Tag: Politics

Tell the Truth, Get Sued, Lose $60,000

Johnny Northside, like myself, is a blogger. Unlike myself Mr. Northside has been sued because he told the truth:

Though blogger John (Johnny Northside) Hoff told the truth when he linked ex-community leader Jerry Moore to a high-profile mortgage fraud, the scathing blog post that got Moore fired justifies $60,000 in damages, a Hennepin County jury decided Friday.

The jury awarded Moore $35,000 for lost wages and $25,000 for emotional distress. The civil verdict culminated a nearly two-year legal scuffle between John Hoff, whose blog, The Adventures of Johnny Northside, has 300 to 500 readers daily, and Moore, former director of the Jordan Area Community Council.

Moore was fired by the University of Minnesota in June 2009, the day after Hoff’s post.

Mr. Northside’s blog post that ended the job of Mr. Moore wasn’t libel or slander, it was factual. Yet a jury decided that telling the truth is a bad thing and thus found Mr. Northside in error, $60,000 worth of error. Not only that but $25,000 of that fine was for “emotional distress.” How does one calculate the value of emotional distress? Is there some kind of formula I’m unaware of or it the value just set all willy-nilly at the end of the court case?

Obviously Mr. Northside is appealing as this is certainly a bum result. Mr. Moore was an employee of the state since he worked at the University of Minnesota. As an employee of the state it is the right of every Minnesotan to have him terminated from our employ if he does something we find undesirable. My tax dollars shouldn’t be going to fund something whom is committing any form of fraud. Hopefully Mr. Northside wins his appeal and Mr. Moore ends up paying Mr. Northside $85,000 (repay the $60,000 and add another $25,000 for emotional distress).

Obama’s Gun Speech

After two years of being in office I think Obama and I finally found something we can agree on. In his little gun control speech is said the following:

“I’m willing to bet,” he says, “that responsible, law-abiding gun owners agree that we should be able to keep an irresponsible, law-breaking few – dangerous criminals and fugitives, for example – from getting their hands on a gun in the first place.”

As a responsible law-abiding gun owner I can agree on this, we need to keep government from getting their hands on a gun in the first place. I firmly believe that the only way to stop the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF) from smuggling more guns into Mexico is to bar them, and any other government agent, legal access to firearms.

Now that I think about it maybe that’s not what Mr. Obama meant.

Wisconsin Budget Bill Vote

In news certain to piss off a lot of people the Senate Republicans in Wisconsin voted on the controversial budget bill last night. Needless to say protesters were pissed and those of us who find granted monopoly coercion distressing are kind of happy.

What I don’t understand is why the protesters aren’t pissed at the Democratic “representatives” who left the pro-union people high and dry by fleeing to Illinois. If you are protesting on the side of the public union you were abandoned by the Democrats. The supposed reason we elect “representatives” is to advance our agendas at the capital. Advancing an agenda requires debate and that requires actually being present. That’s not when the Democratic “representatives” did, instead of facing hard work they ran away like cowards in the hope to gain martyrdom. Were I protesting on the side of the public unions I’d be fucking pissed and would have pushed for recall elections the second they left the state.

Although I’m in disagreement with the protesters I still absolutely love the civil disobedience going on.

History Class in Utah About to Get More Accurate

It seems the government of Utah is sick and tired of people claiming our country is a democracy and have passed legislation that will require Utah teachers to be accurate and call the United States a republic. Teachers will also be required to go over different form of government:

HB220 would require schools to teach students that the U.S. is a compound constitutional republic and about other forms of government such as pure democracy, monarchy and oligarchy along with political philosophies and economic systems such as socialism, individualism and free-market capitalism. The Senate passed the bill with no dissenting votes Monday.

This would be great as most students don’t even know what a fascist or socialist state even is. Sadly most students just yell fascist when the police are abusing their power and then talk about socialism as a great system we need to adopt in this country. Hopefully the Utah requirements involve teaching the fact that the United States no longer runs on a free-market system and that is our biggest economic problem besides spending more than we take in.

The Other Side of Unions

With the recent problems in Wisconsin people have been proclaiming unions as the greatest things in the whole wide world. If I take what some people are saying seriously I have to believe unions are actually unicorns that shit rainbows and happiness. The fact of the matter is unions have a much uglier side than most people realize with his very well explained in this Mises Daily article.

I’ve stated before my main gripe with unions is employees at unionized workplaces are forced to join the established union. This negates voluntary participation and forces employees to fund things that they may or may not wish to. SEIU for instance pays massive amounts of money to the Democrat Party which I would never give a single nickle to. Yes if I worked in a unionized workplace I’d be forced to fund the Democrat Party via my mandatory union dues.

Of course the article on Mises has many explains of the problems of unions. If you thing unions are great things you need to read that article and understand the other side of the coin (that way you can understand the arguments of those who oppose unionization of everything instead of just spouting off personal insults).

Supreme Court Rules in Westboro Case

The Supreme Court has rules that the gatherings by members of the Westboro Baptist “Church” are protected by the first amendment. The decision was 8-1 which is about as much of a landslide as you can get in that court.

As much as I despise what the members of Westboro Baptist “Church” do I openly admit that it’s speech and they’re free to do it. Like all rights the freedom of speech is a double-edged sword to some. You can use any individual right for both good and bad. Just because some people use it for bad purposes doesn’t mean we should enact restrictions against it.

The thing most people fail to realize is the members of Westboro are attention whores. All these gatherings, all the shouting, all the signs, everything they do is a vain attempt to garner attention. The only way to deal with these types of people is by completely ignoring them. If we manage to ignore them they will eventually go away and find something else to occupy their time, maybe by starting a shitty band in their garages where they can sing about all the emo feelings they experience. Oh, if these yahoos come to your town remember not to touch them as they fund their operation through lawsuit money.

