Ok, I've held off for long enough--or perhaps as long as I could. Those of you (all two of you) expecting another 30 Day Song Challenge will be disappointed (I just can't think of a song I used to love but now hate). It's time to breach a subject I had hoped to avoid: politics.
Now, you may be thinking, "It's not that hard to avoid a subject, just don't talk about it." But this particular one has been toxic, eating away at my innards for the better part of a month now. Every time I think about it, I've been so enraged that I start to feel sick. The topic du jour is the upcoming recall elections in Wisconsin, which will come as no surprise to those of you who know that I live in Wisconsin and am thusly bombarded with advertisements, signage, and news stories about this debacle.
Now, most of you who read this (all two of you) know that I am conservative; not Republican. Conservative. The difference is a fine point that I don't care to go into here, but the relevant information you should glean from this is that I do not care for the Republican party. In fact, you might go so far as to say that I hate them almost as much as I do the democrats. They are not conservative. And by claiming that they are and failing so spectacularly at everything they do, they give conservatism a bad name.
But that is neither here nor there. This is not about party. If this was a recall election of some Democratic candidate--hell, if this was a recall of Obama--I would still be outraged. Because this is not how the system was meant to work.
For those of you who haven't been keeping up with Wisconsin politics (I have avoided doing so, but I know just enough about this issue to be outraged--did I mention I was outraged?): the Wisconsin senate passed measures to limit (squash, kill, remove, whatever you want to say) public unions' bargaining power with the state. Now, without getting too much into this issue, I have to admit that I do agree that something needed to be done about public unions. They have a direct hand in getting politicians elected--politicians that they will then bargain with in a way that private companies do not. They are some of the most powerful organizations in America and they have had their way for far too long. Now, I feel that public employees should be treated fairly and earn what they are worth, but I also feel that much of the public sector has grown and grown and grown and grown with no signs of slowing for too long. There are two outcomes for public/government programs. Either they are failing, at which time the government says "They need more money to succeed" or they succeed and the government says "Look, this is a good program. Give it more money." Obviously this is unsustainable, especially when the economy is tanking.
But hard as this may be to believe, this is not the issue I have with the recall election. You can feel free to disagree with me if you want. I know public employees don't all make a fortune doing menial jobs (not all teachers are paid real well, I admit...but that is a discussion for another time). The issue is that this recall election was considered in the first place, let alone ALLOWED.
Let me spell this out for those of you who still think getting a senator recalled is a good example of democracy. We, the citizens of the United States, have elections. Every two years, in fact. At that time, we all get together and decide who we want to run the country. And we vote for them. These votes are tallied and the winners go to Washington or Madison or St. Paul or Sacramento...wherever. There, they run the country (or state, or city, or whatever). If they do a good job, we, the citizens of the United States, come back in two years and reelect them. If they do a bad job, or do something we do not approve of (though not something illegal or what have you), we elect someone new. This is how the system was meant to work. It has checks and balances.
Now, Sheila Harsdorf, the Republican legislator being recalled, did nothing illegal. Whatever the opposition says, all she did was pass legislation. This is not a matter of her breaking the law, it is a matter of ideology. Maybe you don't agree with that legislation, and that's fine. You are entitled to not agree with it, and I won't argue the point. Again, that's not the point. But the public has NO RIGHT to recall someone doing their job. And as far as I've understood from reading snippets of the news and even biting back my bile long enough to read Shelly Moore's recall election webpage, Harsdorf was doing her job appropriately. Not like the Democrats who fled Madison to unscrupulously hold off voting on a bill they did not agree with but did not have the numbers to defeat. THAT is not how the system works either.
I guess there must be something in the Wisconsin Constitution allowing this sort of thing to go on, but if this is the case, then it needs to be amended. All this does is allow the mob to rule politics more than it already does. The proper recourse to a politician doing something you fundamentally disagree with is to show your outrage at election time and get someone else elected. Perhaps someone who agrees with your ideology.
That's how America is supposed to work. And if your immediate response is, "But Reid, what if we can't get enough people to vote against the unscrupulous villains?!"
Then maybe, just maybe, they're not actually going against the will of the people. Maybe what they're doing is what the people want. MAYBE THAT'S WHY THEY GOT ELECTED IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Anyways, come August 9, I will be rooting for Sheila Harsdorf. Not because she is a Republican (Heaven forbid!). Not because she did something that I tangentally agree with. I will be rooting for her because if this recall election succeeds and Shelly Moore wins, we have sent a message to every capital in the country that politicians better not do anything or the public will rise up and kick them out. Because the democrats aren't the only ones that can pull this shit. And don't think for a minute that their counterpart activists on the right of the spectrum will hesitate to do the same bullshit once they see they can get away with it.
I'm sure you can imagine where this will end up.
As a side note: I WONDER where they got all the money to sink in a rinkey dink district's recall election...I swear to God, everywhere I go on the internet I see Shelly Moore ads--no, they're not even Shelly Moore ads. They're anti-Harsdorf ads. I've never even seen Moore's name on any of them. They're always about how Harsdorf sneaks into your house at night and steals your toenail clippings. And eats babies.
