Tag: Teachers Unions

An Evil Fog: The thief who wears the mask of safety

The common practice these days of perplexing every labor done in order that sentiments may be exchanged between a dormant mind and one seeking to loot has extended its sinister fingers into every crevice of our daily lives. This and this alone is the greatest misfortune of the 21st century, a time of astounding discovery and opportunity only to be met with social indifference.

Normally when I’m on the radio with Doc Thompson of 700 WLW I have a little fun ripping to shreds the misconceptions of education spending, because the values do not equate, so there is much fodder to be achieved. But on Thursday, September 22nd, 2011 my daily ride by motorcycle was met with a wall of mystic fog, and the wind called adventure to my throttle as I stormed into the cool morning on that steel horse headed for work. But upon arriving at my office and turning on the radio I was informed of school delays due to the fog and this sent my mind into a torrent which could be heard in my voice during that talk with Doc. Gone from my intonation is that happy banter, although I tried. The replacement thoughts which rushed back to me from the years past set my mind ablaze with a unifying theory which encompasses much of what is wrong in this modern age.

To understand my views on this one must understand a bit about my life. I purposely ride my motorcycle all year, even in the snow, because I enjoy the discomfort and adventure offered in the dangerous conditions. When I receive a deep cut, I usually tend to it myself including sutures. I have been known to stuff the ligaments and blood vessels incorrectly back under my jagged skin only to have it professionally repaired at a later date because the injury was just too great for self repair. In those times, such as a time I had to have my knee repaired with an ACL replacement, the therapy regiment scheduled me for a 12 week intense recovery program, which would require me to be off work during that time. I had the surgery on a Thursday and was back to work minding my 50+ employees on the following Tuesday, walking around on crutches. My therapists were infuriated with me as I learned that they wished to prolong my recovery to fill their own pockets. When after two weeks I declared myself healed, they protested violently. “Nobody can recover that quickly.”
“I just did.”

If I had listened to the cadence of their concerns I might still be in therapy 4 years later, because I had good insurance that covered my therapy, so they had no idea why I was in such a rush to recover, or get back to work. It was beyond their minds that I was doing it for myself, to teach my body to recover quickly and to not accept a loss of movement, or any dependence on an outside person. Self-reliance is the focus of my every thought of every moment of every day, and I expect that same passion out of every cell in my body. I call out to them like a general on a battlefield to fight off disease faster, to clot up lacerations quickly, and to heal with no time to spare. I have always been like this.

Speaking with Doc I thought of another similar foggy morning when I was a kid, couldn’t have been much older than the 5th grade, and a garbage truck stormed over the hill in front of my house and hit the school bus I was getting on from behind. I was in the isle walking back to find a seat when I saw the truck about to hit through the rear window of the bus, so I quickly jumped off the bus and back into my driveway. The collision was so violent that before my feet hit the driveway, the bus had been pushed down the road and was replaced by the wrecked garbage truck.

My first thought was not whether or not everyone was alright on the bus, or even the driver of the garbage truck. My first thought was that I would now be late for school and was granted by the grace of God a few extra hours of time to myself to read a book, draw pictures and write in my journal while the rest of the kids stepped off the bus holding their heads, rubbing their shoulders and looking for somebody to give them some level of pity.

At fire drills I never followed the directions. “Rich Hoffman, you need to get back in line. If there is a fire I am responsible to make sure you’re safe,” my teacher would tell me. Little did they know that if there was a fire, I’d be anywhere but where it was safe. The demons of the night would not allow my mind to rest if I walked away from danger, so standing in a line like a good little boy was not going to happen.

I remember poking the school bully in the eye with my scissors in first grade because he said he was going to kill me. He was out of school for three weeks due to that injury and I received 10 swats with the paddle, but he never bothered me again until the 6th grade where we had such a bad fight that the principle gave us both a paddling. Mine was worse because that kid had problems that would require him to take more time off school. In fact I received a paddling from so many principals that I can’t even remember them all. I remember making sure to let the principals know that I felt no pain, or that I could take it without flinching, even when I was 6 and 7 years old. You see, it was important to be tough, not only in respect from your class-mates, but it seemed important later in life somehow.

I remember sitting in front of one of my high school principals in his office after I had been involved in an altercation and my right fist knuckle was cut open in several places. The bone of my pointer finger was sticking out from the impact and the ligaments that held the top of my hand together were dangling out of the cut. The damage would require a plastic surgeon to fix. “Who did you hit to get a cut like that?” the principal would ask.

Blood running freely and me trying to fight back the effect of shock, “Nobody, why?”
“Rich Hoffman, you can’t continue on like this. You have to find a groove and get into it, this constant resistance to authority that you are prone to will have to stop one of these days or you will die before you get there.”

Once I was married and had kids life seemed to slow down. There weren’t fights with other kids and high-speed car crashes, like I had become accustom to stimulate my mind. Since we only had one car at the time, I bought a bicycle and rode that to work so my wife would have a car. That took the pressure off having to buy another car. I rode that bike to work every day for the next 10 years, 12 miles each way. I did it because it gave me opportunity for adventure on my commute to work. It put me out in the elements and laid danger at my doorstep daily.

Now that I’ve had a little success in life, I ride a motorcycle instead of a bicycle for the same effect, because I’m busy and need to speed up my commute times. Time these days is very important, so I don’t have much of it to kill.

So I can testify that I am utterly baffled by these overprotective mothers who lug around their large cabooses drowning in perfume as if to compensate for the disaster their bodies have become, who have always pointed at my lifestyle as though it were forged in the image of a devil. To me, dressing a kid in a helmet to ride a bicycle down the street is too much. To not let a kid fall down and bump their head or know what it feels like to see the life blood of your body running out before you, forcing you to act quickly to stop it, those are the experiences that make good, strong adults. Pain builds character, and I’d never consider going back in time to avoid any of it.

“The lawsuit culture, the cry-baby teachers, the political looters” I wrote in my notebook that day at the bus accident would all grow up fat, ugly, and socially neurotic. They spent too much time after the accident looking for someone to pity them for their experience, and they would carry that trait into their adult lives and their kids would hate them for it, because kids want to be stimulated. They don’t want to be safe!

Over the last couple decades as parents have divorced with increasing frequency and father number 2 or 3 move in and out of a child’s life so schools have taken up the extra slack of this cultural breakdown, and the teachers out of fear of litigation from neurotic parents have become neurotic themselves and suddenly we have a culture terrified of any danger, so much so that they will throw enormous sums of money at police, firefighters and the like because they live a fearful life and have no way to understand the value of the danger in those positions. The belief is that money will close the gap of understanding is one for fools.

I knew a kid years ago who wet his pants because a lightning bolt struck a tree near where we were playing. He was one whose parents sheltered him incredibly, to the point of neurosis, and of course that kid had difficulty recovering from those limitations when manhood came calling. I used to feel sorry for him, because he didn’t know what it felt like to live a life without fear, because his fears had been conquered. His parents instead taught him that fear was good, and that if he was afraid, then there must be a good reason for it. Bad advice!

Living without fear is the first aspect of a free existence, even before financial security. It is the obligation of childhood to arrive at manhood with as little fear as possible, but unfortunately our current culture actually celebrates neurosis, and belittles the FEARLESS! What an upside down world.
So I felt a twang of pity for all those poor kids who watched the adults in charge of their lives postpone school because an evil fog had cast itself across the land. I realized that a robbery had taken place, all in the name of “SAFETY.” Those children had been denied a mysterious journey through the masked landscape of their familiar routes to see the world differently, and to compare those differences with their everyday route. For it is an important lesson to see how different something you think you know well can look when the elements upon which you see it change. And those kids were denied that experience. Instead, they stayed safe in their homes waiting for the fog to clear and the opportunity for adventure to pass, as the thief went with it into the rising sun of an autumn morning.
Safety had just weakened the next generation proportionally.

For the answer to everything, CLICK THIS LINK:

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/09/18/the-answer-is-c-who-runs-society-the-engine-or-the-boxcar/

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

We Are Ohio’s Commercials: Cincinnati State goes on STRIKE!

Oh, how absolutely adorable. The new ad from We Are Ohio below says that Teachers, Firefighters and Police have “saved” us money by taking wage freezes and cuts in furlough days. Only in government would a group of people declare a savings in money that hasn’t even been spent yet.

That sort of pulls on your heart-strings, doesn’t it? I suppose what the ad is telling us is that since these public unions took cuts, that they somehow deserve a payoff for their sacrifice? That’s what it says to me.

How about this next ad, featuring a neighbor of mine, Eric Abney, why wouldn’t the firefighter be there? Issue 2 doesn’t get rid of firefighters. It only deals with the negotiating process of public employment. But according to Eric, the kid in the video would have died if Issue 2 were a law.

Not so, in fact it is this type of radical view of the world, and the public union’s hostile approach toward management that created a system that clearly is one-sided. As far as Republicans giving tax breaks to their “corporate friends,” well, they are doing that in an attempt to bring business to the state, because believe it or not, businesses that actually provide jobs don’t like to pay taxes to a system that wastes their money, and then keeps trying to hose them for more money. Business tends to go to states with low tax rates. That’s why Ohio has to manage its costs better. It’s not just the politicians in Columbus who want Issue 2. I want Issue 2 because it will give me more control of these costs locally, especially at my local School Board at Lakota. I’m tired of levy, after levy, after levy, and this whole idea that we aren’t supposed to manage those costs is ridiculous. Because it’s education, we are supposed to turn off logic and toss money into a bottomless pit. YES, THEY REALLY THINK THIS WAY!!!!

One of the biggest drivers of teacher salaries is this whole concept of radical striking, where the teachers walk off the job in order to either drive up their wages, or obtain some other perk. Because of a teacher’s ability to strike, which they have abused over many years, education has migrated in cost to an extraordinary level, which dictates more school levies. The only reason public unions “negotiated” this year on their contracts and gave anything back, as they are now claiming in the ads above, is so they could claim to have done so in an effort to repeal Issue 2. I told you dear reader this many months ago, that they would attempt to do this. But what brought them to the table with their hat in hand was the fact that Kasich signed Issue 2 into law. If the unions can repeal the Issue 2, they will resume back to their previous, “high spending,” ways, but in the meantime they are calling it a “sacrifice.” I call it they “have no choice.”

