Monday, April 16, 2012

Musing of one watching a bull elephant who stumbled across an empty chile powder box, accidentally inhaled some residue, emitted the loudest and...

...most violent sneeze known to mankind, blew a troop of monkeys out of a nearby tree, and stripped the tree of all its foliage.

It seems that the governor of Wisconsin attempted to restrict the power of public labor unions, and for his pains became the subject of a recall election that is yet to be held.

I'm not familiar with the details but it appears that some groups in Wisconsin are eager to go down the same path that Greece has gone down. They are apparently not aware that Greece got to the end of the path and fell into a quagmire, losing all their perks and other benefits which sank to the bottom of the quagmire.

After a period of demanding without success that someone come and dry up the quagmire, Greece has faced reality and is now seeking, albeit very reluctantly, to be rescued by a former oppressor. How have the mighty fallen.

I herewith offer some of our impressions about governmental labor relations.

When a public employee union negotiates a labor agreement with representatives of a governmental body, neither side bears any financial risk or burden which may result (theoretically the government side does bear the risk, but as a practical matter it does not). So, upon whom does the burden fall? Why it falls upon the hapless taxpayer of course who has no input whatever to the process. This is not sensible.

Accordingly, in my opinion, no labor agreement negotiated between a public employee union and a governmental body should be allowed to take effect unless and until it is approved by a vote of the citizens of the jurisdiction covered by the agreement. Each state should have this in its Constitution, and it should extend all the way to Congress and its staff. I subscribe wholeheartedly to the Warren Buffett solution but since it has little if any chance of being implemented I offer this as a partial alternative.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Musing of one thinking about a man trying to find his way home in the middle of the night who fell into a hot spring and lost his cool...

Caveat. I am not a lawyer but I can read (at least I could until my vision deteriorated to the point where I have to have someone else read to me) and I also have a reasonable amount of horse sense acquired through many trips around the block.

The Constitution has a number of references to voting. All but one of them refers only to US citizens. That being the case, it seems to me that the current loose practices of registering voters violates the Constitution and those who installed laws and regulations such as motor-voter, "show a utility bill," and similar rules are derelict in their duty to faithfully uphold the Constitution.

The proper way to establish voter roles is to require every person registering to vote to present a valid, verifiable birth certificate. It also seems to me that if any such birth certificate does not show that at least one parent is a citizen of the United States then, under the 14Th Amendment, the subject of that birth certificate is not eligible to vote.

Congress should provide funds for each state to arrange for everyone who first registered on or after January 1st, 2000 to re-register by presenting a valid verifiable birth certificate. States should be required to verify a birth certificate where there is reasonable suspicion that the person registering has not met all citizenship requirements.

U.S. citizens are supposed to know how to read, write, and speak English. Therefore, ballots for federal elections should be printed only in English. (Think of the money that would save.)

Voting in US elections is a right accorded to US citizens. It is not a privilege to be exercised willy-nilly by anyone who happens to be residing in the United States. If it were, think of all the people who could register to vote (and who probably already have) under the loose procedures we have in many jurisdictions: illegal immigrants, foreign students, foreign nationals working in US offices of their companies,
foreign embassy personnel who dwell outside the embassy compound, foreign athletes and theatrical personnel who spend much time in the United States pursuing their vocations, people here on tourist visas, and so on.

I am aware that many states require voter ID. That's fine except that if the original registration was illegitimate then the idea is useless. I don't know how many states require birth certificates or naturalization papers but it seems to me that every state should do so. I hope that some day some individual or group will start a snowball by bugging local authorities who set the rules until they require birth certificates. (I would love to do it myself but I no longer have the stamina to do such things.)

I guess that's enough rambling for now. On the other hand, I hope somebody else will start rambling.