New Wisconsin governor tries to bust unions

Yes.

In breaking news, Wisconsin public employees' unions will lose some power but their members will still be better off than their private sector counterparts. Wisconsin public employees' unions and their members expressed outrage at this turn of events.

Sums it up well.

It still puzzles me that these union supporters are so incapable of seeing how hypocritical their position is. All this advocating for the poor at the expense of the rich, when it's these union members who are comparatively so well off. The crying about workers' "rights" being taken away, when most other workers don't even have that "right" to a pension or other benefits. The demands for "democracy" while clamoring to keep their overrepresentation in elections.

I guess that's the kind of confusion you get, without a good set of principles.

Good for WI. Putting government employee unions in their place is a good move. They need to be reminded they are working for the people of WI, not vice versa.

Does it occur to you that rights should be equalised upwards rather than downwards?

Good. Public sector unions are costly abominations. Get rid of all of them.

Has it occurred to you that public sector employees who face little danger to their job security and more reliable pensions and benefits than the private sector perhaps should not be paid as much as the private sector given they get those benefits?

People who risk more should be paid more.

As I understand it, the court just ruled that courts have no jurisdiction over legislative processes and that the gov't did not violate the state constitution.

Unbelievable, a court that actually did what courts are supposed to do. Not legislate.

Does it occur to you that rights are not blank checks drawn on someone else's bank account?

That's his whole belief system.

There's a reason I put "rights" in scare quotes: they are not actually rights.

You cannot have a right to something if it means someone owes you something. Then it's not a right; it's a desire. The Wisconsin protesters are conflating the two.

Indeed. Rights are things like life, liberty freedom etc. Pensions, vacation time, ability to strike etc are NOT rights.

People are not compelled to accept your definition of what their rights are, fortunately.

I would say that about your definition of rights, for if we were compelled to accept your views, we'd all be poverty stricken and dying. We see the much lower standards of living in your socialist hellholes.

The societies which most closely resemble my ideals exist in northern Europe. They have very high standards of living.

Well, not until they recruit the government to twist your arm until you "agree" to fund those "rights," anyway.

Yep. Right up until they go bankrupt due to destroying their tax base and drowning in deficit spending to meet massive "social spending" obligations.

A "right," btw, is something that is innate and unalienable to the condition of life. If your definition of "rights" imposes an obligation on anyone else, it's invalid. Our only obligation to others is to observe their actual rights.

Which northern European countries are going bankrupt?

No, not "compelled." We agree with those definitions because they make sense, not because people forced us to.

Fortunately, we are not compelled to accept your definition of rights, either.

I place more support in his definition of rights than I ever would in yours. For one simple reason. We are talking about American issues here. We aren't talking about leprechauns, pot, or buckets of gold at the end of some red and yellow socialist rainbow that a prick like you worships.

Someone like you couldn't even begin to understand, or comprehend American values, or for that matter rights.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_public_debt

The US has a higher GDP to debt ratio than any of the Scandinavian Socialist states.

Norway actually has a higher per capita GDP. Sweeden is close to the US, with Finland being average in the world but significantly below the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita

You can make an argument on the basis of individual freedom there, but you can't make an argument citing a lack of prosperity.