This morning an employee came up to me and said, “You’re for Issue 2, right?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m a tremendous supporter of Issue 2.”
“Well, I think it’s just terrible. They want to take away our collective bargaining rights.”
I said to them, “Nobody has a right to collective bargaining. What makes you think it’s a right?”
“It’s in the constitution!” They were very angry when they said this.
I took a breath. “No, it’s not in any constitution either federal, or state wide. Collective bargaining for public employees was created by corrupt, progressive politicians to ‘purchase’ voting blocks for themselves. It has nothing to do with actual rights. FDR started this discussion and Kennedy finished it off as a favor to the mobs in 1962 with Executive Order 10988. That’s when public unions were allowed to form and it was a mistake. Unions have NO natural rights to anything I have. They do not have a right to collectively bargain for the tax money I toss in the pot to spend on our government services.”
“But they pay taxes too!” They said.
“Yes, but the difference is for the public employee, they pass the hat around, they all contribute and at the end, they divide up among themselves what they put in, because their wages come out of the hat. I put money in the hat and it never comes back to me. I don’t get money back out of the hat. It goes around, I contribute, and I get back an employee for public service, and I have a limit on what I’m willing to pay for those services. Collective bargaining in my opinion should have been abolished in Issue 2, along with the idea that public employees should be in a union. It doesn’t go far enough in my opinion! I see Issue 2 as a very fair reform that is ESSENTIAL to the future of Ohio.”
I was at an event the other day where many politicians had gathered. All of them knew both Cunningham and Seitz and we had very animated discussions about them. I offered that I think these guys think public education is all about football scores. They think public education is all about the Friday Night Lights which brings the community together under the banner of sports. The thought of a teachers union doesn’t cross their mind. In Cunningham’s case, the PTA groups and Lakota coaches come into his sports bar in West Chester and ask him, “please support us. You are the only one. Our children’s lives are in jeopardy.” I have a good idea what kind of talk goes on because another sports bar within the Lakota district received the threat of a boycott from one of the principals at Lakota last year working through the PTA organization, which really scared the owner. So much so she came to the No Lakota Levy group for help. The PTA argument was “We will pull our business if you don’t support the Lakota Levy.” So there is no question that similar discussions have taken place with Bill Cunningham who is a businessman first and understands that such a fight would cost him. So it’s easier to just keep focused on those Friday Night Lights, ground everyone can relate with, and ignore all the real problems.
• Huber Heights City School District: $1,273 • Northmont City School District: $1,272 • Valley View Local School District: $1,266 • Oakwood City School District: $1,249 • Northridge Local School District: $881 • Vandalia-Butler City School District: $880 • Mad River Local School District: $869 • Kettering City School District: $862 • Dayton City School District: $387 • Trotwood-Madison City School District: $383 • Centerville City School District: $311
The video below starts with the short segment Doc and I did together on 700 WLW then ends with the West Chester Tea Party speech. Doc couldn’t attend since he had to speak at an Empour U event about trade with China. And I couldn’t attend his event because I had to speak in West Chester. But this issue over the Lakota Levy is an important one because it’s happening in our own back yard. So go pop some popcorn, grab a drink and sit down and watch the video below by clicking on it. You’ll hear all about why you should VOTE NO on the Lakota Levy, and all the reasons that Issue 2 (the collective bargaining reform bill) is such a wonderful bill that you should VOTE YES on. I cover a lot of ground, so have a seat and fasten your seat belt.
As I said during the speech toward the end, “After Issue 2 holds we will still have teachers, we will still have cops and firefighters. We as a community will still employ those people. But we are not going to do it completely on their terms.”
• You know what a-hole. My kids are now suffering because the Levy didn’t pass and a-hole’s like you will probably cause the next levy to fail which means they will suffer even more. No buses for HS – limited for junior high and elementary. Honors, sports and any type of arts cut or extreme costs to parents. I bet your kids are out of the house. Do you give a damn about the kids! They suffer. Our schools decline and property value’s decrease. That last one might interest a greedy SOB like you
My response, to the union apologist:
• You want to know why your kids are suffering…………………..look in the mirror. If you are going to endorse this kind of behavior, you are clearly part of the problem.
• If your kids grow up to be not what you expected, you can blame yourself. Don’t push it off on me that you are an insecure parent.
