Tilting at a DFL Windmill

Participating openly in the public fray, it ought to feel too-obvious-to-publish one's belief in maintaining these minimally-acceptable ethical standards:  To be willing to listen to criticism, to conduct oneself with politeness, to allow adversaries access (engaging regularly with one's smartest critics), to refrain from appointing oneself God of Civility and to foreswear uncritical participation within illegitimate fora.

Locally, there are few people who aim for--let alone achieve--these basic integrity minimums.

I have noted with distaste our local lefties, engaging in their thespian pseudo-populism, on Wisconsin.  The Fecke, Pieklo, Rosenberg herd mugs a supposedly-taunting refusal to defend any instrumental 'societal net gain', when public employees are allowed to collectively bargain [with their employer the people], without limitation. 

Instead, Fecke, Pieklo and Rosenberg ham it up for their gallery, giving an intra-team confidence-building pep talk, so as to beef up their own model-liberal stature.  You make hay when the sun shines.

In projecting their rhetorical poses, Fecke, Pieklo and Rosenberg seek to uphold the sacredness--the human-rightiness--of public employees' right to organize.  For many, such a right is not sacrosanct, given that a consensus among economists does not exist, in support of the purported 'net social benefit' brought on by the unionization of public employees.

Pieklo pines for a Republican Wisconsin governor of Robert La Follette's majesty--without noting La Follette's equanimity vis-à-vis his era's non-organized employment status, for public employees.

Fecke, Pieklo and Rosenberg's theatrical gestures--their dances transparently assert--'are justified by the rank insincerity of the other side's theatrical gestures.'  (The God of Civility self-anointment, ever-present as ever, amid American ears.)

In a properly functioning liberal ideological culture, an intellectual should feel embarrassed, engaging in herd-populism of the Fecke, Rosenberg, Pieklo variety. 

Right-wing ethical slobs engage in public conduct every bit as repulsive--granted--but we should be able to expect better of liberals.  That we cannot irks.