It seems only fitting that the first post of 2013 should come from the lazy lexicographers of the SOS Dictionary. After all, their efforts are at best sporadic and at worst all but nonexistent. Senior Staff has been informed of recently released NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) regulations that appear to prevent them from properly rewarding these staff members for their level of performance (but have no fear, we'll come up with something).
Now there have been some requests over the years for publishing of the ponderous tome better known as the SOS or "Stuck on Stupid" Dictionary, but owing to the work ethic and performance level of the SOS scribblers, it's entirely possible that the current crop will all be taking a dirt nap before a comprehensive volume is available. It's currently too big for a posting and too small for a printing. If anyone has any ideas as to how to reconcile these seemingly irreconcilable positions, I will be more than happy to submit suggestion to those in charge.
On the other hand, there may actually be those of you who reading this who have somehow managed to miss previous postings on this subject (shame on you, now go back and search all of the postings under the label of 'Dictionary'),
the SOS dictionary is a reference guide to terms which nominally mean
something to the rest of the English speaking world, but appears to mean
something entirely different when looked at through the jaded eyes and
rose colored glasses of the SOS dictionary staff.
In light of yet another bit of last minute legislative crisis resolution, the following entry was deemed a necessary addition:
Comprehensive Law
1. Legislation of a large scope or scale; involving or including much.
2. Legislation about which the only thing that is truly comprehensive is the confusion it engenders.
3. Legislation
purposely created so as to be so all-encompassing and so full of confusing and contradictory language as to be proof against anyone's attempts to
comprehend its nature and purpose, and to further discourage anyone from even attempting to read it in its entirety.
4. Legislation of an incomprehensible scope and scale which includes vast areas of extraneous nonsense having nothing to do with the original subject, for no better purpose than to hide unpalatable sections that both those proposing and those voting for them would rather remain off the radar screen and hidden from the light of day.
5. Legislation so onerous and cumbersome that it's impossible to repair or repeal after passage, when the damage that it's going to cause has finally been uncovered.
Being a news-junkie, I normally spend my Saturday mornings reading two newspapers, the Kansas City Star and the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal (I save the TFP for Sunday). There was an interesting news story in the latter this week about a bicyclist in San Francisco being charged with felony vehicular manslaughter for allegedly running a red light and striking a pedestrian. Having dodged a few of these two-wheeled felons over time myself (both on the roads and in the crosswalks), this story intrigued me long after I put the paper down.
Then it hit me! If you took a city like Toledo, whose City Council is considering putting a Recreation Levy that has to eventually include bike paths, tossed in potential breakthrough legislation prohibiting bicycle texting, added a dash Eco-friendly and Recreation-friendly City Council activity, if you then mixed in a healthy dose of those revenue enhancing red-light cameras along with a pinch of licensing fees for bicycles, sprinkled on a few senior citizens, and added a few tears from that golden oldie 'if just one life could be saved'; you might just have created the recipe for "The Perfect Issue" in politics. So that's what I wrote about for this week's TFP.
Countless studies, could be followed by endless debates (with politicians flip-flopping and holding logically inconsistent ideas); which in turn could be followed by a seemingly endless streams nauseating rhetoric and pages of useless legislation protecting seniors, bicyclists, and pedestrians (along with all of us in public not texting). This could be as close to a legislative Nirvana (the place, not the band) as many politicians experience.
Speaking of which, it's still early in the week, and those of you attempting to experience the best of what's going on in Toledo and Northwest Ohio this week would be well-advised to catch up, both in the mid-week 'Star' edition Toledo's largest Sunday circulation and Ohio's Best Weekly Newspaper for the last three years, the Toledo Free Press.
One popular legislative theory today holds that if you create a bill that's massive and all-encompassing, you will be able to create a law so complicated that not only will no one be able to fully comprehend it (including the lawmakers who ostensibly wrote it), but no future legislature will be able to walk it back. Equally popular is another theory, that says that the best way to achieve this goal is to instead create a multitude of single purpose laws dedicated to a grand design, in the knowledge that by doing so future legislatures will find it impossible to discover and repeal all of them and allow the original purpose to be served.
Both legislative theories have proven themselves correct, though they deserve no credit for doing so. Rather than proving to be of benefit to the governed, what they've mostly done is to pile insult upon injury.
What none of these legislators and legislatures seem capable of acknowledging is their own potential fallibility.
What in fact, would make any elected official believe that they are capable of (or required to) create a body of laws to cover every aspect of life; and protect the electorate not only from life's toil and trouble, but from themselves?
The harm caused from such legislative theory is not restricted to legislatures however. There are after all three branches of government in this country, and the other two are not to be so easily kept from the party.
For their part, the Executive branch at every level of government attempts to filter this fire hydrant-like stream of legislative excess (and assert their own control over the process) by selectively enforcing the bills passed into law.
Those in control of enforcement watch and approve as legislatures across the country pass laws banning cell phone use and texting while driving, while failing to enforce existing laws against 'driving while distracted' that cover a far greater variety of equally dangerous actions. The federal government chooses which parts of immigration law it will enforce and aggressively attacks state governments who seek to enforce the rest. That same federal government selectively pursues voter intimidation law in the case of the Black Panthers in Philadelphia in spite of its own Department of Justice establishing a prima facie case.
