Here in Georgia the state legislature has been debating an issue that is really a twisted mess. And all of their proposed solutions miss what really matters most. In short the debate is over Cobb County’s rules for deciding who will attend a newly built school. The county’s rules include a race-bait clause, that mentions the racial makeup of a school should not be changed whenever school redistricting is performed. What this would mean is that students near a newly built school would not be able to attend that school because they have the wrong skin tone. They would have to continue going to a school further away from their home in the name of “diversity”. The affected students happen to be White.

Of course in modern times where race neutral things like location are used to determine school redistricting and anyone of any race can live most anywhere, a rule that plays on race is a bad idea. It results in school enrollment being based on race, instead of students being able to attend the school closest to their home. In this particular case Republican House Rules Chairman Earl Ehrhart’s child would probably be attending the new school in the future, if not for being born in the wrong skin tone as some of his neighbors (White). So he proposed a bill to ban Cobb County from being able to use race as a factor. While his efforts are very much self serving I agree with him. Because his efforts will stop a practice that is simply wrong.

When I was in grade school the local government changed school district lines so that I would have to attend a school much further away from my home. All in the name of “diversity”. So I’ve had personal experience in this redrawing of lines because of race. I did not like it then and I still don’t like it as an adult. Even if a few kids are sent to a school that is further away because it is “better” than the school near them, it does nothing for the masses of children still at the school closer by. Educational efforts should involve making schools better, not trying to shuffle a few kids around in the name of “diversity”. It should be parents that have the ability to move their kids if they feel the need.

OK, so now you know why I’m so much against populating schools based on race. And why I agree with the effort to change Cobb County’s rules in this regard. Well you know the race hustlers do not want something to be race neutral. And one particular race hustler jumped up. I consider her a hustler in training, because she’s a young NAACP member and state legislator. She’s not as “seasoned” as some other race hustlers in this state. Democratic State House member Alisha Thomas Morgan declared that changing the rules to not include race would bring back “segregation”. She also made personal attacks towards Chairman Earl Ehrhart. This got her a swift rebuke from House Speaker Glenn Richardson. He had her mic turned off and then informed her that she was violating House rules.

The article linked below has video of the heated exchange:

This article from the Atlanta Journal Constipation Constitution has other details.

The bill passed in the House and this week it goes to the State Senate. I expect race hustling nuts like Democratic State Senator Vincent D. Fort might have something stupid to say. (He is loved by the NAACP and ADF, need I say more?)

Now that I’ve gotten that all out of the way, I must say that the entire debate is junk! These legislators should be working on a way for parents across the state to be able to decide where their children attend school. If you watched John Stossel’s 20/20 report called “Stupid in America”, you saw how this effort by legislators to force kids to only be able to attend a single school is terrible for fostering competition in education. It allows some veteran teachers to rest on their laurels and not feel pressed to do their best job. His report did not mention how terrible parents are a major factor in schools being bad, it focused on what schools and officials could do on their end of things. And the report did show a whole lot that schools could do better. The number one issue being school unions. Given Unions make it very hard to get rid of bad employees.

Schools in America need to reflect the competition and choice available in other parts of America’s free market system. As Mr. Stossel’s report showed, it does work.

It would seem that this would be a violation of Union Members’ privacy, but even if it is not it shows that Unions can carry a great deal of leverage in actions done by Union members. Actions done outside of what would be considered Union activity. The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative is an effort to stop race based preferences in Affirmative Action policies and other hiring efforts. Because hiring based on race is simply unconstitutional. It is a ballot initiative, that has enough signatures to go on the ballot for a vote.

Liberals who support race based preferences have been trying to prevent this initiative from going through the legal process, using literally any means necessary! As part of the Liberal efforts, they have tried to claim that petition organizers lied about the actual intent of the petition.

As Blog Discriminations reports:

So Liberals feel that the removal of race based preferences in hiring does not protect Civil Rights. I must say, regardless of how MLK Jr. would feel about this, that’s just insane! As if it was bad when Whites discriminated based on race to give other Whites jobs, but when done for other races it is fine .