The West Chester Police did a good thing and that’s act quickly on an internal investigation of one of their own. The nine-year veteran 37-year-old David Busemeyer was investigated and indicted by a grand jury of three felony charges, obstruction of official business, obstruction of justice and attempted tampering with evidence. Busemeyer is of course innocent until proven guilty, but this entire internal investigation is a reminder that public servants are not perfect. And I don’t expect them to be. What I expect is for West Chester to do exactly as it did, and that is bring about justice even when it involves their own.
The trouble with “collective begging” which is the union term that Cunningham has adopted to refer to the “collective bargaining” reform bill of Issue 2 is that “collective bargaining” is not practical, is expensive, and allows employees who can’t achieve large wage levels under their own merit to make excellent wages under that system. Using West Chester purely as an example since it’s my community it’s not a big deal if David Busemeyer makes $70,032.20 if there was some sort of evaluation procedure that delivered him that type of wage. Maybe he does a lot of high risk work, or maybe he can speak in several languages and act as a translator for illegal immigration busts. But under collective bargaining, EVERYONE makes that kind of money. All a public employee has to do is show up for work, do what they are told within the union rules, and keep their nose clean, somewhat, and they will receive an automatic increase based on their collective bargaining contract.And instead of one employee making great money, you have hundreds making that kind of money and every bit of it must come from the tax payer.
I hired Willie about 15 years ago to be my spokesman for a line of T-shirts I was producing to help get out a message I had which stated, “TAKE AN AX TO OUR TAX.” We were making the shirts at cost during the 1996 election season to bring high taxes to people’s attention. Rob Portman actually bought one from me, and I took one down to city hall and gave it to Roxanne Quals, the mayor of Cincinnati at the time. Willie was hired to do our commercial which we ran on 700 WLW.
I was set to go on with Bill Cunningham during his 9 PM show on a summer Friday night. As I was headed to the station Cunningham had on a segment where he had strippers on doing a live strip show while Cunningham did play-by-play commentary. My wife told me, “This is the guy you’ve hired to be your spokesman?”
I said, “No, he’s a conservative. Willie is just doing this for ratings.”
My wife said, “And you’re going to go on behind this?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“Doesn’t this compromise your message?” My wife said. “You hate Howard Stern because he has no ethics. You hate Jerry Springer because he’ll do anything for money. How is this guy any different? And you’re going to go on his show and let him pretend he’s a conservative. You’re going to acknowledge his existence? You’re going to even give him the time of day?”
In the video above, Cunningham has fantasies that his words actually carry weight, and there is a certain percentage of the population out there who would listen to advice from Jerry Springer, Howard Stern, or Bill Cunningham. Those types of personalities try to be everything to everybody, and actually believe in nothing. But then again, most lawyers are that way. They’ll believe whatever you tell them to, so long as the money is green.
I recently did an article about Issue 2 where I compared the details of that very good bill to the aerospace company Boeing, building its new manufacturing plant in South Carolina. To see that article click the link:
I was impatient at the Issue 2 debate which took place on October 3, 2011. As my wife and I arrived at the Lakota East Freshman Building at 7 PM to see Bill Coley take on Steven Lazarus representing the local firefighters in a debate over Issue 2, the collective bargaining reform law. I was impatient because my Tampa Bay Buccaneers were playing the Indianapolis Colts on Monday Night Football and anyone who knows me understands how much I love the Bucs! So I had thought about skipping this debate so I wouldn’t miss the game. However, I also like Doc Thompson and the Liberty Twp Tea Party and both were involved in putting on this debate, so I reluctantly recorded my game to attend this event.
I feel badly now, for with all that I have said and written about how destructive the public worker has become not only to the national economy, but to themselves. I feel badly because even though many view my comments as harsh and overly critical, I realize now after that episode of the Issue 2 Debate that my comments have not been harsh enough. It is evident to me that the public unions do not represent the middle-class in any way shape or form. They are a new class onto themselves. The name of that class is the “Spoiled Class.” They are citizens of our community who have become so numb to anything beneficial that they no longer appreciate what it took to give them anything at all. They seem to be no different from the spoiled child of the very wealthy who will scream at the top of their lungs, “I DO NOT WANT TO GO TO DISNEYLAND IN CALIFORNIA. I WANT TO GO TO DISNEYWORLD IN FLORIDA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
They like the spoiled child are not even capable of seeing anything beyond their own concerns. The “Spoiled Class” collective disposition is only out for what they can achieve in mass and even that has a selfish prerequisite.
