Articles from March 2009



So Free Choice Means Lack of Choice?

Calendar March 27, 2009 | Posted by Michael S. Langston

As is usual, anything the government or lobbyists put together with the word “Free” in the name, you can almost guarantee that either your freedoms or your money is at risk and this is no different. Labor unions are currently pushing the Obama administration and both Democratic controlled houses to pass the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA, H.R.1409, S.560), or the card check bill.

Among the bill’s provisions, votes by employees on whether to unionize would no longer be via secret ballots. As the unions readily admit, this bill is intended to make it easier for employees to vote for unions. So without a hint of a motive other than an increase in union numbers, the union has given millions in donations to hopefully secure passage of this bill.

Please don’t misunderstand though. As with all good propaganda, unions discuss studies which show that employers use tactics to find out about how employees’ intend to vote prior to the vote. The studies therefore conclude corporations have an easier ability to coerce and the process always ends in a situation where the ballot isn’t secret due to this fact.

Logic will dictate however, the fact that one party is possibly breaking the law, isn’t a reason to allow another party an easier ability to break the law. While the Carter Center qualifies their statement below, even they, in their Declaration of of Principles for International Elections Observation, include language on secret ballots (here):

The will of the people of a country is the basis for the authority of government, and that will must be determined through genuine periodic elections, which guarantee the right and opportunity to vote freely and to be elected fairly through universal and equal suffrage by secret balloting or equivalent free voting procedures, the results of which are accurately counted, announced and respected.

Additionally, our government and most other governments understand the need to reduce intimidation or bribery by using secret ballots. Since the 1890’s secret ballots have become the standard of the United States, are currently used in most western countries, and the concept even has ties to the ancient Greeks.

Apparently for unions though, the need for non-coercive elections doesn’t have any room in our more enlightened times.

Category Categories: Business, Critical Thinking, Legislation, Politics  |  Tag Tags: , , , , ,  |  Comments No Comments

Atlas Realized?

Calendar March 27, 2009 | Posted by Michael S. Langston
Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand’s 1,100 page novel reads almost like dry science fiction. While it’s main theme, that of rational self-interest, has captured many people – enough so the book has sold over 6 million copies, its over-the-top society with a government set against the most productive individuals seemed to be a fantasy world with little connection to the US.

Sure, we can see this idiocy unfold in places like Venezuela, where Chavez is destroying an entire country to pacify his ego, while simultaneously pressing the US to go down their path, but we’ve managed to stay away from true class wars. We seemed to have had an understanding, that allowing individuals to fulfill to the fullest their talents and to use those in the pursuit of rational self-interest, not only helped the individual; but greater society as well.

We understood that only by allowing the freedom to fail and to succeed can we ever bring about a truly better society for most people. We understood, that punitive taxation and redistribution was a quick road to an authoritarian state from which recovery will be nigh impossible.

Yes… we used to understand.

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