Right to Work in Michigan

The Board of State Canvassers has approved petition language on a proposed Constitutional Amendment which would prevent Michigan from becoming a right to work state as well as place in the state Constitution collective bargaining rights. Governor Rick Snyder has asked the union backers of these ideas to, well, back off. He wants to avoid having any terribly divisive issues on the November ballot. The unions in turn say that he has backed all sorts of 'anti-worker' legislation and that this is their only way to fight against that. The Michigan Chamber of Commerce says that the measures will be fought by business tooth and nail. O what a tangled web...

It is rather silly of the Governor to ask that divisive issues be kept from the ballot. Politics are all about settling divisive questions, and to ask that they not be spoken of is simply stupid. But the unions are playing with fire when they attempt to enforce within the supreme law of the state rights which so obviously only help them.

Surely even the most extreme supporter of the unions must see that enforced unionism is, at the least, questionable in terms of human rights. How can anyone seriously argue that they are for someone who is against them in terms which unionism commands? Can they really say, "I'm so much for you that I'm going to force you to follow me", and expect to be taken seriously in the public forum? It seems that Christianity doesn't even demand that, and we're talking about the salvation of souls there. With unionization, we're talking about mere jobs. Such demands are sheer effrontery, and nothing but.

Still, if everything must be unanimous there can be very little progress. We could have no nation unless the tiny minority who may not want it are compelled to live in and participate in it, through taxes and whatnot. That certainly appears to be a higher calling than mandatory participation in bargaining moves with which the individual may not agree. That person could be wrong in a particular situation, true. But it seems more dignified to protect his personal options than live by simply majority rule, which may itself also be in error in particular situations.

The bottom line is that we ought to back off entirely and let the individual businesses and the individuals involved work it all out. Unions may well be necessary in some cases. But surely not all. Especially as such a close state as Indiana has become right to work, it will hurt our recovery prospects in Michigan to enshrine in our top law mandatory unionism with all its creeds. Such actions aren't in the best interests of Michigan. As to who they might help, well, notice who filed the petition wording.

OIl and the Irish Hills

Thar's gold in them that hills. It's been know for several years now that the area in Jackson and Lenawee Counties called the Irish Hills has had oil. The area currently produces about 2% oil the oil used by Michigan residents and is the largest oil producing part of the state.

But of course, angst follows the wells. The people in the area, even those benefiting from oil pumps on their own property, worry about the long term affects. Chief amongst the worries are the environmental concerns which come naturally with the oil industry, as well as problems such as road damage which come with the heavier trucks needed to haul oil and oil related items in and out of the area.

There are worries about contamination of the drinking water and the odor of petroleum, fears of earthquakes which may result from the drilling. To be sure, none of the issues are invalid. They seem to get right to the heart of the trouble with our nation's need for oil: we need it, yet wherever it's found it's going be at the least inconvenient for the locale.

What can we say about that? The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, as a general rule. We need oil and there's some where you live. Beyond a genuine, verifiably serious risk to your homes and well being, we don't know what else to say. We need to get to the crude.

That sounds cruder than we mean it. But, sadly, sometimes things simply are what they are and no one can really do much about it. Sure, it's easy to say that those of us who don't have to deal directly with the smells and the road destruction and the worry about the future for the locals to say, go on and drill it. But, what else do you want us to do? What else can you do? It simply is what it is; might as well make the best of it.

Sometimes life is a bowl of cherries. Sometimes it's a bowl of lemons. After finding out which, you just have to do the best you can with what you've got. Our sympathies are with the folks in the Irish Hills. But our overall well being needs the oil. It's another one those trade offs life forces on us as a whole. We do what is best within reason, and be grateful that it isn't worse.

Lewis and Mitchell

It's amazing how thoughts may randomly pop into one's mind. We are further impressed when two or more of them may have a certain connection which gives us pause.

