anything about anything.

Well... yeah, the results do speak for themselves. The thing is, there are places where there are public sector unions with little corruption and those results speak for themselves as well.

In my personal view, the private and corporate influence on politics in the US appears to foster plenty of corruption as well.

Thus I conclude that the problem in the US is campaign finance rather than public sector unions per se. Public sector unions are, I'm sure, part of a messed up system, but the messed up thing is that giving money to politicians with the expectation of political quid pro quo is an overt and expected part of the process in the US.