The Slippery Slope Path Started in Green Bay

A few days ago the Green Bay teachers were ordered to work an extra half-hour each day. No one consulted with them and no one offered them a salary increase. They were simply blackmailed by a system of government, which is becoming like its leader, Scott Walker, proponents of a national republican ideology that believes the best way to work in concert with employees is to tell them "Take it or leave it, and shut up! We will be expecting you to work harder for less pay, and any time you don't like it, there is the door!" It is the beginning of the slippery slope of workers' exploitation that takes place to workers who cannot collectively bargain for their rights. The article below is a reprint of an earlier article I wrote concerning the increasing number of freedoms the republicans are taking from the American people: 

The Republican’s Gift to America: Less Freedoms


Every time the republicans pass a law, I feel it makes us less safe, less free, and less in possession of our individual rights. One by one they are taking away the freedoms in our democracy that are very precious to us. And their removal of one freedom after another is beginning to add up to a pretty extensive sum of freedoms that you and I have lost. Let’s look at the list:

1. The republicans granted the government greater freedom to bug our homes and wire- tap our conversations without cause.

2. The republicans granted the government greater freedom to use the most evasive forms of body search and privacy violations ― particularly at airports.

3. The republicans are granting the government permission to subject the middle class (to which I belong) to the unfair burden of paying the national debt without any help from the richest one percent of Americans. Apparently, the republicans believe that the richest one percent of Americans needed money ― more than the rest of us.

4. The republicans granted themselves permission to keep some of us (the ones who are likely to vote democratic) from voting, by requiring a voter identification.

5. The republicans granted themselves permission to gerrymander or redraw the districts, in such a manner that it will guarantee the reelection of their majority, in local, state, and national elections.

6. The republicans granted corporate America permission to help them determine the election outcomes, by allowing them to spend as much money as they desire on attack ads.

7. The republicans have made it more difficult for us to seek justice against a corporation that has done harm to our families or us.

8. The republicans have passed laws that permits conceal carry of fire arms. This means that it is more probable that we will encounter more individuals, with low-boiling points, that are drunk, drugged- out, unstable, or hallucinating and “armed to the teeth.”

9. The republicans are destroying our rights to collectively bargain for fair wages, reasonable working conditions, and appropriate benefits. The republicans know that individuals, without the collect strength of other union members, can be easily frightened, defenseless, browbeaten, and force to accept longer working hours at lower wages, and less benefits at higher costs.

10. The republicans are intentionally destroying the last remnants of civility, corporation, empathy, equality, and fairness we have in this country. The United States no longer feels like a friendly place of unity, where disagreement is permitted. Instead, it feels like a hostile place of disagreement, where unity is not permitted.

Of course, I can add many more freedoms that the republicans have taken away to this list, including a woman’s reproductive rights, gay marriages, search and seizure, profiling, rights to a speedy trial . . .

While it is true that providing a safety net for the poor, providing universal health care for everyone, and providing stimulus money for the purpose of creating jobs are socialist ideas that the democrats embrace, it is equally true that the denial of individual rights, restrictions on the freedom of speech and expression, freedom of assembly, and concealed dictatorship are socialist ideas that the republicans are embracing.