And Then There Were Four

Wyoming has now become the fourth state in the United States to remove government interference from the right to self defense. Governor Mead signed the constitutional carry bill meaning you no longer need a permit in order to carry a firearm, in any fashion, in the state of Wyoming.

Only 46 more states to go.

EDIT 2011-03-03 11:03: Apparently my math is not great. There are 46 remaining states, not 56. Counting is hard. Also thanks Vicki for pointing that out.

Stuff Government Says

It’s time for an episode of “Shit my Government Says.” The premises here is simple, I take a common line used by those in government and translate it into layman terms. Today’s episode is going to be on “reducing spending.”

When a government official says they’ve proposed a plan to reduce spending they want you to believe they’ve saved you money by spending less. For example if they put forth a budget and claim it reduces spending by $100 billion it implies they’re doing to spend $100 billion less than they currently are spending.

What they actually means is they’ve cut something from the proposed budget but haven’t actually saved you any money yet. When a government official says they’ve cut $100 from the budget they mean the proposed budget for a span of time. Therefore if the proposed budget is $1,000 over money actually available and they “cut spending” by $100 the budget as passed will still spend $900 more than they have.

This seems altogether obvious until you apply the fact out government increases the budget from year to year. Let’s say the budget in 2010 was $100 the and likely proposed budget for 2011 will be $110. Let’s say the income of our government for 2010 and 2011 was $50. This means in 2010 our government spent $50 they didn’t have which we call a deficit. Now our government is claiming they’re going to get spending under control and thus will not pass the proposed $110 plan but instead have cut the proposed budget by $10. That means out government is still going to spend $100 or $50 over the amount brought in making the deficit the same as in 2010.

Of course the government officials will pat themselves on the back for cutting spending by roughly 10% (since government always likes to round up even when that rounding makes little sense mathematically). This is meant to imply they’re only going to spend $90 for the year instead of the $100 they spent last year.

It’s a deceptive practice that many people seem to be completely oblivious to.

It’s Not Collective Bargaining, It’s Monopoly Coercion

There’s been a massive shit storm hitting the capital in Wisconsin and that shit storm has started spilling out over the border to my capital. I’ve not stated much on this subject because I’ve not had a whole lot to say but now that I’ve done a bit of research I feel I can make some actual comments on the subject.

First let us do away with the term “collective bargaining” because that’s not what the teachers of Wisconsin currently have. I propose a new term to use called “monopoly bargaining.” I’m a person who believes if a group of employees want to voluntarily come together to fight for better working conditions that is their rights. They key word there is voluntarily. As it sits in Wisconsin every teacher in that state has to become a member of the teacher’s union. There is only one union, not multiple ones available to compete for your membership dues, and anybody who wants to be a teacher must join this single union.

What we have isn’t a collective of people bound together to fight for better wages, instead we have a monopoly whom people are forced to pay money to. I have a huge problem with this type of setup because it causes potential conflicts of interest for teachers. If you pay union dues I guarantee you some of that money will end up being donated to the Democrat Party. Personally I can’t in good conscious allow any of my money to find its way into the pockets of those fuckheads. This principle would bar me from being a teach in Wisconsin since there is no way to do so without paying the union and the union donates to the Democrat Party.

Now we have my two least favorite things; money stolen from the pockets of people and mandatory donations to a political party. The only thing that could make this situation more distasteful in my opinion is if they Wisconsin teacher union were allowed to use force to enact their desires, thankfully the government still maintains a firm grip on their monopoly over the use of force.

Collective bargaining would only be an accurate term if individual teachers could come together and fight for better working conditions. Teachers aren’t allowed this luxury instead having to rely on one monopolistic union which they must be a member of. This is the main point people seem to be missing. Wisconsin doesn’t currently allow its teachers collective bargaining rights, they force teachers to become a member in an entity that will fight only for a set of ideals while teachers whom wish to go against the union have no recourse. If the union of Wisconsin doesn’t want something then it won’t be fought for leaving teachers who do want that out on the cold with needs remaining unfulfilled by the entity they are forced to pay money to.

The other thing I find interesting about this whole fiasco is the fact the people who are actually paying the bills, tax payers, aren’t present in any teacher salary negotiations. When you work in the public sector you’re paid tax dollars. Each teacher working in a public school system is paid through our money yet we don’t get to be present when their union comes to “negotiate” higher wages for teachers. Bargaining usually implies a buyer and seller haggling for an outcome that both sides find mutually beneficial. In the case of public employees the employees can be considered the sellers (selling us on the idea they need higher wages) while the tax payers can be considered the buyers (buying the services of the public employees). The problem comes when these negotiations comes around it’s between the seller and a third party who will not actually be footing the bill.

When a public union negotiates higher wages for the employees it represents it means more money will be taken from the private sector and sent to the public sector. The people who have this money, you and me, get no say in the matter. Hence what these unions do can’t really be considered bargaining or negotiations, instead it would be coercion. The union is using the government’s monopoly on the use of force to take money from private citizens and give it to public employees. So to be more accurate we should call what the Wisconsin teacher’s union does monopoly coercion (monopoly within the realm of teacher pay) not collective bargaining.

The entire situation is being misrepresented by entities that only continue to exist if people are forced to pay them a tax. Needless to say it’s in the union’s best interest to ensure their monopoly use on forcing tax payers to foot a higher bill continues. Now that we’ve defined the real problem let’s work on finding a real solution.