As evidence of this tendency have a look at these teachers at Cincinnati State as they walked off the job yesterday over the lofty goal of “working less.” Yes, that’s right. The teachers at Cincinnati State want to work 20% less. That’s what they are willing to walk off the job for. Issue 2 will prevent teachers in the future from being able to walk off the job, which to me sounds like common sense.

What in the world made those professors believe that they were somehow “entitled” to walk off the job and extort more money from Cincinnati State, because that’s what they are doing? Issue 2 will prevent an employee who receives tax money from being able to walk off that job, since we are led to believe that those public jobs are “essential.” Cincinnati State can’t afford to not continue with classes. So they are obligated to replace those teachers who are striking with employees who want to work. (Here’s a hint, I could re-staff the entire school with new employees by the end of next week. Give me a call Cincinnati State if you want the help, because here’s the secret. Those jobs are replaceable. If those people will walk away from a kids’ education then they aren’t of any real quality to begin with. Dump those striking employees while you can.)

Some of the fault for these teachers high opinion of the services they offer to the community comes from politicians, who are even more clueless than the teachers. Barry Obama is a spokesman for union labor and recently spoke in Cincinnati trying to tie the urgency of fixing the Brent Spence Bridge to the plight of teachers. Barry’s assumption is that teachers are valuable regardless of performance, so more money spent means better education, so if we just through money at teachers without any kind of management of that money, then somehow education will improve. Listen to the Reverend Barry Obama. The audience was full of union people so they were very responsive. (CLICK HERE TO SEE MY REVIEW OF OBAMA SUPPORTERS)

Something seems familiar about that speech…………….ummmm, what is it?

Well, that’s how progressives sell their programs. Obama put teachers on a “spiritual pedestal” and too often it goes to their heads. Ironically, the teachers at Cincinnati State walked off the job the day after Obama gave his speech. But notice in all this discussion that there isn’t any debate about how much money is fair or justified in these public employee positions. The assumption is that we need to be at the teachers mercy because the teachers are performing a high moral task. (For the reason of this mentality CLICK HERE to see my article on how authority figures establish themselves)

As usual, Glenn Beck does a good job of connecting all the dots. Issue 2 is but one small attempt by the public to fix a lot of nonsense and inequity that has been going on in public service. And the first thing that the “less thoughtful” do when they can’t win an argument based on facts instead of emotion, is they resort to violence or racism, and this has given rise to the declaration of class warfare.

Surprisingly, a guy I like quite a bit, Morgan Freeman is one of those who are uncomfortable with the kind of information that Beck and many others are putting out which questions this whole system of public worker entitlement. And it would seem that Mr. Freeman is more intelligent as an actor than as a true thinker, because he is doing the same thing that all the opponents of Issue 2, are doing, he’s trying to hide the facts of the matter with the emotional race card.

I would have expected more from him, but this goes to show the condition of his real mind, and Morgan seems to be just as influenced by the reverend like rhetoric that progressives use to seduce people away from the facts.

But Issue 2 is not about cutting jobs, or hurting teachers, firefighters, or any public employee. It’s about managing the costs which funds these activities with our tax money. Currently there isn’t any management, it’s a one-way street at the negotiating table, and the public unions know it. And they can’t argue to that effect, so they attempt to divert voters away from the truth with emotion and fear disguised in “spiritual” delivery.

What nobody questions is the value of a job, and what that job does, and just like the reverend of a congregation who speaks with seductive eloquence, the goal is to hide the fact that many of those in public service have learned to “steal” money to enrich themselves on the public dollar.

Notice here Dennis Gannon the labor leader of Chicago who gave a similar speech a year ago which sounds oddly just like Obama’s recent speech, and these kinds of talks are very exciting to union members, because they want to believe that they are essential to the marketplace, and somehow deserve to be placed on a pedestal, high above the control of any management. They would have you dear reader believe that Issue 2 is something they are above, and they cannot do their jobs if they are not given the right to negotiate for our tax money without opposition of any kind.

But like everything, all you have to do is follow the money to get at the truth. Dennis Gannon just yesterday secured a $158,000 dollar pension which should come out to 5 million dollars over his lifetime after being rehired for only one day after his retirement. See that article at The Blaze for more detail. (It pays to be a labor leader; again this week in Cincinnati Diana Frey gave a guilty plea to her theft of $750,000. See a pattern?)

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/chicago-union-boss-scores-massive-158000-public-pension-after-being-rehired-for-only-one-day/

That’s what is really behind the emotional ads of Issue 2, those who work in public service to continue this “lottery ticket” existence, where the average worker makes 43.4% more than the private sector employee. It’s always about money. It’s not about safety. It’s certainly not about the kids. It’s about money and benefits.

So it will be up to you dear reader to see through the smoke, the emotion, and the haze to the truth. The truth is easy to see if you dare look, and life will continue after Issue 2 maintains its status as a law. But if you really want to put an end to the enormous amounts of corruption and manipulation, accompanied with the massive spending of our tax money, then you better protect Issue 2. Otherwise it will go back to how it was, where the teaching unions will walk off the job over just small increases in their health care coverage, or to just simply do less work as the teachers at Cincinnati State are doing. And you will look back to this day and wonder why you didn’t have the courage to Vote Yes on Issue 2.

http://action.freedomworks.org/5152/yes-on-issues-2-3-ohio-jobs/wt/?src=widget

For the answer to everything, CLICK THIS LINK:

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/09/18/the-answer-is-c-who-runs-society-the-engine-or-the-boxcar/

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

What People are saying about ISSUE 2 in OHIO: DIANA FREY GUILTY!!!!!!!!

Today, Diana Frey the former President of CODE, a public sector union she started, submitted a plea of guilty to stealing over $750,000 from her members. Without question, Frey represents what’s wrong with public sector unions, and reveals the tip of an iceberg of the amount of money that gets swallowed up by chaos, confusion, and centralized bureaucracy centering on public sector unions. More often than not, these union leaders do not get caught, and it is the tax payer who replaces the money lost with increased taxes.

American Thinker recently published an article I wrote about the situation surrounding Issue 2 in Ohio, which seeks to correct this public union mess. For a review on what Issue 2 is CLICK on this hot link to learn more. I am happy with the article, and even more pleased that I received positive comments and email from as far away as South Africa, and Nigeria. People living in those places can see how the situation in America is shaping up. To understand what exactly that situation is, CLICK HERE to learn the specifics. To read the original article I wrote for the American Thinker click the link below.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/09/the_barbarians_of_issue_2.html

What I found fascinating was the comments accumulated over the first 24 hours. American Thinker is widely read all over the nation, and apparently all over the world so it was interesting to get some outside perspective on how they view Issue 2, so I am posting the comments obtained over the course of the first day, because they say a lot about how a vast majority of the people truly feel. I include those comments in their entirety below. They appear as they do at the link above, but I feel they deserve their own isolation as a study specifically unique to the topic of Issue 2.

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COMMENTS ON AMERICAN THINKER
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kentfromohio Yesterday 06:55 AM

• As my name indicates, I live in Ohio. Northern Ohio to be exact. It is an area that is following the trailblazing path set by Detroit in terms of political leadership, and its embrace of dependency on the government for all. John Kasick and Republican legislature altered the course of Ohio from economic despair back toward hope one year ago in the same way that Scott Walker led Wisconsin back from brink. Issue 2 is Ohio, as a state, attempting to make the destiny of the entire state what Cleveland sports fans are accustomed to feeling – utter despair. Issue 2 is the state having on the ballot a chance to turn the wheel again so that we are driving off the cliff. Issue 2 will offer the voters the chance to undo all that has been done to save the state in the past year. It is a complete roll of the dice taking away the power of the valid elections we just went through and asking the voters for their input on what our elected officials just did in passing Senate Bill 5. Will the voters be fooled by millions of dollars in paid political lies? Who knows?…
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Quartermaster Yesterday 08:02 AM

• I used to live in Ohio and left when I could not find work. I hope that the voters of Ohio sustain SB 5, but I have little hope they will. The rust belt exists in Ohio because of militant unionism, and the state has been dominated by union interests for many years. Here’s hoping that’s changed.
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Ron Kozar Yesterday 08:19 AM

• Mr. Hoffman’s article is superb. My only quibble concerns his portrayal of JFK’s executive order establishing public-sector collective bargaining as “well-intentioned” when, in fact, the intention was to reward big labor for its loyalty to the Democratic Party.
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Juannieboy Yesterday 08:52 AM

• Setting the fear tactics on the TV commercials aside, I believe many working class Ohioians will vote to repeal this common sense law even though it is in their own best interest not to. Too many voters have sons, daughters, family members, neighbors, etc. that work for the government…..Sadly, they will vote with their hearts and not their heads.
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Questioning Yesterday 09:12 AM

• “When President Kennedy signed Order 10988 into law…” Actually it isn’t law and I strongly urge President Palin to make rescinding this mess her first official action. I also question the ‘heroism’ of the police and fire fighters that are saying, in effect, they must be compensated for something that is inherent in their jobs? Something they knew about before they went through the very stringent testing and training to get the job? Seriously? First off, they aren’t heroes. This is a very misused term today. Being in the military or working as a firefighter or policeman doesn’t automatically make one a hero. Now that doesn’t mean there aren’t heroes in this mix, there most decidedly are; but they are in the distinct minority. And that is as it should be. And no REAL hero ever ASKS for money!!!!! OMG; most are embarrassed they got into such a stupid position in the first place. Do we need to acknowledge heroism in America? Absolutely, but let’s not get carried away. Let’s stop cheapening the actions of true heroes. True heroes respond to a heartfelt ‘thank you’, not a check.
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Keith Vlasak Yesterday 09:41 AM

• I live in Ohio too. The ads I’m seeing do not frame the issue very clearly — and I’m also seeing a dozen ads for the unions for every one that isn’t. And the Cleveland news media is all in arms about how poor teachers (that is, the most devoted humanitarians to have ever walked the earth) are being laid off. No one seems to be making the connection. People are sick of schools asking for more money all the time and vote down levy after levy … and no one is explaining that Senate Bill 5 is a tool to get the spending increases every year under control.
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Lizzie Yesterday 10:09 AM

• You need to fight the unions with facts. Here in my little town in Wisconsin, we turned the tide via a letter to the editor of the local paper publishing the salaries of every teacher in town. In Madison they published the salary of a bus driver who made more than the Mayor or Chief of Police. The unions may want to run a fact-free campaign but that’s only because the facts are their worst enemy. Don’t let them get away with it.
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Gunny G Yesterday 11:08 AM

• I have no sympathy for anyone or any state still embracing unionism. I was in Lima Ohio 4-5 years ago and it was a wasteland and the moniker of “Rust Belt” is highly appropriate. ANY city that is highly unionized is either toast or about to be toast yet people continue to support them.