When legislatures fail to serve the grand design of the Executive branch's vision of the country, it simply bypasses the legislative process and resorts to 'Executive Orders' and bureaucratic regulation to get its way.
Not to be outdone in this contest of wills, the Courts likewise take their turn in the theoretical mayhem. They decide who has standing to challenge existing law (whether they agree that such law violates state or federal Constitutions or not), thereby passively allowing bad laws to stand and good laws to go unenforced. Judges likewise make quick, indecisive, or arbitrary decisions; knowing that doing so is good 'politics' for positions that require re-election, and that regardless of their ruling, the losing side will appeal the decision to a higher level.
The Judicial process at local, state, and federal levels has become so over-burdened and interminably slow that by the time any final determination is made, the law is firmly entrenched in society and impossible to walk back regardless of the ruling.
No matter however, for whether the Judicial branch is able or chooses to rule on the rare challenge made, many more laws remain on the books long after they have become obsolete, ineffective, or just plain stupid.
For example:
In Kansas it is illegal:
- To shoot rabbit from motorboats.
- To fish with your bare hands.
- If two trains meet on the same track, neither shall proceed until the other has passed.
Ohio instead finds it is illegal:
- To fish for whales on Sunday.
- To get a fish drunk.
- For women to wear patent leather shoes in public.
In Illinois however, you may be arrested:
- For vagrancy if you don't have at least $1 in your pocket.
- If you fail to contact the police before entering a city in an automobile.
In Chicago:
- It's illegal for any business to enter into a contract with the city unless it has first checked its records and reported any dealing that it had with slaves in the era of slavery.
- It's likewise illegal to fish while sitting on a giraffe's neck.
In New York on the other hand, it's illegal:
- For citizens to greet each other by putting their thumb to their nose and wiggling their fingers.
- To throw a ball at someone's head.
... and my favorite
- The punishment for jumping off a building is death.
The whole sad process often seems little more than a comedy of political errors, when not an attempt at forced behavior modification by legislative fiat. Legislatures have long sought (and failed) to establish societal morality by legislative fiat with the force of government behind them. Once you get past the pettiness, the self-righteousness, and lunacy; the only law that ultimately triumphs from these efforts is the one of unintended consequences. It is small wonder consequently that when considering the legislative theory that legislatures at every level of government use, they are held today in so little regard.
Like many taxpayers across the country, I've watched demonstrations in state capitols in Wisconsin and Ohio with interest and with fear.
The interest is two-fold. First, because these public demonstrations bring out all of the best and worst in people; and as one who considers himself a student of the human condition, this is a wonderful condensed study guide. Second and more importantly, because these appear to be the battlegrounds where the financial future of states across the country will be fought.
The fear is likewise two-fold. I fear that politicians have simply decided that this issue is the 'distraction de jour', and are simply using it to keep us from looking more closely at what government is doing elsewhere. I likewise fear that as government often does, the furor over the subject at hand will cause the pendulum to swing too far in the opposite direction in some form of demented retribution. This could easily produce compensation packages that leave us a workforce competency level ill-equipped to adequately serve citizens.
If it seems that I am caught up on 'two's' where this subject is concerned, it might be because I am of two minds on the subject.
The first part of my thought is pretty straightforward. A contract is a contract, and a government (like any other employer) does not have the right to abrogate a legitimately negotiated legal agreement, regardless of whether it has discovered that there is political gain to be had, or that it simply doesn't like the one in place. Like other employers, they are not allowed a "mulligan" (legislative or otherwise) when they discover that they made a bad deal.
There is a both a legal and ethical principle involved here, and attempting operate in this manner is a betrayal of public trust that should be of great concern to all of us. For those of us who cried foul when the feds overruled bankruptcy law when deciding how to treat legitimate bond holders in what should have been done with the assets of GM; consistency demands that we can think no differently.
If however, the government or any other employer wants to change the way that they do business in the days going forward and re-negotiate such an agreement with workers on that basis, they certainly have the right to do so.
The other part of my thinking concerns Unions in general and public sector unions in particular. I am no fan of organized labor, but recognize that they have a legal right to exist and to attempt to negotiate compensation on behalf of their members. Unlike some, I do not believe that this "right" to organize is guaranteed under the right of free assembly in the Bill of Rights of the Constitution however. Oh they can get together any time that they want, they can also exert political influence as an organized entity, but there is nothing in the Constitution that says that their employer must negotiate with them.
That employers can be forced to negotiate with such groups is law however, and one that has been created at state levels.
In fact across the country, there are 'closed states' and 'open states'. In closed states, it's perfectly legal to force a person to join a union in order to get certain types of jobs (something that seems inconsistent for those now crying for freedom). In open or "right to work" states, you are free to take any job you choose without joining a union. These open states do not preclude you from joining such organizations, but do not force you to do so in order to gain employment.
Because they are state laws, state legislatures have the right to change them. As long as they do so following the rules governing the creation and passage of laws in such states, their efforts are within the rights granted to states under the Constitution.