Many of my current friends are about 30 to 40 years older than I am, because it is during this phase once the body has withered away, and sexual fulfillment is not the primary objective of the adult mind followed by a sense of sacrifice to a child. (I’d put the order of necessity for women the other way around, for men, it is as I listed it) It is these older minds who finally begin to see things as they are, unfortunately death is breathing down the necks of these fine people, so it’s often too little too late. They contributed their share of madness into the fabric of social existence confusing necessity with their biological urges and now in their later years they wish to fix what they helped to wreck through the ignorance of their youth. To my way of thinking, “youth” extends well into the late 50’s of some of these people. Some people don’t get “wise” until their 60’s or 70’s. But most do get there eventually because as the strength of their bodies leaves them, their minds increase to compensate.
She wasn’t the first to make such a proclamation. Over the years people would say to me, “You are just like Thoreau.” They seemed astonished when I’d reveal to them that I had never read him, at least until fairly recently, after the encouragement of my daughter. The reason I never gave Thoreau a chance early in my life was because I partially blamed him for the Hippie Movement. It was high school English that taught me that Civil Disobedience was the model of the Civil Rights Movement and it was enjoyed by Ghandi also. Well, I thought Ghandi was a pacifist who should have led India to a violent conquest of his enemies, and this whole starvation thing never made any sense to me. The idea of self-sacrifice for a greater caused always seemed immature. Just as the idea that Christ died on the cross to relieve me of my sins never made sense either. I spotted a long time ago in those Christian studies a series of looters who sought to place themselves between the people and their God as a kind of toll keeper, and they use Jesus, the pacifist as a gate to collect the toll. Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience wreaked all these elements and I refused to read it in high school for that reason, again in college, and in my adult life until my daughter told me my rebellion was misplaced.
Below is a message I received from a teacher who is attempting to play a little game that is now all too familiar. In the debate I had recently with the Pro Lakota Levy group, you could hear the same type of fear based placement of a core argument, resembling the message below.(CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THAT DEBATE)
The example of Somalia is a preposterous one. It is obvious that the creators of that little (anti-libertarian) film does not understand the greater aspects of social relationships. The real trouble in Somalia is due exclusively to their tendency toward collectivism as can be seen in this short documentary.It was on the back of collectivism that socialism was brought to that country, then when that fell, as it always does it paved the way for the clan Civil War that is currently taking place. Somalia is the direct result of government meddling at many levels, not the other way around, as the video obviously produced by some New Age Leftists, only able to see a small part of the overall picture interpreted.
The threats by these collectivists are utterances that aren’t worth the wind which carries the sound wave of discontent. Anyone who believes as collectivists do can be replaced by a superior mind quickly and efficiently, because it is the superior mind who avoids such occupations in order to avoid the fools who are currently employed there.The superior mind doesn’t waste their time on the quandary of collectivism. The apocalypse predicted by those employed by government as that body of collectivism is reduced by the tax dollar are unfounded, completely, the world will still turn tomorrow, kids will still be taught by a teacher, there will still be police and firefighters and many others. The term phrased, “the squeaky wheel gets the grease,” has been true. But my solution to the squeaky wheel is not to just put more grease on it; it is to replace the wheel all together with one that doesn’t make any noise, and might even work better. It is in such thinking that permanent fixes reside.
For those who believe that all is right in the world, the video below is something you should see. I recently had a debate on 700 WLW with Julie Shaffer over school levies and how much she believes people outside the “education bubble” make as a wage, which far off the true mark and goes far to explain why educators are out-of-touch in asking the public to increase taxes to maintain their lifestyles even when the CPI index says those same teachers are extremely overpaid. It is that same “education bubble” of academia where they view the world with rose-colored lenses darkened even more with tenure that they cannot, or will not see that in their typically leftist viewpoint of global unity and focus on “world peace” that our enemies stir. (CLICK THIS HOTLINK TO HEAR MY DEBATE WITH JULIE)
And they plot like sinister manipulators, walking among us like the wolf in sheep’s clothing, climbing under the fence to get behind that bubble to eat. Meanwhile the academic looks at the predator and says, “look there at the poor, the downtrodden, the oppressed and offer them your hand, your help, your charity! I say to you my young students to beckon your wealth in their direction, to assist them for they are our brothers and sisters of this world, and deem our respect and understanding.”In this way the teacher leads the students straight into the mouth of the predator to be consumed uneventfully.
So as the teachers and sympathizers of the “education bubble” continue to beat a drum of distraction to preserve their right to shop at Nordstrom’s, an enemy gathers outside of their vision. And as people like me point and say, “there is your end,” they gallantly shrug off the warning.
“Oh, that Mr. Hoffman just hates teachers and so anti-education. You can’t believe anything he says, because he chooses not to join us in the “education bubble.”