Liberalism, like insanity, is doing the same thing over and over and over, with it failing each time, but they expect a different outcome the NEXT TIME they try it.
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Gatorgirl Yesterday 11:30 AM

• The ‘we are at the gate, man’ comment went right over Boehner’s head. Sometimes the repubs are stupid. Ohio has a chance to save their state, let’s hope they realize that.
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pyeatte Yesterday 11:32 AM

• The public-sector collective bargaining unions are a true cancer. Why they are allowed to exist is a mystery to me. Even that old liberal FDR advised that we never allow public employees to form unions with collective bargaining. He knew the of the evil corruption that would fester between politicians and public unions. The first act of fumigation is for the state to not collect dues on behalf of the union and of course not require union membership as a condition of working for the state.
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Keith Vlasak Yesterday 12:38 PM

• The ads I’m seeing on Cleveland and Toledo TV from the firemen are about how the “politicians” want to keep the firemen from negotiating for enough firemen to do the job (with pictures of one fireman running in and out of a burning building. Nowhere do they say what they mean is they want to negotiate “No Layoffs.” Isn’t that what’s causing the Post Office to go bankrupt?
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wigman Yesterday 02:48 PM

• When governments take about 50% of ones income in taxes and it’s just not enough, I say stop. It’s more than enough. The public is tired of funding your vote buying scheme. Stop now lest the majority become enslaved to the fewer and fewer.
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rephil Yesterday 03:05 PM

• Pa state employee 20 years, union steward, and a conservative, just today tried convincing fellow employees we are tying our own noose. When the public finds out and they will, some of the benefits and some of the abuses of benefits, we will have walked up the steps to the gallows uncuffed. In the 1990’s the family medical leave act was signed into law, well deserved. Now 15 years later the majority of employees where i work have a green light to miss work with benefits and pay without consequence. This has created an overtime nightmare, and management wants a way out. The union only digs in deeper and always backs a member whether they are right or not. Cooler heads are not prevailing and I fear the final outcome is another well paid job gone before the next guy can support his family as I have.
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teachkids Yesterday 03:20 PM

• As an Ohio teacher, I teach in a state that mandates teachers of the public schools to join a union. I favor Issue 2 because, if passed, I no longer need to pay “my fair share” to those unions which support candidates and issues that are contrary to my personal beliefs.
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teachkids Yesterday 03:39 PM

• As a public school teacher in Ohio, I must join the teachers’ unions or pay what they call my “fair share” of the dues if I choose not to join the unions. The difference between the full dues and the fair share is miniscule. I favor the passage of Issue 2 because I will no longer send my money to organizations which support issues and candidates that are contrary to my personal and religious beliefs.
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Patriotsharon Yesterday 04:27 PM

• We must understand that the taxpayers can no longer sustain the payouts in pensions and healthcare. We are all broke and need to level the playing field so it is fair to all. We love all of our public employees and appreciate the services they provide but unless we can control the escalating cost of these services we will be force to massive layoffs. PLEASE VOTE YES ON ISSUE 2 TO TURN OHIO AROUND!!!!!!
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cheech Yesterday 07:20 PM

• Living in Ohio also I do not share the optimism others from Ohio have expressed. Ohio voters are as ignorant of the facts behind issues as others around the country, more so I believe. SB5 will go down in flames and the voters won’t realize what they’ve done till the day of reckoning arrives and taxes will have to be raised to meet the growing demands of the Unions.
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NoHyphenJustAmerican Yesterday 10:25 PM

• I read the back and forth from the good citizens of Ohio. Tough situation. Looks like Gov. Kasich is about to be tested in his own “finest hour” to lead the good guys to victory. All over the USA we’re praying for you.
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squareknot Yesterday 10:39 PM

• I simply note that a mere observation that if Mr. Obama asks folks to pair their fair share” than I see no problem in unions doing what their “boss” requests of them (and others) ..pair their fair share under Issue 2.
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Sutzinger Yesterday 11:38 PM

• I live in Dayton, Ohio, home of the uber-lib Dayton Daily News, the only newspaper in town. Each day of this week, according to the front page story on Sunday, the DDN will use one union, ex. Monday Firefighters, Tuesday Policemen, Wednesday Teachers – you get the drift, to attack and thoroughly discredit SB5 (Issue 2). No alternative views will be printed. The Gestapo will not allow any dissension. If you read the paper and watched the horrific ads the unions are running, you would believe that if Issue 2 passes, we will have no fire fighters and all our houses will burn down.

In the editorial page on Sunday, a comment was made that certain union members ALREADY PAID the princely amount of 15% of their own health care. Neglected is the fact that the rest of the non-union world, should we be fortunate to be able to buy health insurance, pays at least 50% of the cost. So the union members, who pay 15%, ignore the fact that the remainder is paid by us the taxpayers.

I hate libs, I hate unions, I hate the DDNews. Pray for our state. No suggestion is made in any of the issues this…
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inthisdimension Yesterday 11:49 PM

• This isn’t hard. In about April, 2012, the House needs to pass legislation as follows: recognizing that Federalism precludes the passage of National Right-to-Work, the Feds simply rejects any Block Grants, highway or other infrastructure spending to all non-RTWStates. The States can do what they want, but Fed money won’t be coming your way. And, yeah, that includes the abolition of prevailing wage laws…
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Sandra45036 Today 02:27 PM

• A YES vote should be the choice of all people who favor freedom and the American way of life. The current mandates are unsustainable. The public sector worker’s unions spent millions of dollars of union member dues to guarantee the election of a democratic governor, senate and house so that in 1983 all of the union demands were put into the Ohio Revised Code. These union mandates are completely bankrupting the state. Eventually the state will run out of “other people’s money.” The unions seem to believe that they are entitled to receive everything they ask from us. If we object, then we must face the consequences of their wrath. It is one thing to go after adults, but when they use the children in the classroom they go too far. Few know that unions are not accountable for retaliation, intimidation and violence. Currently the Department of Labor and the Obama administration are proposing a regulatory change on newly classified “persuaders.” One study lists over 9,000 reported incidents of union violence.

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The sum of what I read among those contributors is that most everyone agrees that Issue 2 is something that is necessary for the health of Ohio, but most are skeptical as to whether or not Ohioans can overcome the Public Union Empire to hold on to the law. The public unions clearly do have an empire that actually involves a large sector of the media. The discussions about the Dayton Daily News should come as no surprise. James M. Cox who was the founder of the Dayton Daily News, and was born in the same county (Butler) as I currently reside and was a major progressive who ran for President on the Democratic ticket and even supported Woodrow Wilson and FDR, so it is no surprise that publications under Cox support his politics, just as union members tend to vote in favor of their pay checks, even if their position is wrong.

Read more about James Cox here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Middleton_Cox


People like Cox, who would go on to become Governor of Ohio are the architects of this Public Union Empire, and yes, the media does not want to learn that their leader was wrong, just like members of the media have a hard time understanding that Walter Lippmann was out-of-his-mind wrong on many of the progressive ideas he advocated. Those media types carry much of the blame because they stood behind the expansion of public unions, and helped perpetuate the current crises.

But without question, regardless of how those in a public union feel about it, the state of Ohio cannot afford to carry the number of employees that it has who are making 43.4% more than everyone else with overall compensation, the math just doesn’t add up. The more government employees there are, the harder it gets to compensate them what they expect. The fault rests on all members of the Public Union Empire who advanced a progressive agenda without considering what would happen when the whole house of cards started to collapse. They never thought that far ahead to their peril.

That leaves those of us with reason to vote in November to keep a law that will allow us to manage the costs of this massive Empire. Of course the members of that Empire won’t be happy. They would like that Empire to continue forever. But it can’t.

The only question is when the Empire gets dismantled, do we get the opportunity to manage it or does it collapse under its own weight? If Ohio votes to keep Issue 2, then we can avert a major economic disaster this year, while there is still time to save the structure of the services we employee in those sectors. If we do not maintain Issue 2, and lose it to the Public Union Empire, then financial catastrophe is on the horizon for every single tax payer in Ohio, because it will either require massive layoffs of public sector jobs, or major tax increases. There isn’t any middle ground.

So what will it be? I can say for myself, I will vote YES, and regardless of the outcome, I will know that I did the right thing, even if it is hard to do.

For the answer to everything, CLICK THIS LINK:

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/09/18/the-answer-is-c-who-runs-society-the-engine-or-the-boxcar/

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

The Buffett Rule: The sad position of Barry Obama

What? The President said he’d veto any proposal that did not include tax increases……oh, I mean “revenue.” I thought this President was all about “compromise.” (Auh Oh, I better be careful. Someone might send this article to Attack Watch.)

The President of the United States continues to be a complete joke. He is maybe one of the most incompetent administrators I have seen in a long time. I believe he is WAY over his head in this job of President. I knew what the President was going to say before he even got up this morning, but the recklessness for which he says it is stunning. I’ve known for a long time in fact what the President would say, because Barry Obama is simply a puppet that speaks what his political party desires, and if you know who they are, you can predict what will come out of the president’s mouth. So as my new article on Issue 2 was published in American Thinker, which ironically is partly about how Obama is basically a spokesman for labor unions, part of my mind marveled at how convoluted this President continues to think. (See that American Thinker article here)

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/09/the_barbarians_of_issue_2.html

Doc Thompson of 700 WLW was interrupted by the President during his broadcast, and had some things to say about the merit of Barry’s little speech which will lead to what I’m about to say. Listen to that broadcast here.

People like Barry Obama, and many in his party and some from the Republican Party are not acting in our best interest. For many years there has been a plan to turn The United States Republic into something else.

Enter Norman Mattoon Thomas, who in 1944 made the statement you will see included in the fine little picture included here. Take a minute to read that before continuing.

Now, how about that? Are those the words of some conspiracy theory, Tea Party, radical? No, those are the words of a real person who along with an army of like-minded pacifists helped usher in the radicals 60’s movement with the aim of bringing Socialism to the United States. You can see in his own words the method by which he and his friends intended to do this, liberalism.

