Tag: Independence

The decision you make has the potential to change forever, the relationship between our state citizens and their governments.  It will grow the number of those who will become dependent on a system that has never kept a promise, met efficiency targets, or solved the problems that it was designed to do.  It will bind us contractually to a leviathan federal bureaucracy that has inserted itself as not only our caretakers, but now as our keepers; and our masters.

Yet this decision is difficult for some of you?

Some on the fence claim that "other states will get our cut", as if that makes it right to ink a deal with the devil.  Some say "this helps our books out", ignoring the fact that its all borrowed money or time.  We WILL be paying for it after only a couple years, and given the gimmicks the feds are using to find financing to pay for this temporary buy-off, we see that money source might not be so reliable.  Some say that "the hospitals build in the costs of indigent care to paying patients". yet forget to remind us that hospitals have advantages granted by local governments to offset those costs.

Gains from agreeing to this might be a temporarily solvent budget, a few legislative measures considered as part-of-the-deal, or even a bunch of happy big-hospital lobbyists. In the 1800s, FRÉDÉRIC BASTIAT book "the law", described the latter:

"The Fatal Idea of Legal Plunder
But on the other hand, imagine that this fatal principle has been introduced: Under the pretense of organization, regulation, protection, or encouragement, the law takes property from one person and gives it to another; the law takes the wealth of all and gives it to a few--whether farmers, manufacturers, shipowners, artists, or comedians. Under these circumstances, then certainly every class will aspire to grasp the law, and logically so."

Providing for unlimited new expansions in safety nets only creates new dependencies. In turn building new provisions for new needs.  It demonstrates a distrust in one's fellow man to provide for him or herself.  It shows a fear of the unknown result of true independence, like the type exhibited who once upon a time fought against such mechanisms.  Indeed, it is growth of government, regular and expected, that now happens nearly without counter action. It grows and consumes like a beast.  Anyone can step aside and watch that beast maul its victims without stepping in to distract, scare, or engage.

Yet as long as the beast is loose, it simply becomes more emboldened and finds more victims.

Grand Traverse County Commission approves resolution urging Gov. Snyder, local lawmakers to pass Right to Work law

Commissioner Jason Gillman's proposal for "freedom and jobs" approved 5-to-2

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. -- Grand Traverse County commissioners Wednesday added their voices to those calling on Gov. Rick Snyder and the Republican-controlled legislature to enact a state civil rights law guaranteeing individual employees' freedom to choose regarding union affiliation and prohibiting job discrimination against employees who choose not to join or give money to a union.

A resolution introduced by Commissioner Jason Gillman -- which urged Snyder, Sen. Howard Walker, R-Traverse City, and Rep. Wayne Schmidt, R-Traverse City, by name to support a Right to Work law -- was approved by a 5-2 vote in front of a capacity crowd in which the legislation's supporters outnumbered opponents two to one.

Snyder said while running for governor that he will sign such a law if it reaches his desk.
(Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIikLENpg4s)

Gillman said the law will bring "freedom and jobs" to Michigan. "I'm glad that the county board has taken a position both appropriate and forward-thinking that addresses a solution to our economic troubles in Michigan," he said afterward.

Gillman was joined in supporting the resolution by fellow Republican commissioners Robert Hentschel, Herbert Lemcool, Christine Maxbauer, and Richard Thomas.

Republican Commissioner Addison "Sonny" Wheelock, Jr., and the commission's lone Democrat, Ross Richardson, voted against the resolution.