As IF Times

link To Protest Hiring of Nonunion Help, Union Hires Nonunion Pickets – WSJ.com.

An Onion piece? No. A Seinfeild skit? Again no. In a free country, there are no real laws against public displays evidencing stupidity or assaults on common sense.  The articulate as well as the addled are free to express their world views to any who would listen. One would think though, that in a country where education is ubiquitously available, is nominally free to a certain point and where information is widely accessible, that the moronic actions of the addled few would be mostly ignored.  One would be wrong. 

Under the scrutiny and analysis by a free press, such inane activity as the one referenced in the linked article should be printed in bold headlines with plenty of derisive tone rather than the dry, bemused presentation by the Wall Street Journal.  Stories like this however should get much wider attention.  While the incident itself is perhaps a local curiosity, the ramifications are not.  The pretzel logic conveyed by the union representatives in their justification for this action goes thusly:

“Low Pay! Go away!” and “That Rat Gotta Go!” the union stand-ins chanted as other workers banged cow-bells and beat on a trio of empty plastic buckets. Eric Williams, a 70-year-old retiree who said he needs extra cash to buy groceries, wore a sign saying that Can-Am Contractors, a nonunion Maryland drywall and ceiling concern, “does not pay area standard wages & benefits.”

so therefore,

“…The union’s Mr. Garcia sees no conflict in a union that insists on union labor hiring nonunion people to protest the hiring of nonunion labor. He says the pickets are not only about “union issues” but also about fair wages and benefits for American workers. By hiring the unemployed, “we are also giving back to the community a bit,” he says…”  As if.

 So who cares if a small union doesn’t understand irony?  Everyone should care because it is this kind of up is down and down is up logic that creates much of the mess that faces American society.  The Arizona immigration debate is one of the hottest issues being contested now, ostensibly by learned people on both sides of the argument.  In the most boiled down essence, the issue is, should non citizens of a country be allowed to come, go, or stay as long as they want? If someone visited Canada, enjoyed the view and the food and decided to stay, would they be allowed to?  If there is no enforcement of immigration laws for a few, why have them for the many?  In fact, why even have an immigration department?  Why not just save the money or have the always pleasant and smiling workers hand out lollipops  and water  to people as they cross the borders?  The INS department can all be re-branded as tour guides. 

In the case of airport security, if only a specific and predictible profile is responsible for inflicting grief, the logical response up to now has been to harass everyone; just in case.  Oddly, this protocol is exactly the opposite of the Arizona edict.  Whereas there is a push to grant leniency to illegal citizens by opponents of the proposed Arizona law, legal citizens at airports are routinely treated as criminals.  Nobody thinks this is strange?

As expressed earlier, idiots are free to do what they want.  What makes idiocy dangerous is when it shapes public policy and the formation of laws that affect the lives of sane people.  The influence of a small vocal minority are creating non sensical and in some cases, dangerous policies which can adversely affect the lives of normal people.  The more insane people that manage to get voted into office, the more mainstream their policies appear.  This can’t happen without an abetting press.  Who would have thought that in today’s modern times,  headlines and stories in the National Enquirer are as valid as anything offered by the New York Times or CBS? Suddently, Martians in Congress and talking dogs don’t sound so ridiculous.  Down is up.

link Europe’s prospects brighten as U.S. fades | Reuters.

I guess anything’s possible.  But these kinds of forecasts have been around for a while and somehow, never come to fruition.  It’s very fashionable these days to forecast the demise of America with the associated parallels to the Roman Empire, yada yada yada.  While this particular author may point to short term statistics that purport to show signs of growth in European economies, given the big picture political background, it’s unlikely to be more than a blip in the longer term declining picture.  In an article for The Wall Street Journal a few weeks back, Bret Stephens ( http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704057604575080602346820226.html )  articulated the fundamental structural flaw with the European way of doing things:

“…All European economic policies are the cultural derivatives of one dominant, nearly totalitarian statist ideology: the state is good, the market is bad,” says French economist Guy Sorman. The free market, he adds, is “perceived as fundamentally American, while statism is the ultimate form of patriotism…”

as well,

“…Then there is the media. Last week, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, who leads the country’s market-friendly Free Democrats, took to the pages of Die Welt to lament that Germany’s working poor make less than welfare recipients. “For too long,” he wrote, “we have perfected in Germany the redistribution [of wealth], forgetting where prosperity comes from. For his banal observations, Mr. Westerwelle was roundly accused of “[defaming] millions of welfare recipients” and urged to apologize to them. It takes a remarkably stultified intellectual climate for an op-ed to spark this kind of brouhaha: It is the empire of the Emperor’s New Clothes, adapted to the 21st century welfare state…”

With this mindset entrenched in most European cultures and governments, it is only a matter of time before the events in Greece find their way to the northern neighbors.  Once you have granted a set of entitlements to people, it is very hard to take them back.  Socialist leaning parties will maintain their grip on government because the masses who think they will benefit from wealth spreading will keep them in power.  While it may sound civilized for Europeans to routinely take anywhere from 4 to 8 weeks holiday a year, the fact is, someone pays for this.  Mostly, this will be manifest by higher prices, higher taxes and decreased productivity.  Try to sell this notion to the Chinese or Indians.  Canada is well on it’s way to emulating the European model as most government jobs entitle workers 3 to 4 weeks paid holidays a year.  If you happen to belong to a union, even better. 

Americans have historically operated on a different mindset, that is, the notion of working hard to get ahead.  This fundamental notion is the pillar of what makes America, America and created the whole  image of American exceptionalism.   Of course, at this time, there is strong movement to change this mindset.  The entitlement clamor is loud and alarmingly influential.  The siren song of getting something for nothing is an irresistible lure.  Like a powerful engine with cylinder leaks, the American economy is hampered by drains on productivity rather than aided by contributions to it.  The success or failure of this movement may in fact determine whether the U.S. can continue to be the world’s economic engine. 

 It may be noted that historians have opined that Rome was destroyed by rot from within, not from external forces.  It’s hard to disagree with this premise as it applies to the U.S., given what’s happened over the past few years.  The most important thing Americans can do to reverse their demise is to excise  the rot.  As can be seen in Europe, once rot sets in, it’s pervasive.  As if Americans want to be cheese eating surrender monkeys who think soccer is interesting.