The key to me in listening to the President’s speech was why do I have to pay for all these social programs that are attached to liberalism, if I don’t support liberalism? Why should I support any liberal program, especially knowing that socialism has always been the goal? Why would I knowingly choose to fund my own country’s destruction by funding liberal policies? That doesn’t make any sense.

Much of what Barry Obama stated were “essential” programs that must be funded by my tax money are programs created under the umbrella of liberalism, or as shown by Mr. Thomas, “socialism.” So why do those programs deserve to be funded at all?

The President mentioned that some of that tax burden of which he wishes to fund using the wealth of the “rich,” would go to fund education. OK, so what does education entail? Is education making sure children learn to read, write, and do math, or is education actually liberal, (socialist) instruction? And is a teacher a mentor, or someone who is supposed to teach a child the basics? And is a teacher worth 40K a year, 50K per year, or 60K per year? If it is determined that a teacher are essential mentors and instructors of basic instruction and are worth 60K a year in salary, then how many teachers are performing at this level, all of them? Because currently we pay in taxes a value which assumes that every teacher is performing with spectacular results, the best of the best, even when we discover they are having sex with kids and other indiscretions during school hours. Not all teachers mind you, but some. (Here’s the trouble with taking teachers as a collective in assessing value. When they want to be paid well, they all stick together. But when one messes up and does something stupid, like the pedophile at Lakota, then the teachers act like he acted alone and they should not be judged because of him. So which is it? All for one and one for all………..or, judged by independent merit?)

GET THE POINT?

In Ohio out of the 612 school districts they are collectively running at a $8 billion dollar deficit, 96% of which is compensation costs. According to President Obama, tax payers should just pay the money to close that deficit gap without asking why the gap exists or without having an intelligent discussion as to whether or not the compensation for those teachers is worth it, because I see an awful lot of children graduating from high school these days who aren’t very smart.

That small example could be greatly expanded to include Medicare, Social Security, The EPA, the entire Department of Education, and Homeland Security. In fact I could probably put down a whole book just on the wasteful programs built by liberalism, as a subtle march toward socialism, that simply cost too much money and don’t deserve my hard-earned money.

The President mentioned again that people “like him” should make a sacrifice, to dig deep into their pockets to pay their fair share of taxes. Well, no WE shouldn’t. First of all, Barry Obama became wealthy because of his public service. Without politics, Barry would still be organizing rallies in Chicago and smoking joints like a lot of his union brothers. He certainly wouldn’t be a millionaire, because he doesn’t make anything or manage anything that can produce a profit. Second, what is a “fair share?” Why is it fair to require me to fund programs I think are ridiculously foolish and are weakening our society, in my opinion? I have no intention of ever receiving a Social Security check, so why should I continue to pay? How is that fair, that some absentminded fool politician came up with some looting law for me to work extra hard to pay for, when if I kept the money, could have done something more productive? The tax to me is just legalized robbery. It’s going to groups I don’t believe in to fund philosophies I have no faith in, to support an agenda I find detrimental to the future of the country. So why do I have to pay again? How is it my obligation, because some incompetent manager like Barry decided I had to pay?

It’s easy for a looter to give away things; because they can just take away from “the rich” anytime they need to refill themselves. And that’s what all these tax increases are. If the wealthy were a minority group representing bloc voters, Barry Obama would never think of insulting the wealthy the way he does. He only does it because there aren’t that many wealthy people, so if they all vote against him in the next election, he could care less. He’s all about taking from those who have, and giving to those who don’t, and there are more people in the world that don’t. So it works out from his stand point, which is a premise of socialism.

Just like Mr. Thomas knew that people would never accept socialism at face value, so they changed the name to liberalism, progressivism, the enlightened philosopher kings of Plato’s Republic. But the reality of their mentality is socialism. Just like the reality of demanding more taxes is simply no different from a thief holding a victim at gun point to rob them of the contents of their wallet. It is purely relative as to whether or not the robber has a gun or a whole country with the IRS, CIA, ATTACK WATCH or any other weapon at their disposal. The intent is the same, and that is to loot those who have so those that want it can have it.

The reason Barry is so incompetent is that he can’t see that even if he took all the wealth the “rich” had, then what would happen then? When that money is gone what happens next? If Barry gets reelected President, what will happen two years from now when taxes won’t fix the problem and spending is still on an upward trend and the rich have simply moved to Hong Kong, or Singapore to hide from the long arm of the Government? What will that bamboozled president do then? Who will he rob then to take care of his own “special interests,” his voting bloc, his political contributors which move his mouth to make words come out? Who?????????????

He’ll do the same as the gambler who has lost his whole fortune in one night at the tables; he’ll roll the dice again, and again, as long as we let him. Just like the gambling addict, he will continue to sprinkle illusions at even himself because he is fully committed to the strategy of those who came before him, people like Mr. Thomas, even when there is no money to bet with any longer, and his credibility has long since left him, because the foundations of his beliefs were wrong to begin with, and everything he is, and hopes to be will require him to steal from someone else so that he could be something………….anything in the age-old tragedy the likes of which made Shakespeare seem so prophetic.

Look in Barry’s hand there if you doubt what I’ve said here and shown you.  To see what that book is about check it out at this link:

http://www.amazon.com/Post-American-World-Fareed-Zakaria/dp/039306235X

For the answer to everything as to why labor unions fail, check out this link:
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/08/23/why-public-labor-unions-fail-the-science-of-stagnation/

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Public Workers Make 43.4% More Than EVERYONE ELSE: More reasons to vote YES on ISSUE 2

 

 

Let me guess. The pro union faction will declare the new report that Andrew Biggs from the American Enterprise Institute just released is false, which states clearly that public sector workers are being paid 43.4% more than private sector positions, and that many of the costs are the type of secondary costs that many in the private sector don’t even consider because they are only known in public sector service. The unions instead will declare that all the information contained in that report is somehow misleading and concocted by the “evil John Kasich” from his throne of power. (This shows what a poor grasp on reality those people function from)

That’s why I’m putting up the original video of Andrew Biggs where he explains how he arrived at the information and discusses how other information that had been floating around prior to this report is fundamentally wrong due to several errors of judgment, which this report corrected.

The public union supporters have been floating around for weeks, just as they do with school levies the fear that if Issue 2 stays law, then the public workers will stop their public service work and will leave those jobs to work in the private sector……………LOL. Let me make a prediction. (WHISPER) NO THEY WON’T, because as Mr. Biggs said, “Fears that public employees are being treated unfairly, or that many will quit their jobs and the government will be unable to recruit replacements, are almost certainly unfounded.”

Public workers even if they gave back half of all their benefits to the taxpayers in order to be more equal would STILL be out ahead of everyone who pays their salary. That is where all the hidden costs of state budgets are. They get lost in the chaos of big government and explain why those employees are so expensive. The more government workers there are, the less efficient they are, because personal accountability is decreased. That is the subject of this Doc Thompson discussion on 700 WLW in a recent broadcast where he reveals how inaccurate states have been in issuing unemployment insurance. Doc continues on to discuss the new AEI report after this stunning revelation. The terrible performance discussed in this broadcast could be translated to virtually any form of government. This is the problem with politicians who “create” jobs just for the sake of filling seats with bodies without any concept on performance.

For your own reference, feel free to read the whole report for yourself. You can read it at the link below:

http://issuu.com/communitypress/docs/brtcompensation/2

The basics of the report are this:

• Ohio public employees receive nearly the same wages as comparable private workers (2.5 percent less, although that’s an average disguising some of the education professions with lower level administrative work, such as those who issue the insurance payments. Teachers along with police and firefighters are very guilty of uncontrolled overtime payments, and double-dipping retirements which are paying the same employee twice and driving up the cost of staffing those positions.)

• Fringe benefits for Ohio public workers are more than twice as generous as those paid in the private‐sector, meaning that when pay and benefits are taken into consideration public workers receive 31.2 percent more in total compensation than private‐sector counterparts.

• Ohio Public employees enjoy significantly greater job security than private‐sector workers. That job security has an economic value equal to approximately 10 percent of compensation.

• Even if the provisions of SB 5 were implemented in full, it is very likely that Ohio public‐sector workers would continue to enjoy a substantial compensation premium over private‐sector Ohioans.

Seeing all this it’s not hard to see why the public employee unions are out chanting, screaming, and acting like a bunch of spoiled brats. They know they have a good thing going. The bigger government is, the less anyone pays attention to how much things cost and this is the direct reason that taxes are increased, because nobody is managing the costs. So when the union lobby says that Issue 2 will not directly save money, that is because they are not considering all the indirect costs, which make up a majority of the 43.4% disparity, and if each city and district can control their own costs, it will be much harder to hide these huge differences in compensation that are currently hidden in a massive bureaucracy.

For the public unions it is easier to make a villain out of Governor Kasich, as though Kasich is the one who wrote the bill, than it is to deal with any real facts. Sadly, the union lobby just like they do with their anger at Wall Street just don’t seem to understand that Kasich had very little to do with Senate Bill 5 known now as Issue 2. It was a bunch of Senators, many of whom I know, that wrote the bill based on what people like me told them we wanted to see happen. And if the public unions succeed in getting Issue 2 removed as a law, people like me are not going to go away. This is just getting started. This is the first step.

The reason for this persistence is that I’m not going to pay higher taxes to maintain a 43.4% difference in benefits. That’s just stupid. I’ve known this disparity existed for a long time, but I didn’t know it was even THAT bad as indicated in the AEI Report. I had been thinking it was around 30%, which I thought was too much. So this report reveals that it’s far worse than even I thought. And in my opinion if the public workers decided to leave public service, then good. We need a smaller government as it is, and if the pay wasn’t so good, then people wouldn’t want to work for the government so badly. Then maybe we’d get people working in government who do it as a sacrifice instead of trying to enrich themselves at tax payer expense. And before all the teachers, firefighters, and cops write me to say, “Oh, you are a big mean guy,” if what I said wasn’t true, then there wouldn’t be so many abuses of the retirement law. Double-dipping alone costs the state of Ohio millions and millions of dollars, and people in the private sector do not have that option. The retirement at 55 needs to be abolished, and with or without Issue 2, we’re coming after it. It doesn’t matter if it’s this year, or next year, or the year after, sooner or later those abusive privileges will be leaving, because I won’t shut my mouth until they are gone, and I’m not alone.

