Fighting to Preserve Liberty in America
I got an opportunity to watch the documentary “Waiting for Superman,” and it confirmed much of what I have been saying. Teachers are a national treasure. Teachers’ unions are the new empire of evil. Whoa! That’s harsh. Yes, but not nearly as harsh as flushing thousands of uneducated children into the streets to fend for themselves, when we should be educating them for our future.
It seemed an unlikely place. But then so was Gettysburg. If you asked anyone at about the time the Tea Party started if Wisconsin would be a major battleground, I don’t think they would have agreed. But in the last few days, a new Republican governor has taken on the public unions and they have fought back with a vengeance. It is a battle they can little afford to lose.
K-12 education is in trouble. A recent report on schools in New York City said that of the 60% or so of students who actually graduate, about half need remedial classes before they can perform at the college level. We have a Department of Education that has spent over $1 trillion since it was created by President Jimmy Carter and school performance has declined.
Why in the world would a talented teacher want to link his career to an incompetent teacher and be sold to a school district as a package? Are teachers professionals or are they not? If they are, then why do they aspire to the level of an unskilled assembly line worker?
There was the Empire State Building: the world’s tallest building at 102 stories taking just over 13 months to build, opening on May 1, 1931.
There was the Hoover Dam: 726 feet high, holding 6.6 million tons of concrete, holding back the mighty Colorado River, taking less than two years to build. It was started in 1931, completed in 1933 and turned over to the Federal Government in 1936, two years ahead of schedule.
There was the Golden Gate Bridge, a four year project completed in 1937, the longest span suspension bridge in the world at the time.
As indicated in a previous post, President Obama’s reelection effort depended on him walking a tightrope that required him to stem the hemorrhage of independent supporters while keeping the livid left on his side. His State of the Union address showed him confidently stepping out on the high wire, with lofty language extolling the virtues of America. But by the end of the speech it looked like the aerialist was leaning to one side, sticking his leg out on the other as a counterbalance while starting to pinwheel his arms backwards to avert a fall.
On the surface, President Obama’s State of the Union address was like many others, long on platitudes, short on substance. I had the opportunity to witness it at the studio of WNYC in New York. We were a handful of Tea Party members is a sea of progressives.
“The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.’” – Ronald Reagan
Our friends on the left scoff at such words as those above, but the longer they are in power and providing “help”, the more they get tied up in knots. Let me walk you through an example using Congressman Tim Bishop as the key player.
We all know by now Tim Bishop’s position on outsourcing. Rather than being a response to conditions of full employment and poor quality work, it can only be described as despicable. One problem with his view is that he voted to bail out GM who turned around and outsourced good manufacturing jobs to their overseas plants increasing production there by 50%, once the bailout was approved. You don’t hear Mr. Bishop talking about that vote very much. He also doesn’t like to talk about his vote on TARP that sent billions of dollars to French and German banks. He only wants to talk about outsourcing. Not the outsourcing that he has done but only about his opponent.
The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money. – Unknown (often attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville)
An article in The Hill newspaper titled “Teachers union expands playing field for midterms” describes how the teachers’ union is getting out supporting certain candidates.
