“Just for the fun of it…I’d like to see an honest post on your website…” This challenge to us of the Tea Party (when you challenge one, you challenge all) came from a certain local newspaper Editor. He wants us to state that “union members [I guess simply because they’re union members], and public employees, and teachers, and nurses, and policemen, and firefighters, and the guy who plowed out your road in the last snowstorm are enemies of the Tea Party, and we Tea Partiers hate them” on our website.
Well, Mr. Editor, that’s not likely to happen – it would be neither true nor honest. But this post is:
I’m a retired public employee, and I still pay my annual union dues – not a dime of which goes to any politician, party, or slush fund. (Per Casey Stengel, I looked it up.) I’m also a Tea Party member. So, given your words and logic, which part of me is my enemy, that I should therefore hate? My wife is a nurse, and a Tea Party member; which part of her is my enemy, that I should therefore hate? In my family are cops, teachers, firefighters, bus drivers, prison guards, and, yes, “the guy who plowed out my road in the last snowstorm.” Ordinary working stiffs -- and family. And you dare taunt me to see them through your eyes, and claim to hate them? I think not.
Did/do all those relatives and their fellow union members instruct their unions to fund anyone’s political campaign or initiative? I think not. Did any of them have a choice? I think not. Did any of them even know? I think not. Were any of them aware of their dues going to feather the personal nests of their shop stewards, local presidents, and national officers? I think not. Would they approve if they knew? I think not. And you want me to say that I hate them? Honestly, I think not!!
As for “Just for the fun of it,” it’s not funny; the subject is too serious. Plus, it’s demeaning: to your target; to those you’re supposedly supporting; and to yourself. The same holds for “hate.” These are the tools, tactics, and mindsets of antagonizing and agitating; and their intent is to destroy, not build. You can do better.
To the extent I am able, I try to live by two guiding principles:
1. We are all God’s children. Thus, I have a duty to treat all persons as such (and they, me.) And I believe that actually living that principle would make this world a far better place.
2. I also hold to the concept of separation of Church and faith. The Church, being run by Man, can and does make mistakes. Faith, on the other hand, being from God, doesn’t.
Within this construct, in my faith, we distinguish between the deed and the doer. Here’s an example of how it applies: In the 2004 Presidential campaign, in a nationally-televised debate, John Kerry responded to the moderator’s query on his views on same-sex marriage with this bomb: “We’re all God’s children, Bob, and I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney’s daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she’s being who she was, she’s being who she was born as.” In the short space of a single sentence, Kerry revealed himself as a monumental hypocrite – insulting, demeaning, and humiliating one of God’s children just to score political points! But, while I can (and do) despise the deed, I cannot hate the doer; I can only pray for him. He will answer to his Maker, not to me. Denounce the deed; chastise the doer.
Similarly, when two entities conspire to harm a third, e.g., political parties colluding with unions to rip off the taxpayer, merely for the momentary slaking of their mutual greed for power and riches, I can’t let myself stoop to hating them -- but I can recognize corruption, and the injustice of the deed. And I can withhold any respect, both for them and for what they do. As we are all aware, for as long as there have been politicians and unions they’ve been doing this little minuet. So have Big Money and unions. In fact, history shows that any time two greedy individuals or groups concoct or see an opportunity to steal another’s rights or property, they simply can’t resist the temptation. Does this apply to all unions? No. Does it apply to some? Absolutely.
So much for your challenge – but I have one for you: Are you up to an open and honest (there’s that word again) debate that goes beyond all the lather and blather about “hating” public sector employees and unions, and instead addresses the true substance of the issue, i.e., are public sector unions and their collective bargaining agreements even necessary; indeed, are they at all beneficial to the public? After all, we pay the tab; do we get true value for what we pay? Or do we get less?
If I’m a teacher, how does “demonstrating” in the State Capital building; doing so on my employer’s time and dime; publicly (and proudly) using fraudulent doctor’s “excuse” notes to avoid being docked, reprimanded, or fired; encouraging/allowing my students to participate in interrupting my representatives’ legitimate conduct of the public’s business; lionizing other elected representatives who flee the State and refuse to do their jobs -- how does all this improve those students’ respect for true authority and for the laws that, as a public employee, I represent but refuse to uphold? How does this kind of behavior, attitude and example earn their respect for me as their teacher/moral guide? How does it earn their parents’ respect? How does it help them to improve, rather than continue to lose ground vis-à-vis their scholastic counterparts around the world – who will soon enough outwork, out-produce, outshine, out-innovate, and outpace them in that real world? Are our children and their future helped -- or harmed -- by this kind of behavior, attitude, and example? As a public employee, what am I really teaching here? What’s my real job?
Mr. Editor, rather than challenging us to say things which we both know not to be true, are you up to doing something positive and actually constructive? Are you up to my challenge?
You dared us to put “an honest post” on our website. Here’s mine – and I intend to share it with everyone I can. In closing, I want to acknowledge the wisdom of Admiral Yamamoto’s comment in his report to the Emperor on Japan’s sneak attack on Pearl Harbor: “I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant.” How right he not only was, but remains.
Sincerely,
Bud Nason
We The People of Carroll County, Maryland
Cicero said this of The Enemy Within:
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city; he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.”