So public unions, go ahead and show videos of crying babies, and burning buildings and hope nobody looks too closely at the scam you and your unions have been running, which every single one of you know you are guilty of. Because the facts don’t lie, even though you wish they did. You have been cheating the taxpayer by 43.4% and you owe that back to each and every private sector worker sooner or later. Nobody in their right mind would vote to increase their own taxes now that they know you have been screwing them over in dramatic ways and hiding the crime behind their children, their sick, and the victims of crime. Such a thing is disgraceful, and not worth the money we pay you, even if it was equal with the private sector, which it isn’t.

For the answer to everything as to why labor unions fail, check out this link:
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/08/23/why-public-labor-unions-fail-the-science-of-stagnation/

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

The Answer is “C”: Who runs society the engine or the boxcar?

In this article, which may seem long, but if you take the time to read and watch the videos here, I will promise you a new level of wisdom gained that will give you insight into a world that was once invisible to most of the population. Better than all that, I will tell you why. But for some reference you might want to refer to my articles on Static Intellectualism and patterns by clicking on this hot link.

To provide testimony for everything you will read and see in this article I would like to present to you a simple game called, “The Answer is C,” presented by Doc Thompson of 700 WLW. Listen to this short little contest and study the questions and answers by the public.

The lesson to that game is that the participants, 3 out of 5 were completely unable to see beyond the Static Patterns of what they understood a multiple choice test to be. When the callers were waiting on the line to go on the air they were focused on the hope that they would be able to understand the question and provide an answer so that they could win a gift card to Frisch’s restaurant. What the listeners didn’t consider, because their static patterns would not allow them to see it, was that Doc Thompson told them the answer ahead of time. In fact Doc told the callers the answer at least 20 or more times in that short 6 minute broadcast. The answer to the questions is even in the title of the game! Yet 3 out of 5 people missed the question even when given the answer. WHY? And what does it have to do with our current political trouble? Well everything.

In our fundamental education at public school, our first real experience outside of our parent’s homes, progressive philosophy imported from Europe has taken over the essence of that education, because the Victorians of progressivism marketed those values into curriculums at all levels. The traditions of our daily habits and lives still come from our parents, but our social values are largely shaped by our experience in public education, so in creating a static pattern for all human beings, if the progressive mentality wished to become accepted, it had to do so through education, which is why to this day so many who work in education are considered leftists, democrats, progressives and unionized radicals. It is because the people drawn to that field of endeavor, education, found that to advance in the static patterns of that culture they had to adopt those progressive ideas. This created a large group of teachers at all levels who tend to be progressive thinking people whom every child in America is then exposed to as a competing social idea in shaping the static patterns of the child.

This has created the trouble of young people being liberal leaning when they first leave school. It is after those children live life for a few years and raise a family of their own that they begin to see the error of progressive/liberal thought. Young people are attracted to characters like Van Jones and the kind of speeches people like him make at the below progressive conference. Government dependence is an attractive concept to young people who are uncertain about their ability to compete in a very competitive world.

Progressivism is attractive to the down-and-out also. The illegal immigrant, the welfare recipient, the unhealthy, all are the types who are drawn to the Van Jones message. After all, by looking at the receipt to the right which was found in a Menominee, Michigan grocery store parking lot you will see why. For the non-competitive, life under government security allows them to purchase lobster and steak with food stamps while the competitive fund it. The error of what Van Jones preaches is that the system only works so long as there are competitive people out there willing to produce. I shudder to consider what would happen if the truly innovative, and hard-working decided to do as the characters of Atlas Shrugged did in that classic novel, and that’s stop working just as those people who are collecting food stamps are doing. Progressivism fails when everyone in society just gives up trying. Progressives fail to understand that someone has to be the engine, the producer, the driver. Progressives are simply cars that are drug behind the train engine and the more cars there are just carrying passengers, the harder it is for the rest of the train to pull.

When Van Jones talks about the success of Germany and China taking care of their people what he fails to mention is that China is not exactly a free country. They do not share the same values as the United States. You are not even allowed to have more than one child per family, let alone decide all other aspects of their life. And Germany is just now recovering from the fall of the Berlin Wall where the West was finally able to merge with the Soviet controlled East. Once capitalism was able to work in Germany their country began to produce again. In China it was when Hong Kong was transferred back to China from the Capitalist tendencies of England in the year 2000. Back then there was a lot of fear as to what would happen to Hong Kong under Chinese rule. Would China bring down Hong Kong into a communist province or would the communists attempt to accept Hong Kong and the great economy that was flourishing there? China decided to adapt, reluctantly, and their economy is flourishing.

But Van Jones won’t tell anybody that, and nobody bothers to ask the question, because just like in the game that Doc Thompson put on, where he even gave the answer at the start of the question, the callers still got the answer wrong. The same types of people are at those progressive events. The goal of progressive public education is to make competition less attractive, except in sports which are used to fund the whole enterprise. But for the regular student, competition is being frowned down upon. Progressives have always known that by eliminating the competitive tendencies in a child, who will grow up into an adult and accept their philosophy, that stifling personal ambition was the focus all along, but ambition toward altruistic goals are greatly rewarded. Thus the static patterns of modern society have been shaped, and even when proof that the choices people have made are wrong, they generally cannot see why, for the same reason that people answered the questions wrong in Doc’s game.

But not everyone is falling for it. More and more young people are leaning in the direction of conservatism. I would say that in social representation, they are the 2 out of 5 who answered right. These people have the ability to see that there are serious errors to the social patterns that have formed around them and they are beginning to emerge, which was the topic of a recent discussion on GBTV.

Another young person who has emerged out of this public education static pattern of progressivism is the radio personality Matt Clark who is a freak of nature. He is way ahead of the curve at his young age. He is the type of person who would have gotten all Docs’ questions right immediately. He’d be the first to say, “Why are you asking me this question, Doc, because you already gave me the answer?”

This is the terrible condition people like Matt will always suffer from. Matt is a smart young man, but so are people who are progressives. I would venture to say that George Soros is smart, after all he’s a billionaire so he did something right. Van Jones is smart. Barack Obama is probably smart taken one on one. But all those people are suffering from a failed understanding built within their static patterns. Their failure comes from their education to begin with. So it’s not a matter of intelligence. I know a lot of smart people who are really, socially stupid. Some of them suffer from having traditional parents and a stable household, but try desperately to merge those values with the values they learned in public education and college and what happens is a mess of personal ideology which prevents them from seeing the obvious, because their static patterns are fundamentally broken.

Matt Clark however managed to come out of college recently much like the young people on GBTV, and they are fully aware of what is wrong and can see it clearly even if the rest of the world can’t. Even without a life of experience behind Matt, he can see the error of what Nancy Pelosi’s progressive philosophy is advocating, even though Nancy seems oblivious to her hypocrisy even as she says it.

If you’ll remember back to Doc’s contest, 2 out of 5 callers got the answer right. Well, if you think about it, that same ratio seems to be evident in the nation as a whole. The country leans slightly to the right of center. The people right of center to varying degrees are aware that something is wrong with progressives. The one’s who are close to the center know it, but can’t articulate it. But the further to the right that you get, the more obvious it is. Somewhere out there to the firm right is the libertarian who wants very little government at all, because they simply don’t trust government to do anything right.

This isn’t so much a question of does those on the left have a right to exist or not. People are free to believe whatever they want to believe. But when policy is formed to reflect one point of view over another point of view and the security of maintaining that philosophy requires the looting of everyone to maintain the philosophy of that one side, a big problem emerges. And that is what we have found has happened with the progressive leaning public sector service jobs we’ve created in our American culture.

The trouble here is that many police and firefighters seem to lean in a conservative direction politically, unlike teachers who overwhelmingly are liberal, yet all fall under the category of public service and are all guilty of the kind of explosive growth shown by Nick Gillespie from Reason Magazine.

All states must find a way to deal with this terrible situation. In Ohio the discrepancy of public workers versus private workers is 43.4% in favor of the public workers! Yet strangely people can’t see the answer even though it’s clearly spelled out. Just like Doc’s game, 3 people out of 5 still got the answer wrong, and in this case with public unions, the idea of a union is a progressive position which has been embedded in our culture through education. And when the static pattern of those beliefs are challenged, as they are in Ohio with Issue 2, the public unions even though they are politically represented by conservatives and liberals, all unite under the static pattern of union radicalism to protect the advancements their progressive unions have imposed on society for decades. Ohio passed a law to help close the gap in that huge disparity between public and private workers because after all the burden of paying for everything in the progressive platform requires the private citizen to carry the entire burden of an enterprise. The whole of any public sector position rests on the shoulders of private enterprise, and the same is true for government itself. Yet progressives routinely forget this and believe that they exist as an entity all their own. So police, fireman, and teachers all pulled together to collect 1.3 million signatures to repeal the bill passed by Governor John Kasich to close the disparity gap and make Ohio more economically attractive to outside investment and prospective homeowners (tax payers). Because of the repeal attempt by the unions, Ohio must vote to keep the bill known as Issue 2.

The solution is very easy for those of us who can see, just like many people listening to that broadcast with Doc Thompson were shouting at their speaker saying, “HE’S TELLING YOU THE ANSWER IN THE TITLE!!!!!!” Yet there are others, who are stuck in a learned static pattern who make up the progressive labor unions, which transcends political ideology in this case and have turned into a radical group who are insisting that the answer to our public problem still rest in some progressive solution when it is the progressive platform that has created our trouble to begin with. The equivalent to this would be one of the people in Doc Thompson’s broadcast insisting that the answer to the game was in fact A, B or D, anything but C, when the only correct answer is C.

And that’s the real problem. Progressive thought has devastated our country and 2 out of 5 people are seeing it. Those 2 people are beginning to make up the new group called the Tea Party, they are part of the 2 to 3 million people who make up the Glenn Beck audience, listen to talk radio, and read articles like my 500 readers a day here. They know something is wrong, and like Matt Clark, and the kids on GBTV are starting to look for ways to solve the complicated problem and they are doing it without of any hostility toward progressives. They just want to solve the problem.
But now we see what the real agenda has always been among progressives. Now that progressives see those 2 out of 5 people are starting to question them, the unions are seeking to use the other 3 to form an army to force the 2 to comply with their view of the answer even if their answer is wrong.