I also think that due consideration should be given to the fundamental difference between union negotiations in the private and public sector. In the private sector, unions negotiate with management over sharing the surplus capital of the company. If the union workers at some point begin to get more of a share than the employer can reasonably afford, that employer probably goes bankrupt, and the jobs are lost.
In the public sector however, there's not supposed to be a much of surplus to divvy up in the first place (if there was, it would mean we were being taxed too much). When the employee share of revenue in government grows beyond the capacity of the employer to pay for in this case however, they merely generate more capital by raising taxes to cover what might be their purposefully politically inadequate negotiating skills.
There is also something particularly odoriferous about the concept of a public sector employees union financially supporting the careers of those in management negotiating their contracts. It doesn't take much in the way of critical thinking to see that it is a conflict of interest for these politicians to make decisions on the pay of those contributing to their campaigns.
With all of my concern over how things will work out after legislation in Wisconsin and Ohio is finally passed (as it seems it will), I find that I am still of two minds on where this can and should go in the long term.
While not in favor of having unions in the public sector, I might view this more favorably if the playing field were leveled. I might be willing to concede the right of a public sector union to organize and to negotiate their compensation (and this includes those considered 'safety workers' like police and firefighters), if they in turn would relinquish the requirement that members of their professions have to join a union to achieve employment. I would likewise expect a concession to that level playing field that their employers no long have an obligation to take on the union's responsibility to collect its members' dues.
It hardly seems like a week since my last effort for the Toledo Free Press. Of course that may be because it actually hasn't. I can only assume that editor-in-chief Michael Miller is working even harder than usual, since he got this effort up only hours after I sent it to him on a Saturday.
The effort, "Political Prestidigitation" (and yes I had to check the spelling), came from realizing that the shows going on in Madison, in Columbus, and elsewhere across the country might not be the point of the story. I also realized that the casting of the roles for heroes and villains for this entertainment might have some flaws in it.
In fact, the more I got to thinking about it, the more the whole thing began to look like a rather shabby magic trick; and the secret to understanding it might be penetrating the misdirection being performed by many of the players on stage. I hope you find my own verbal sleight-of-hand equally intriguing.
The effort this week is truly going up rather early in the process, so there's no telling what compelling stories might yet develop through the week ahead. If you want to know what's going on in Toledo and NW Ohio however, you going to want to do so through the Toledo Free Press Star edition mid-week; and Toledo's largest Sunday circulation newspaper, the Toledo Free Press.
Like most youngsters, one of the favorite things about my early days in school was recess. Oh don't get me wrong, I actually liked going to school (in spite of nuns with rulers). I truly enjoyed the educational process, delighted in learning about the subjects that I was taught, and reveled in the academic competition fostered between students (something I feel is sadly pilloried in today's educational process). Recess was still the best however. It was only during this period that one could simply enjoy being with friends, when the only effort expended was done in seeking enjoyment, and when one's only concern was to relax and enjoy the all too brief period given you to do so.
Even the bruises and wounds one occasionally received in such pursuits were far less painful than might be expected.
While far from those carefree days of youth, I nevertheless find that recess is still my favorite time. The joy that I feel however, is for far different reasons these days. You see, today when I think of recess, I think on the fact that Congress has left Washington DC.
For those of you who have somehow failed to connect the dots, Congressional recesses are the only time when our elected legislators are not working their normal devilment. It is a time when members go home to their respective districts (or on fact-finding trips to exotic locales) and are not taxing, regulating, or spending the country into the seventh level of Hell.
Now normally we can count on partisan politics, personal bickering, and simple confusion to bring about enough inefficiency to slow the apparently inexorable process performed in these august Houses to a crawl.
From time to time however (and far too often lately), legislators manage to summon the will to put aside such petty disputes long enough to find new ways to make our lives truly miserable (or at least more than mildly inconvenient). In fact, the only break that we seem to get these days is during their all too infrequent departures from the logic-free zone of Washington for some well-deserved (by us) time off.
Even that is not a guarantee however, as we recently discovered when Speaker Pelosi refused to let these sleeping dogs lie and brought Representatives back to their duties to pass an additional $26 billion in spending. Having done so in less time than it takes most families to decide on an automobile purchase, they once again recessed. (All travel costs for this little spending spree by the way, were also picked up by taxpayers.)
Don't get me wrong, this is not to say that Congress doesn't do good things for the country as well. For example, there was ... No wait, there was that time when they ... Oh yeah, I remember now, they ... OK, I give up. I can't can't seem to recall one from recent history off the top of my head, but I never claimed that memory was my strong suit.
I can still remember those long ago carefree hours from my youth though, and I recall as well that recess was always over long before I was ready. I find that I realize much the same today. Before we have really begun to enjoy these far too infrequent and easy-going moments of Congressional vacation, they are all too quickly ended. Just when we begin to stop looking over our collective shoulders and begin to bask in the sheer joy of the experience, our nationally elected officials return to the duties that we elected them for.
And just as we did at the end of recess period, we in turn dutifully line up and trudge back to the concerns that it seems we had only just been able to set aside.
Take heart however my friends, for like those joyous and exuberant hours from our youth, recess will come again.