Well Unions are always in the “protection” game. Usually protecting their own existence and have a history of playing on race. In Michigan AFSCME Local 207 and AFSCME Local 2920 realized that the removal of racial preferences does not play into the agenda of their allies in the Democratic Party. So they have joined the fight against the ballot initiative. And they are also pulling out all the stops to assist their Liberal allies. The Union bosses have cross referenced their member lists with petition signers! Then they actually questioned Union members who signed about their actions. Of those questioned by AFSCME Local 207, about 20% (27 in total) of the petition signers have signed affidavits saying they were misled. AFSCME Local 2920 was able to do the same with about a dozen of their members.

This is very disturbing. Because those Union members had no idea that their signature would be used by Union bosses to approach them personally about their actions. To me this is a misuse of a Union membership list. Also, being approached without prior knowledge that Union bosses might spy on them, probably left the questioned Union members feeling pretty intimidated! Although most did not sign an affidavit, it probably scared some of them from ever wanting to do something that might go against the Union again. Not to mention, who knows if others outside of the Union bosses have found out about this. There could be pressure on signers, that trickles down from Union bosses to co-workers that side with the Union.

Zarko Research & Consulting has the full report and audio from the Michigan Civil Rights Commission hearing.

There needs to be a separate initiative to prevent Unions for misusing their member lists in this fashion. Better still, I would prefer an initiative to abolish the Unions completely. Their time has long past us.

Fred Barnes was able to get Conservative Thinker Thomas Sowell to do a one on one interview on FoxNews recently. Like Mr. Barnes and other Conservatives, I really enjoy Mr. Sowell’s work. So I’ve made notes from the interview. In my notes I attempt to cover the major topics covered during the interview and Mr. Sowell’s general view on them. There was so much covered that it would be difficult to capture every word. Mr. Sowell brings up so many facts, figures and perfect analogies on the fly that it’s hard to keep up if you’re actually trying to document everything. So I’m hoping I’ve just captured the general points and my notes are in no way a fully detailed report of every single thing covered. But I’ve captured enough that I feel satisfied with sharing my notes here on the blog.
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Every bad employee’s best friend, unions. In New Orleans the police union is standing up for the police officers fired for their beating of Robert Davis, that was caught on video tape.

As usual, when an employer attempts to take corrective action against a bad employee, there runs the Union with lawyers in tow to defend the disciplined (former) employee(s).

Related post: 2 cops fired for beating Robert Davis in New Orleans

Just before Christmas New York’s transportation Union strong arms have decided to start an illegal strike. It is now day 2 of the illegal strike. About 33,000 Union members have joined with their foolish leaders in shutting down mass transportation in the city. About 900 transportation workers have crossed the strike line and shown they will not join with the band of fools. I’ve got a message for all you New York Transport Workers Union members on strike and I hope it can be made official, YOU’RE FIRED! Everyone taking part in the illegal strike should be fired for breaking the law and simply being pains in the butt near Christmas.

You can read the media report about this whole mess here. The video on that page really gives the sad picture. Millions of people depend on that transit system daily. (Over 3 million daily riders.) Which is why any kind of strike was outlawed in the first place. The union leaders should be imprisoned for inciting this illegal activity. Just a $1 million a day fine and no pay for people on strike is not good enough. Imprison the union leaders, fire the members that don’t want to work and have the biggest job fair to hire new workers that the city has ever seen. This mess is costing the city $700 million a day! The pension benefits, health care benefits and pay raise desires of 33,000 do not outweigh the needs of an entire city. Fire their butts! Then we’ll see how they act when they have no pay, no health care and no pension. I’m sure there are others looking for work that won’t mind the current pay, health care and whatever retirement package is offered.

My solution for this illegal strike is a real free market system. Fire people that don’t want to show up for work and hire new people in their place.

Given this action the Transport Workers Union should be disbanded and no future union allowed!

update (12/22/2005 2:19PM ET): After giving themselves a couple of extra days off to do their Christmas shopping, the union goons have decided to end their strike and get their butts back to work! I guess the threats of imprisonment and bigger fines on regular members did the trick. Now the city needs to disband that union before it threatens them again with their strong arm tactics.

You’ll never see a mess like this at Wal Mart. Because regardless of whatever else they do, the one thing they get right is no unions!