That’s where this situation has become out of control. Now that some of us are trying to fix the problem we are learning why progressives want unions to begin with, to not only fund political endeavors, but to use them as a civilian ground force. I think the young, and forward thinking Matt Clark has the situation nailed in this broadcast where he plays clips of the current leaders of progressive politics who are actually saying as much. Matt takes the situation and plays it a bit over-the-top, but I think it deserves to be.

It wouldn’t be the first time a political uprising formed under the nose of a current culture. Such things take place over a long period of time and do not happen quickly, and anyone who has studied the Art of War by Sun Tzu, which I have, understand that the most desirable way to conquer a country is without firing a shot is by using the “subtle” to overtake a culture. In this case it was the infusion of progressive politics almost a century ago which has led to a confused society that on one hand thinks it’s fighting for traditional American rights, like many of the cops and firefighters believe they are doing, but find themselves simply foot soldiers in a civilian army designed to topple American Capitalism. The way you perform the invasion is from within the country, not with planes, tanks and nuclear weapons. You do it while the passive citizens, trained under your progressive institutions paid for with progressive taxes, wave flags of peace in the air and greet those progressive invaders with open arms and perhaps even a place in their beds. Those young students so unsure of themselves won’t believe that the answer is “C” even if you tell them the answer until life proves to them that everything they believe is wrong, and over the course of their lives from age 20 to 50 they finally learn how wrong they were. They finally find out that being conservative was the way they should have always been, because traditional values worked in the past and they will always work in the future.

I can say it now because by the time this hits the net, my wife would have already given the present to my sister who is about to have baby twins. My wife has made a blanket for every baby that is born in our family. She’s done that for 20 years, and these twins are just the most recent. These blankets are unlike anything you could ever buy at a store, and they are intended to provide a sense of security for the young child as they form those crucial static patterns of their lives. It is the static patterns of life that people form their beliefs around and a blanket of security made with love from a treasured family member is extremely important to the life of any child. But when progressives started to attack those traditional values by undermining the family unit to be replaced by progressive education which created an unstable static pattern for these young children to grow up confused and pulled in a thousand different ways only to learn in their 50’s that the whole process was a mess and needs to be reformed completely from the ground up. That rebirth needs to be built upon the static pattern of American Tradition, which is a topic of its own. Click here to see a sample.

But the focus of this all along has been to weaken the United States with progressivism and to use its own people as the army. The recruits of this army are those 3 out of 5 who simply can’t see the truth even when you place it right in front of their face. You can spell it out for them implicitly, but they still won’t see, because their static patterns are wrong to begin with, so they cannot see it even if they tried.

The work rests on the 2 out of 5 to do all the work anyway. They must carry the whole burden of this failed philosophy called progressivism and replace it with what worked before progressives brought their nonsense to the whimsical Victorians of early New York City, to culturally launch the nation into a static pattern of degradation much to the pleasure of our enemies.

And yes dear reader, the United States has enemies. It has since the beginning. The War of 1812 was England’s last attempt to recapture its colony; for fear that the young nation would leave it behind, which it did, in just one short century. And that growth exploded upon the world scene and brought freedom to the far corners of the world, until progressives stopped that growth with litigation, unions, and social reforms centered on civil rights.

It wasn’t the progressives who initiated the civil rights movement, it was the American Transcendentalists, and I’m thinking of Ralph Waldo Emerson specifically. Progressives did what they always do, and that is to loot the idea from those who created the idea to begin with proving that the all-American novel Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand should be required reading for every single child in grade school because it is a work more important than any literary work produced in America since its inception. Because Atlas Shrugged provides the blueprint on how to live in an America free of progressivism and it shows what life would and should be like in absence of that philosophical disease called the progressive.

This entire essay is a sincere hope on my part to share with you, the reader a world that should be obvious. To those who already know that the answer to Doc Thompson’s questions is in fact, “C” thank you for bearing with the length of this article, for it will only confirm what you already know. But to those of you that don’t know that the answer is “C” but instead is “A,” “B,” or “D,” I hope you just learned something that can help you to not be such a drag on the rest of society, and to join the rest of us who are trying to make the whole thing work well into the future.

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Attack Watch: Brought to you by Dictator Obama

One of the great things about Glenn Beck is that he’s spent the money he’s made off his books, his subscriptions, and his shows and reinvested it back into the message he’s been committed to. You won’t find Glenn Beck running around with some stripper in a New York hotel, or find that he has used any of his money to abuse anybody in society. Regardless of whatever mistakes he may have made in the past, I sincerely believe the person he is today is a good person who just wants the truth, the same as me, and millions of other Americans who simply don’t like the progressive direction of our country.

When Glenn Beck launched his new GBTV network I wasn’t sure what to make of it. So far what I’ve seen I like a lot. I am very impressed with the $20 million dollar set he built, and better yet, he has no boss, no middleman to steer his topics into the “collective” direction of an editor or even a network owner. Glenn Beck is the owner and he has used his success to purchase his freedom from the grid of politics and he is truly free in a way that few people ever achieve to function authentically, and to use his gift of insight for all it’s worth.

A sign that Beck is achieving that success can be seen in President Obama’s new Attack Watch website, which I find disgusting, but also revealing, for it shows just how juvenile politicians as high-ranking as The President of the United States truly is. Listen to Beck discuss it from the set of his new show, totally free of any editorial censoring, which I believe has triggered this move by the president and his staff.

After I saw this episode with Beck I checked out the website for myself and the very first thing that came to my mind was the way that East Berlin used to engage in similar propaganda to prevent its people from trying to escape over into West Berlin. Obama is actively looking for dissidents to his administration so those dissidents can be targeted. Of course people like Beck will be targeted, but as I read the intent of that website it became clear that the goal of Attack Watch wasn’t so much after Glenn Beck, but it’s intended to target people like me and the material I publish on this site, which I stand behind proudly. But the nature of this type of information set my blood into a boil, so I contacted Attack Watch and turned myself in with the note shown below, which is the exact text that I sent to Barack Obama and his minions running Attack Watch.

Dear Attack Watch:

I will have to report myself. I am embarrassed at this administration and his support of public unionized labor. And he has put himself on the front line of Ohio’s Issue 2 and is very responsible for his own attacks and false information. The fact that he supports this site says everything about the guy.

Rich

Shortly after I did this I heard that Doc Thompson was covering this very issue on 700 WLW so I called in at about the 11 minute mark and confessed what I had done, that I had turned myself into Attack Watch. Doc and I had some fun at the expense of the President over his Jobs Bill and this tyrannical Attack Watch website, which the President deserves. CLICK TO LISTEN:

The parody that Doc and I were talking about can be seen in it’s entirety below. I am proud to see it produced but sad that the humor of it isn’t too far off from reality. For it is an accurate representation of the mentality of this President. This isn’t a new tactic by would-be-dictators. The Gestapo similarities are undeniable. If the President and his staff wanted to confirm everything “crazy” that critics like Beck have said about him, he just confirmed it with that website.

I would recommend that everyone take the opportunity to turn themselves in to our own American Gestapo by dropping a comment into Attack Watch and let them know what you think about a President who spends an enormous amount of money on theory, big labor support, and massively expanded government built with a theory of altruism that is naïve in its foundations, yet is sold to America with the same fast talking nonsense that we might see from a used car salesman. If I thought the Obama Presidency was a joke before the advent of Attack Watch, I am more convinced of it now than ever. If such a thing had been around during the Bush administration, the progressives would have taken Bush out of office with a posse and a rope. Yet Obama supporters write him a blank check on intelligence, of which they have all shown to be bankrupt, and not worth the paper the check is printed upon. Because this whole experiment has nothing to do with race or even party, it’s all about a massive progressive who believes just like the charismatic tyrant that if you “LOVE” him you’ll vote for anything he says. Well, only a fool does that, and I suspect that anyone who isn’t a fool will end up on the Attack Watch list at some point in time, because this is not the action of a President of a free country. This is the actions of a dictator, and that is the harsh reality.

Now, to make it simple for all those silly people who are willing to feed the Gestapo Dictator of Attack Watch information about me, which I have no doubt will happen, I have listed links to a small sample of the dozens and dozens of articles I have written about this President whom I do not believe is qualified to manage a McDonald’s, let alone a country.  The evidence speaks for itself.   

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/03/24/the-presidential-fool-the-office-of-barack-obama/

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/07/30/sleeping-with-a-slick-salesman-the-path-of-the-obama-presidency/

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/04/11/obama-is-an-illegal-president-hes-spent-over-10-million-hiding-his-birth-certificate/

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/08/01/looters-and-thieves-of-american-government-the-list-from-government-gone-wild/

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/09/11/the-great-and-powerful-o-government-and-casinos-are-basically-the-same-thing/

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/08/03/the-wisdom-of-darryl-parks-what-congress-and-the-senate-dont-want-you-to-know/

Enjoy……………….and there’s a lot more where that came from. 

For the answer to everything as to why labor unions fail, check out this link:
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/08/23/why-public-labor-unions-fail-the-science-of-stagnation/

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Why Cincinnati is Failing: My Personal Experience with the CBC

With the recent news that Chiquita is considering a move from Cincinnati to Charlotte, North Carolina, it has left Cincinnati in a state of panic as to why Chiquita or any other business would desire to do such a thing. Doc Thompson covers this issue with Cincinnati Magazine Executive Editor Linda Vaccariello in an illuminating broadcast about what Cincinnati has to offer, then considers why Cincinnati has a problem attracting and keeping business in the city.

Well, I have a bit of experience with doing business in Cincinnati that I’ve touched on before, but this topic lends itself to a bit more detail. Well before there was ever a Paul Brown Stadium or even a Great American Ball Park I was with a group who was trying to win the design for the riverfront development project. In fact, the guy I was with presented a wonderful plan to the city council of Cincinnati of which Dwight Tillery seemed to like, (Dwight was the mayor at the time). The plan included paving over completely the various roads that connect the highway system downtown, and put them underground to connect Cincinnati’s downtown with the riverfront. On that paved-over section would be a grassy park, various restaurants, movie theaters, shopping centers, new stadiums, and a plan for including Longworth Hall as a Historic District connected to everything else which would wrap around to join with Union Terminal. The plan received a rousing applause from the people attending this meeting. I thought at the conclusion that the group I was with would undoubtedly be the lead design team which would head the development of the riverfront development.