C. S. Lewis speaks of being a democrat (a small 'd' democrat, it should be noted) he says that it is because he distrusts his fellow men rather than believes in them. No one, himself included, he says, can be fully trusted to run other people's business, so it's better to diffuse power than allow its accumulation in one man or group.

Richard Mitchell, an outstanding yet little known writer on education issues famous, so far as he is, for his works under the heading The Underground Grammarian, teaches that education is a preparation against the world more than for it. The world, so to speak, will mislead you, it will lie to you, so that the only decent education leads you to think for yourself as a check on the world's attempted ill effect upon you.

These are two quite interesting takes on things. They lead us to wonder whether there might be such things as negative virtues, ideas positive in themselves though emanating from negative perspectives. They are difficult to disagree with, yet display an understanding of the world and peoples around us in an unexpected fashion from unexpected sources. As such, they quite naturally lead us to think and wonder.

How about you?

Stupidity and Authority

It is the kind of thing which makes us think that maybe the civil libertarians have a point after all. The City of Detroit Police Department, in the settlement of not one but two lawsuits, has agreed to respect the First Amendment rights of citizens and visitors to the city by not writing tickets tickets for behaviors which are not in fact illegal. You see, the DPD has been found to write tickets where no offense was committed. One case in particular involved ticketing a man for loitering in a known drug trafficking area. Yet he was legally parked at the time (he was in his car) and no such statute was ion the books.

The rank stupidity of such actions confounds reason. As that actions itself took place in November 2008, it further boggles the mind that it would take more than three years for a resolution to the issue. How could any lawyer reasonably represent the DPD under such circumstances? How could they not expect the ACLU (the driving force behind the legal action) to make hay of it?

Detroit police officers must now be reminded that those who merely verbally oppose, criticize and question them cannot be threatened with arrest. We admit having our qualms about the whole question authority idea as a philosophic point. It's one thing to question authority if you honestly seek knowledge, which of course you have the right to do in potential arrest or ticketing situation. Yet it is quite another to question valid authority simply to incite, or to question it's very validity when it is in fact valid.

But, admittedly, that is a sidebar issue here. How this case even became a case is the real question. What kind of police do we have in Detroit when at least some of them feel compelled to issue tickets for nonexistent infractions? It seems there are things at work beyond simple Constitutional matters. There should be no officers on the street who do not know what is and is not a ticketable or arrestable offense. This requires more than reminding the men and women in blue to respect the Constitution. It seems to call for structural changes within the selection of training, and retention of officers.

The incidents, to be fair, are likely isolated. But that makes then no less an affront to the rights of the people, especially, of course, the people directly involved. It even offends perhaps more the good officers who we are sure form the vast, majority of the ranks. Yet we must suppose that they respect the action taken, or they would not be the good guys themselves. We are all the better for that.

The Solvency Board Cometh

Mayor Dave Bing and the Detroit City Council are appalled at the plan Governor Rick Snyder has for their town: a nine member panel which would control Detroit's finances. It would allow the Mayor and the Council to keep their job jobs as chief executive and chief legislature, and that's about it.

To those who claim that it strips Detroit of its political representation, well, it hardly does that. Detroit elected officials stay in place, and they have a say in who gets appointed to the board. Mayor Bing and the Council in various combinations will select 6 of the 9 who will serve on the Board. Further, as cities are the subsets of the state and not independent entities of their own volition, then seeing as Detroiters still vote for their State Reps and the Governor they are most certainly not losing their right to select their elected officials.

Detroit has messed around for far too long and gets far too much from the State as it is for the city to have any real moral ground to cry foul. When even the Detroit Free Press editorializes that the Mayor and all should accept the plan, it speaks volumes about how bad off the City has become. It may be, as Stephen Henderson states in the Freep, an emergency manager under another name. But it has become necessary as Detroit leadership simply has not stepped up and done something about the crisis.

