by Andy McKinney
President, Rim Country Republican Club
Memory is at once one of the most important components in maintaining a decent civilization and perhaps the most underutilized. We can understand how this happens. The rush of events, and the constant, 24-7 intensity of the news cycle leaves little room for reflection. We of a certain age complain crabbily about the younger set who cannot vividly remember the mistakes and enormities of the Truman administration. But what can we say about our stewardship of our own memories? What about the enormities of the early Obama administration? Have we forgotten them so quickly?
Remember "Card Check"?
One aspect of the tornado of bad ideas that came in with our President in 2009 was “card check” (seems like a dusty old policy relic now, no?). This rule change would apply to the way union certification elections are held. Under traditional practice, if a group of workers contemplates forming a labor union, an election is held. This is a real election, with ballots and everything. The ballots are just as we would expect, that is, they are secret ballots. The ballots are filled out in private. The ballots are anonymous; this means that the ballots are not numbered or otherwise identifiable as to which voter voted in which way. This is how we understand elections to be properly implicated in our glorious country. This is opposed by other methods, say in Cuba, where the idea of privacy–our sacred secret ballot–is ignored. The secret ballot for us is part and parcel of American Democracy. Obama and his union goon minions wanted to do away with the secret ballot in union elections. Decent people thwarted this anti-democratic, pro-totalitarian impulse. Our union certification elections remain free, secret, and democratic.
Mainstream Democrats Want Less Democracy
What we thought of at the time as perhaps only an excess of zeal on the part of greedy union bosses, of whom no noble or even decent impulse is expected, has morphed. Now mainstream Democrat Party apparatchiks are attacking the most fundamental aspects of our free system of government. White House insider, former Budget Director Peter Orszag has very publicly joined the attack on democratic ideals. In a recent article he proposes to side step our legislative process. The title tells the tale. His contribution to American Freedom is titled “Why we need less democracy” (published, naturally in a Progressive magazine.) He makes the case for taking major chunks of legislative power, the power to make laws and govern our Republic, away for our elected law makers and place that power elsewhere. He wants the power to govern placed in the hands of extra Constitutional boards and commissions. I read the Constitution regularly and find no provision for this, but adherence to the supreme law of the land seems not to be on the to-do list of Mr. Orszag.
Please note that Mr. Orszag is not some random nut job, al-la Michael Moore and others of that ilk on the far left. He is a man of substance. He stood in the White House as a senior member of the Obama administration. Humm, anti-democratic union goons trying to subvert the voting process, a senior official advocating side stepping the legislative process, is there a pattern emerging?
North Carolina Democrat Governor Perdue: Suspend Congressional Elections for a Couple of Years
Well, how about the idea of a Democrat governor? In the last several days, Gov. Perdue, the Democrat governor of North Carolina had an interesting notion-which she trotted out for the nation to examine in a recent speech to the Rotary Club (of all the inappropriate places) in Raleigh, N.C. She contends that we should simply suspend Congressional elections for a couple of years. Just don’t hold the elections for our chief law makers, she opines. She thinks that the constant input of the electorate is a distraction to the elected. She thinks that the law makers could get on with the job of governing better if they didn’t have the pesky voters looking over their shoulders all the time and putting in their unwanted, un-needed two cents worth. This is of course the very ideal of totalitarian efficiency. Without the buttinski voters, our wise and benevolent masters can produce the satisfactory result that eludes the democratic process.
Please note that his is not some random nut job-like the now completely disgraced Algore- but a respectable, elected governor, a Democratic Party governor.
Those of us with our memory intact, or those of us who have read a history book, are quite right to be concerned about this turn of events. The demonic banshees of the 1930’s come back to haunt us again. The theme is the same now as then. Democracy is decadent, it is inefficient and most of all, it is ineffective. The chant is to set democracy aside and allow the wise, the intelligent, the merciful, the all knowing, the all seeing enlightened leader solve the problems that we mere mortals cannot solve for ourselves.
I don’t like it. It stinks to high heaven. Don’t look for a harsh denouncement from the Democrat Party on this dangerous, insane trend. I don’t like it, but they do.
Card Check Process Used by Union Organizers Ignites Fury at Indiana Plant
Peter Orszag Calls for Less Democracy, More Rule by Technocrats
Deceiver in Chief: Peter Orszag
NC Governor Struck Serious Tone on Suspending Congressional Elections