After the meeting found it odd that none of the city council members, or the media wanted to speak to anyone from our group, after all, we just had the best presentation without question, but we also didn’t have “formal” relationships with any members of city council. By formal that means “friendly” in the world of politics. I knew every member of council through my work at city hall where a friend of mine and I were at that monstrosity every day trying to get the Cincinnati Building Commission to approve plans for a development we were working on which required a simple change of use on an existing building.

What should have been a simple job, relatively speaking had turned out to be a political nightmare. The CBC seemed more interested in creating work for their friends, who are architects, engineers (to design fire escapes and such) HAVAC installers and all those types of related businesses, then in helping a business get their feet on the ground in the city of Cincinnati.

Getting information out of any member of the CBC was like pulling teeth from a 4-year-old kid. I can’t even begin to illustrate without writing an entire book on the matter of how many engineers we fired for not moving at the speed we demanded, which was the speed of business. In fact I remember vividly a conversation I had with our architect and investor at the time. This guy had liked our business plan so much he put some of his own money into the project. Then one day he gave us a call and said, “I heard you guys were down at City Hall yelling at the guys in the CBC for dragging their feet. I want you to know that I have a good standing with those guys, and I find it offensive that you’d chose to do business this way.”

Our response was, “Hey, you’re our architect, you work for us. You don’t work for the CBC. If you are friends with them, that’s not our problem.”

The architect then said, “But you guys are trying to cut too many corners. They are telling you what you need to do and you are bucking them at every issue. They told you the type of HAVAC unit you had to install. They told you what the structural improvements were going to be. They told you how many restrooms you were going to have to install and on and on, and you guys seem to want to argue every fact!”
“Buddy, you are supposed to be working on our behalf. You are supposed to do this arguing for us. We’re not supposed to even be involved in this kind of thing. We’re doing it because you aren’t. Anyone can just say ‘spend more money,’ which is what you are saying, and it’s what they are saying. They want a larger fee for the cost of the project. That is all they are after. They are deliberately driving up the cost to receive the larger fee, why can’t you see that?”

“It’s the cost of doing business and you guys don’t want to pay it. It’s cheap and classless. I’m embarrassed to be associated with you guys. I’ve known those people for years and I don’t know what to tell them when you won’t follow their guidance.”

“Who are they but a bunch of pencil-pushing government workers? If we did what you and the CBC are suggesting you guys would add a million dollars to the cost of this project, and that’s just not in the budget.”

“So put it in the budget!” Said the architect. “Just go raise more money. Isn’t that easier than all this?”

My friend and I looked at each other and realized what was going on. It is the same “looter” mentality that we see in all government, especially in schools driven by radical unions. And here it was in the CBC who had an alliance between them and their friends in the building field. And we were being told to “pay up” or get out of town.

“You’re fired,” was what my friend told the architect.

There was silence for a moment on the other end of the phone. “You can’t do that. I’m an investor.”


“Consider it done.”

My friend and I finished the job by doing all the architectural work ourselves, and we found amendments in the building code that allowed us to by-pass all the additional costs that were just ridiculous excuses to make work for members of the building fraternity which centered on the CBC. The architect went from a friend to an extreme foe, but that’s ok, because he was on the wrong side and chose to put himself there. The situation took years to unravel and was extremely disappointing. My experience in working with Cincinnati is that they have made it entirely too expensive to do business within the city because just like a union, the many political factors have attached additional costs to projects just to take care of their friends in the field.

That’s why nobody would speak to us after the riverfront development meeting. We were in that class as, “radicals” who didn’t want to pay off their friends around the city. The result of course was that we took our business across the river to Covington. My meeting with their building division went something like this.

“You guys want to do what? Well, Ok. Sure, no problem.”

My friend and I looked at each other. “But don’t you want to contest HAVAC units, fire escapes, access ramps, structural improvements and fire easements.”

The man laughed, “Hell no, it’s your business. We want you guys over here. Give me a call when you’re ready to move on this project.”

To this day you can see clearly all the development that has moved in along I-275 by the airport and up in Erlanger and Florence, Kentucky. And in Newport along with Covington where both cities had a very friendly attitude toward business, surprisingly “looter” free. Covington built the Covington Landing and all the nice development around the Convention Center and Newport built Newport on the Levee which turned out to be hugely thriving business. In the process Newport gave new birth to Monmouth Street which used to be a hell-hole of prostitution, gambling, and organized crime racketeering, and turned it into a place that families could take their kids to at night. Meanwhile across the river Cincinnati built two stadiums which went drastically over budget (I wonder why) and to this day threaten to bankrupt the city with the excessive tax burdens they exclusively occupy. And Cincinnati nearly 20 years later still doesn’t have any development on the riverfront. They are just now getting around to that type of development.

That is why Cincinnati fails. And that is why Chiquita wants to move to a dust bowl of a town in Charlotte, North Carolina. Because when times get tough, for a business to survive taking care of the “looters” of a town is not their responsibility. This is the reason so many of those “looters” seek government work, because that is the most secure way to care for their network without having to deal with people like me and my friend who refuse to be “looted.”

This is why Cincinnati is in a state of decline, because it has been overrun by these types and all the people with bright ideas and money will take it someplace else, for all the same reasons that companies don’t want to be limited with unionized labor or to deal with companies who are driven by unionized labor. It’s not because they want to hurt a worker’s rights. Most companies don’t want to worry about that kind of thing, that’s why they hire human resource managers, so they can advise the company how to take care of the employees. Because the men and women of this world with ideas and the money to spend on them do not want to be tied down to the speed of complacency and network friendships. They want to move at the speed of business, which is what drives communities and countries to greatness, and is what the looters of the world simply slow down.

For the answer to everything as to why labor unions fail, check out this link:
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/08/23/why-public-labor-unions-fail-the-science-of-stagnation/

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Rich Hoffman in American Thinker: a voice from the past

One of the questions I get a lot is…………..What right do you have to say the things you do?  Who do you think you are?  The next is, if you’re such a great writer, why aren’t you writing for organizations like American Thinker, or other conservative publications.  Well, the answer to that question is that I have.  My preference however is to have creative control over my content, and when you present that material without a lot of middlemen involved, then the material has the opportunity to be more authentic. 

But, for those readers here who would like to see a sample of my work from before I started this forum, here is an article from American Thinker, from back when Governor Kasich was just getting ready to run for the office in Ohio.  I was reminded of this article recently, and thought it prophetic given the current battles over Issue 2 that we are all facing.  So for brevity, I provide the link below to that article for your enjoyment. 

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/05/so_goes_ohio_in_2010_so_goes_t.html

For the answer to everything as to why labor unions fail, check out this link:
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/08/23/why-public-labor-unions-fail-the-science-of-stagnation/

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Bullwhips and Ohio’s Issue 2: “Those forefathers from the ’70’s?'” LOL

Using a bullwhip to demonstrate the benefits of Issue 2, in Ohio makes perfect sense to me. To many progressive minded people a bullwhip represents abuse, slavery, or S&M. But to me, a bullwhip is one of the rarest items of efficiency ever created. It’s a simple weapon that by calculus standards is quite complex. The function of a bullwhip is such that a focused effort applied at the handle of say 10 to 15 mph of thrust becomes over 750 mph of force within 6 feet of the application. For the crack you hear coming from a whip it is nothing less than the sound barrier being broken. Thus, the crack of a whip is a “sonic boom.” That “boom” was created with a small amount of force of which the tapered design of the whip magnifies the applied force into devastating effectiveness. To become so good with a whip that you can capture that energy and project it into a focused point in space is a grand achievement, so to put out a candle with a bullwhip is extremely rare. I only know of a handful of people in the entire world who can do it.

So when I want to demonstrate precision, power, effectiveness, management of resources, I often use the whip. I’ve used my bullwhips to explain to businesses how to function more efficiently, so it only makes sense to me to use a bullwhip to explain how Issue 2 can be effective in controlling the costs of communities all over Ohio. And I do it by showing that Issue 2 will allow communities to “target” their costs specifically, just as I do by targeting the flame of a candle, putting that flame out without disrupting the content of the candle. In this case it is the wax that makes up the candle and it is the flame that consumes it. If I want to save the candle from consumption by the flame, I must blow out the candle. Putting the candle out with at whip demonstrates how incredible force can be applied “precisely” without harming the rest of the candle. So the political metaphor is appropriate. See for yourself.

Who are the flames in society, the “public employees” who consume the “system?” What flames would I target with Issue 2? Well, what comes to my mind immediately is a situation we had at Lakota where a teacher Ryan Farhenkemp just plead guilty to taking inappropriate pictures of a young student while on an out-of-town field trip. That teacher had a serious case of pedophilia, where he desired sex with children, boys specifically, and should have never been allowed to teach. Because the teachers union is so radical, they prevented a proper investigation into this behavior, and did not allow any management to even investigate the matter, until it’s too late. Read more about this situation here:

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/01/04/lakota-teacher-busted-for-child-porn-made-over-65k-per-year/

Just one school district over in Mason another teacher was having sex with the football team, while her boss, the assistant principal was sending pictures of his penis to the teacher’s phone. Many people, including the Superintendent knew that things were not all well and good among his staff, but the teachers union has made investigations into this kind of business nearly impossible, so the bad teachers out there, “and there are many” are allowed to continue on with bad behavior because they are “protected” by a union. Issue 2 will allow performance based evaluations which will help root out this kind of trouble by “allowing” the discussion to initially take place, where now it doesn’t happen at all, because legally, it can’t. Read more about the Mason situation here:

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/02/04/sex-murder-teachers-and-the-taxpayer-ryan-widmer-and-the-mason-teacher/

And to understand how out-of-control the union contracts are, listen to Scott Sloan of 700 WLW read the Lakota Teachers Contract, the more complex something is, the more money it costs. The Lakota contract is not unique, but is pretty standard all over Ohio.

In addition to the lucrative teaching contracts the practice of double-dipping among retired teachers, firefighters, police officers, and school superintendents is so rampant that the projected cost of this abuse is almost unfathomable. It’s a real, significant problem which actually burns our community candle at both ends. In fact I wrote an entire article on just that problem here. Listen to the broadcast there done by an I-Team investigation of which I played a part. The numbers will stun you:

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/05/11/the-most-important-broadcast-youll-ever-hear-the-crises-in-west-clermont-school-distict-and-every-public-school-in-ohio/

Those are examples of the kinds of “targets” that we as taxpayers must remove from our public employee system to control the out-of-control tax increases that are coming at us. Only in a community do we know what our problems are, and our school boards, city councils, and trustees are there to represent our interests. But often if you go to a community meeting, you will find that even if you speak, those elected representatives won’t listen to you, because the deals are already solidified in the chaos of Columbus. It is the union lobby power that has twisted the arms of legislators and passed legislation like the “double-dipping” provision while the tax payers were busy “working” those lobbyists and politicians, all paid for by us, were having lunch together in Columbus and writing laws to enrich themselves in the chaos they initiated.