This situation cannot reasonably be painted as us against them, Detroit against the rest of Michigan. Detroit already gets more money per capita from Lansing than any other municipality in the State. The City has simply refused to make the tough calls necessary for solvency, and now it will pay the price. That's not tyranny. It's governing those who have displayed they can't govern themselves.

And it probably should have been done a long time ago.

Science Holds no Value

One of the great debates between the Christian and the scientist is the degree to which we are animal or spiritual. Many scientists wish us to be wholly scientific in our approach to humanity and understanding of ourselves. It is really a rather shallow outlook on human nature or, even, the necessary consequences of a purely scientific view of who we are.

Science has apparently discovered the part of our brain which helps us to recognize justice. It asserts, at least in some quarters, that goodness is innate within us physically. Yet it ignores the very real point that whether good occurs in us naturally is an entirely different question from the judgment of 'what is good?' or the expectation that people will do good.

How do we know what is good except to be able to judge it in our individual and societal actions? Or are our scientifically minded friends suggesting that we just 'do things' and they happen to be good? Either way, any judgment about good, any assertion that 'this is good' cannot come wholly or entirely from within ourselves; there are too many of us with too many of our own nuanced ideas of good and bad.

Or are you saying that everyone from childhood, without guidance of any kind (parental, societal, or spiritual) will necessarily elect to do good? No Lord of the Flies scenarios possible? It begs the question of why people (and it should be obvious that all people do bad things sometimes regardless of physical construction) do bad things. Why does the thief steal, if he knows in his heart and head that it's wrong? Further, what's free will, if we are born with, say, no choice but to do good?

It should surprise no one that we are hard wired to recognize justice; we are, at the end of the day, physical as well as spiritual creatures. It should not be shocking news that a just and all knowing God in the very act of creation would make our physical selves able to recognize spiritual, eternal, and absolute truths, truths outside our own will, thus enabling us to see (so to speak) justice. That science has discovered as much enhances rather than detracts from our knowledge of God. It strengthens, not weakens, our relationship with Him. It makes our spiritual side and our physical side properly complimentary. It raises us from the mere animal into a higher plane of existence.

Science does not tell us who we are in our entirety. It only sets us on that road. How far we trail along that path is ultimately up to us. And the questions we discover along that way will not be empirical.

Electric Cars Found Wanting

GM will halt production of the Chevy Volt for five weeks due to a lack of demand. A company which makes batteries for electric cars lost around $258 million dollars. Electric cars aren't selling, and even hybrids aren't doing all that well, despite gasoline being at around four bucks a gallon in most of the country. What does it tells us?

For starters, nobody wants the stupid things. Secondly, no amount of government cajoling will make people buy them. Thirdly, everyone knows that the environment is both resilient and not nearly so bad off as the liberal environmentalists claim. When you top it all off with the fact that electric cars and hybrids cost more than traditional gasoline vehicles, and it's no wonder Volts don't sell. Such is not a, ahem, good climate in which you can influence people to buy what you want them to buy. The consumer wants what he wants.

Just give electric cars time, supporters say. But why? Essentially for the same reasons we have already listed, and likely a few more. Outside of a lack of options, you cannot make folks spend money on what they don't want.

You want to spread the purchase and use of electric vehicles? Burn the gas until there's no option but to use hybrids and the like. And get the government out of the car business while you're at it.

The consumers, as we've said, can see through all that. Consumers will not buy because of government pressure, outside of lacking other options. Necessity being the mother of invention, people aren't going to buy nontraditional vehicles without having to. Only when car makers are completely free to produce what they know the consumers want, which means they'll find a way to produce cheaper electric cars and hybrids when it pays them, will such cars become dominant. Before that, we simply have our tax dollars spent unwisely, with automakers forced to spend cash on things which they would rather not. Cash which could be used towards making better gasoline driven vehicles.

Let the market determine what we drive. Anything short of that, or short of absolute necessity, only makes it tougher on the consumers and workers the Obama Administration claims to love so much. Driving up taxes and increasing the cost of personal transportation will only stall private initiative.