Originally Posted by westhawk
....the FAA seems to be less important to the powers that be than winning a political pissing contest.
Well, when you consider that they were willing to put the entire economy in jeopardy over the debt ceiling, the FAA is really just a sideshow, isn't it?
But back to the prior post...
Originally Posted by con-pilot
But the Democrat's pro-union agenda of outlawing the secret ballot is okay and that's not transparent?
Not to mention not being very democratic.
It seems to me that democracy is a participatory sport. You show up and cast your vote, and if you don't bother to show up, your opinion doesn't count. You essentially defer your wishes to those who've bothered to participate.
The practice in question, that of counting non-voters on one side
or the other is what's distinctly un-democratic.
(Sure, in this case it's counting non-votes as "no" votes on the union question, but how much would you like to bet that the Republicans and big businesss would be fighting
against that proposition if the shoe were on the other foot--if those non-votes were to be counted as a "yes"?)
Originally Posted by westhawk
Politicians are cheats and liars. All of 'em!
Pretty much.
But, while it's self apparent that hurting labor unions would inhibit their ability to buy politicians, I don't think anybody is delusional enough to think that helping big labor would in any way reduce the ability of big business to buy politicians.
Originally Posted by con-pilot
And while we are on the subject, just where was all this concern by the Democrats about people losing their jobs or being laid off when nearly a hundred thousand workers lost their jobs when Obama shut down all drilling in the Gulf of Mexico?
Oh, you mean when he did that in the middle of the worst environmental disaster in the history of America? Yeah, that didn't make him many friends, did it? I'll bet it got the attention of big oil though.
But really, it's an apples and oranges comparison. Mica's action was equal to throwing a monkey wrench into a specific part of the government machinery, to further his idealogical agenda, without regard for the consequences to the function of that machinery. The furloughs, and layoffs of the construction people, were collateral damage, but wholly predictable, as was the lost tax revenue. Isn't it a Congressman's job to make the machinery of government work, not screw it up?
On edit: Just wanted to add one more thought--For the airlines to raise their fares to match the un-charged tax, was to symbolically spit in the face of both their customers and the taxpayers. Disgusting...