Right,     

Wisconsin voted in 2010 and the Union interest was not served by Walker and the slim Republican majority.  However, the interests of the people of Wisconsin were indeed served and can now, for a time, breathe easily for as long as it lasts.  The loss of one State Senate seat shifts the balance of power in Wisconsin so we should expect grid-lock to rule the day unless something called bi-partisanship causes them to join forces for the common good.  By ‘common good’ I mean the business of the people of Wisconsin, and not those of other states, the country or any nation on Earth.     

I try to be careful in assessment, since it was outside Union interests that brought the fight to Wisconsin, where it is legal to do this sort of thing.  To combat that effort, people from across the nation got involved for some recognize it as the ongoing battle that has plagued us all since Plyer vs Doe (1982), if not earlier by other Acts.     

While Civil Rights are touted as the cause du jour, it is hardly that at all.  Civil Rights were won in 1865 and watered down for a number of reasons by what became Southern Democrats and now Liberal Democrats, some even proudly proclaiming themselves as Social Democrats though it is Fascists or Communists they be. Slowly, they regained power and influence changing a word here, a phrase there and when in solid majority for other, disjointed reasons, make sweeping changes that come as surprise.     

Some people today think LBJ was a Civil Rights Leader.  Researching the countless Republican bills and efforts defeated by Democrats between 1865 and 1965 is an eye-opener that everyone needs to see. 

So if not Civil Rights, what then? Some ask.  I believe the difficulty here lies nested comfortably within Civil Rights, but more as Martin Luther King is best remembered calling it our National Creed.  Indeed, the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts before it, stated emphatically; as it has been in so many laws by rationale, that all men are created equal.  Surely, the time has not long passed that women were rallied around the simple notion that ‘men’ did not say or mean ‘women’ and thus took up the fight to not merely ensure their rights were recognized, but to gain recognition as equal with ‘men’.  Semantics aside, I cannot agree that any of it should have been necessary, but only for semantics was it made so. Imagine an attorney standing before the Bar and demanding a ruling in favor of his client because the law says ‘men’ and not women.   

In fact, this happened far too much.  Women and children were regarded as property of men in so many laws that looking back from here, it is enough to make you sick.  It surely would have been enough for any Governor or President to advise any or all Legislatures to instruct the courts.  For as many great men and women that have come and gone in this great nation, I cannot find one that dared. 

Why?  Well for exactly the same reason that nationally-footed public service unions took advantage of liberal leave policies to send armies of ranting, raving, dedicated members to Wisconsin; money.  Taxes and union dues rely heavily upon numbers of contributors.  At this point, the union believes it is in their interest to add to and/or maintain those numbers.  However, over time in Wisconsin and other states as well, legislators have enacted and changed laws that govern many aspects of union membership to include forcing the state to force its people to be included as members, despite any protest, and further command the state to collect and disburse union dues without cost to the union. 

I cannot rest until I pass the torch of Freedom.  It may flicker weakly from time to time and it is up to me and people like you and me to make certain it is never snuffed out.  I protest.  I stand with Walker.  I stand with Wisconsin and pray that they stand with me.  

Jim Buba

Lowell, MA