iamnotdrtran posted:

Didn't Lincoln jump out of a window to do the same thing the Wisconsin Democrats did?

He did. And according to his good friend Joseph Gillespie (one of the guys who jumped with him), he regretted the action for the rest of his life. He got caught up in the moment and did something stupid. I'm guessing he didn't have a union boss telling him to do it though.

Is this all you've got? Do you think that just because a great man like Lincoln made a mistake, that other people get to make it as well without accountability? 170 years later. Under totally different circumstances (the only reason he got to that point was because the democrats at the time VIOLATED the IL constitution and started session a few weeks earlier than they were supposed to, which as you can imagine brought up unforeseen difficulties with getting to the Capital on time).

If you'd care to bother using your own mind and actually learn about the issue rather than flipping some internet quip you've come across, that might be nice.

My response to that would be, look at the result. The 14 have about 2:1 public support in Wisconsin just months after an election which gave their opponents an 18-14 majority. There really hasn't been any other legislative action so the swing must be as a result of the union busting battle. If they hadn't fled the legislation would have been passed and people would no doubt have been annoyed, but they wouldn't have done anything; There'd have been the usual "politicians always screw us, what can you do?" apathy. The Republicans are going to have a very hard time trying to use this to their advantage. If they raise it, it draws attention to the vastly unpopular legislation they're trying to push through which caused it; and like I said, it seems pretty clear that the majority of the public have far more of a problem with the legislation and the Republican's unwillingness to compromise than they do with the Democrats using legislative tricks to hold it up.

I stand by what I said. The most essential part of a job is showing up to do that job. This notion of making a statement by absence is inherently wrong to me. Someone earlier said that these politicans were elected to create and uphold the laws and were not actually elected to show up to their places of employment...wrong again. There are thousands of courtrooms and political chambers throughout this great country of ours. They are the venues that determine our existence as a society. The way I see it, democracy is: the people elect their representatives, those representatives meet at pre-determined places at pre-determined times. They propose, debate, and create legislation at these venues. Personally, at the minimum, I voted for my representatives to show up at their places of employment to represent me and my family. If the vote doesn't go their (my) way, so be it....democracy still ruled.

PeedroPaula posted:

I'm about ready to give the sons-of-bitches exactly what they want so that the class wars begin sooner rather than later.

How's that workin out for you?

This is actually a classic example of how out of touch liberals are, Scott walker balanced the budget and reduced unemployment in Wisconsin, and did it without laying anyone off or raising taxes... And liberals want him ousted, that is just sickening.

HurtNoMore posted:

^Yah, and he has Obama, auto bailouts, and the stimulus to thank for it.

Yeah, I hear that opportunistic rallying about Chris Christie too from his fanboys, when it is an incontrovertible fact that the unemployment in New Jersey has followed the national trend.

^Nice try. The Wisconsin Constitution requires that the state pass a balanced budget. So we can thank the writers of the state constitution for the balanced budget (just like in NC).