I have written a lot about S.B.5, ISSUE 2 specifically. To read what that law does for you, read this article on it:

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/08/22/all-the-reasons-to-vote-yes-on-issue-2-being-bold-and-doing-the-right-thing/

But the video below will give you a basic understanding:

Those who are in favor of Issue 2 could provide fact after fact, after fact on why it’s a great law. Basically we have a system that is currently in chaos, and there are a lot of people working in the public sector who fully intend to enrich themselves in the midst of that chaos. What you will find is that those groups who wish to take advantage of that chaos against the tax payer will attempt to divert the attention away from the details of an argument to an emotional one. In recent radio broadcasts we have begun to call this the Wookie Defense. Click here to read all about it:

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/09/06/the-wookie-defense-class-war-is-here-public-unions-against-everyone-else/

You can see supporters of Issue 2 pick apart the recent “Firefighter” ad put out by We Are Ohio here, which will demonstrate unequivocally just how the system is flawed. If these guys won’t tell the truth about things right out in the open, what will they lie about behind closed doors? The answer to that is why things in government cost so much money, and why Issue 2 is so important. The savings doesn’t come from a literal figure on paper. It comes from decentralization in Columbus so people like me can help manage the costs in our communities, where they should be negotiated.

Now, this next video which was put out by a bunch of Firefighters working with a local school is using the same tactics that most public employees use to pass new levies, shows the kind of game they want to play. Now, when I saw this video I laughed hard for a long time. In fact my stomach still hurts almost 24 hours later from laughing at it. It’s not that the people in the video did a bad job. Actually, I think it’s a good effort at a dance routine. What I laughed so hard at is the level of manipulation they are employing in plain sight. They are basically expecting the voter to vote against Issue 2 because they can dance, and that is hilarious.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My stomach hurts again………………………………………………hold on…………Ok. How are the communities going to be weakened if we give the communities more power to handle their costs? Instead of the fire chief talking to his union people and then the union lobby going to Columbus to create a new law that then comes back to our community as an unfunded mandate, how about that fire chief talk to the people in the community about their staffing levels, their pay, and their equipment. That seems like it would create a stronger relationship, not a weaker one. If taxes needed to be increased, then the community could decide, but as it is now, the tax increases are “dictated” by the state through chaotic legislation, which is just how the union likes it. You see these emotional types won’t deal with facts they’ll instead rely on emotion to convince you to throw money at them.

However, in this next video the firefighters attempt to “look” like they are dealing with facts by letting you listen in on one of their picnics. I laughed hard at this one too but for an entirely different reason. In fact, this has been a running joke among my wife and me now for an entire day. We will probably make fun of this one for years to come.

Oh my goodness! “Our forefathers and firefighters tried to do back in the 70’s?” Thanks for that, Joe. In case you missed it that remark is at the 7:45 mark. Dude, the history of Ohio goes back a lot further than the 70’s! Also, hey, Joe you must not have met the mayor of Toledo. He’s for Issue 2. You should get out more, you’d meet more people than a bunch of bobble heads waiting for you to tell them what to think.

 

 

Here’s what’s going on here. The unions are using firefighters because they along with police are supposed to represent authority, and especially in light of the tenth anniversary of 9/11 these union leaders will show that they will absolutely stop at nothing to manipulate the tax payer with emotion and fear. The public is not supposed to question these people, because they have authority over us. Now this video disgusts me, because they are using some “slick” production values to attempt to completely manipulate the public. By allowing the viewer to sit down with those in authority as though it was a privilege, they hope to lure the viewer into a feeling of “entitled” information. It’s simply a variation on Saul Alisnsky’s Delphi Technique. But here’s the trouble, none of the people speaking in this video are speaking about any facts. They are simply speaking about what they fear, which is no more justified than people telling Christopher Columbus that if he sailed west across the Atlantic Ocean, that he’d fall off the side of the Earth. Its fear based on absolutely no foundation.

The next question that arises from this is, even these “honest” firefighters are not willing to address the facts, and instead peck around the parameters of truth, relying on manipulation instead of out-right presentation, then what are they hiding? Well, I published the wage rates of the police and firefighters from my community in the below article. It’s pretty standard stuff all over Ohio. As you will see, they are making very good livings, and as I’ve said before, if the public thinks that level of income is acceptable then fine. But my inclination is that these public workers are very aware that they are making approximately 30% more than the people who are paying their salaries, and they’d rather keep that bit of information out of the discussion, out of fear that the public might turn on them and actually question their actual value. See my article on what these guys make in my community: (the spreadsheet with all the costs is toward the bottom)

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/03/12/oh-what-big-teeth-you-have-how-much-to-police-and-firefighters-cost-in-west-chester/

I have been in management for a while now so I understand this issue from many angles. I’ve worked at all levels of a company, and I have dealt with unions. I’ve been in actual fights in parking lots with shop stewards so I know the mentality of these people. Taken individually, most people are good citizens who just want to do the right thing. I once worked with a guy who was a major union supporter yet had a fascination with airplanes and considered himself very patriotic. I thought of him when I heard Joe speak in the above video. He used to say to me, “You are building those units too fast. You have a rate of 120%. You are making us look bad.”

I’d say to him, “You make yourself look bad by holding back. We have a contract deadline and you are jeopardizing it by not filling the production requirements. You could build at least three times faster than you are, but you and your friends won’t do it. So I’m picking up the slack so we don’t miss our deadline.”

“Kid, this whole union thing doesn’t work if we don’t stick together. It takes all of us, in solidarity.”

 
I’d smile at him, because he knew what my reaction would be. We got along in a friendly way because we both shared a love of airplanes even if we differed politically. “Now why would I want to do that when I can work extra overtime, make more money, by doing the work you and your fat ass friends won’t do?”


He’d chuckle and say, “You know back when we walked the picket line we’d call you a SCAB. In fact, I’d tell you that behind your back, they’re calling you a SCAB around here because you are up the ass of management.”

At this point I would turn down the radio and lay down my wrenches and all the guys working nearby would stop to see if a fight were about to break out. “Dude, to me a SCAB is something that heels a wound. When your body is cut open, you better pray a SCAB forms to heal it. If I am a considered a SCAB around here, because I like this company from head to toe, I like the people in management, and I like the people on the paint line, then that’s a compliment. I like them all to some extent, and I’m not picking sides to suit the needs of your unions political position, which I adamantly disagree with. If I’m a SCAB it’s because I’m here to heal all the wounds you union fools inflict upon yourselves with your adversarial relationship with management in an attempt to bleed the company dry in order to garner more money for yourselves.”

He’d put his hands up defensively as the union stewards would come in closer for a listen. “Hey, I’m just trying to help you out. They (management) will use you against us, to break down our solidarity, brother.”

“I’m not your brother or any of you other guys. I’m here to make a living for my family, and if you idiots want to produce at a 40% efficiency rating, I’ll do my work and your work and take your money in overtime so I can take my wife to nice movie, or out to dinner. It’s your loss.”

Then the union steward would step in. He was a guy who clearly didn’t like me and I didn’t like him. So confrontation was inevitable. “You jeopardize everything we stand for.”

“Then you are standing for the wrong things.”

“You are too young to know what you are talking about. We worked hard for every right the people in this company have. You are ignorant, you have no idea. Someday you’ll want us, and we won’t be there for you, because you wouldn’t stand with us, and by then we will have collapsed.”

“Is that the kind of talk you use to get your wife to sleep with you? Because you’re wrong, this contract must be met. If you make yourselves a pain in the ass to the customer, they won’t give you another one, and you’ll be out of a job and all your union bullshit won’t mean anything then. “

At this point the union steward waved me off and said, “Forget it guys. He’s a puppet for management. He’ll never stand with us.” The crowd broke up and went back to work. For that day, all the workers improved their efficiency by about 15% points on average. Then the production values fell the next day back to what they were.

I made about 80K that year in overtime opportunities, picking up the slack of the union work force. The contracts did fall behind, but I made decent money for a while. The confrontations did get more violent after that, but that wasn’t a big deal. Management took my side in the injuries to the employees because they saw that I was trying to help them. But with all my effort, I couldn’t prevent the company from going out of business when the salesmen told me that nobody wanted to give our company a contract because they didn’t want to deal with our delivery times, and our union work force. So once the contracts were fulfilled, the work dried up and the company was sold within two years of that discussion.

The public unions are at that point. They have negotiated themselves out of value. Their services are too costly taken collectively, and they have built a system where much abuse is taking place, such as the double-dipping issues. If they were a private business, they’d be going out of business. But these are public employees, and we need those services. We need teachers, we need firefighters, and we need police, and we will have them regardless of Issue 2 or not. We will have strong communities too. But we won’t be used and abused as tax payers by greedy unions who force upon us a system that is rampant with undisciplined spoils. Ohio is at a point where we must have the ability to remove with surgical precision the trouble areas, and no politician in Columbus can do that. Only the members of the community know where the real trouble is, and Issue 2 gives our communities the tools to remove those trouble spots that are both costly financially, but also ethically.

Issue 2 will change things for the public unions. It will force them to deal with the tax payer more evenly. But this notion that Joe has…..that firefighter who thinks our forefathers are from the 70’s….. that Issue 2 will take away his “seat at the table” he is just sadly mistaken.Issue 2 puts the tax payer at the table equally with the unions, because right now, the only people at the table are the unions and their friends, the people we elect, yet they control, because of how the law was before Issue 2. The public is outside the door and when we ask to come in we get some stupid dance like you saw above. And when we ask what’s going on, we get the Wookie Defense and many of us are tired of it. Issue 2 brings everyone to the table equally, and that is what the public unions are afraid of, because once we get there, we’re going to find out just how much they’ve been screwing management, (ALL OF US). And they know that we will be mad when we find out. That’s what they are really scared of in regard to Issue 2. That is a wrath they aren’t prepared to deal with.

For the answer to everything as to why labor unions fail, check out this link:
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/08/23/why-public-labor-unions-fail-the-science-of-stagnation/

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
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