February 22, 2011, - 3:47 pm
On Wisconsin: “Moscow on the Mendota” (TM)
Many readers and friends have asked why I haven’t commented on the teacher riots of Wisconsin. Make no mistake. I’m 100% on the side of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. I wish he was Governor of Wisconsin when I lived in Madison and was in grad school. At that time, we had, instead, the embarrassingly vacant and squishy Tommy Thompson of Elroy as Governor. Gov. Walker is everything Thompson wasn’t, and that’s a good thing. He has guts and, ultimately, when the liberal Democrat cowards from the Wisconsin Legislature finally return (or are rounded up by state troopers), I believe he’ll ultimately prevail with the necessary cuts.
For nearly six years, I lived in Madison, Wisconsin–or as my late dad called it, “Moscow on the Mendota” (though he later said that was an insult to Moscow, which had become far more capitalistic and reasonable than Madison). I practiced law there, as a then-member of the Wisconsin State Bar. I’m not surprised that teachers are finding all kinds of human rabble to protest the proposed cuts with them. But it’s Wisconsin. While I love the people of the state–who in the more rural areas beyond State Street have more conservative values and elected the Paul Ryans and Sean Duffys–Wisconsin has always had a very populist tilt. It’s not only the state that elected U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy (who was vilified for pointing out the Communist threat from within), but also the state that elected former U.S. Senator Russ Feingold (D-Pachouli and Phish).
When I went to school at the University of Wisconsin Law School, and later, the University of Wisconsin Business School, the legislator was Tammy Baldwin–the first openly lesbian legislator in the state. She later became a Congresswoman. At a ceremony prior to my law school graduation, uber-liberal Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Shirley Abramson told us “reality bites.” Yup, that’s the “class” of Madison’s liberal elites–a bunch of leftist academics and transplants who don’t really reflect the far more conservative rest of the state and its native population. So, I’m not surprised one iota about what’s happening there, now.
And, of course, again, I support Governor Walker. The rest of Wisconsinites have been hit hard by the tough economy. There is no reason any sector of the state–especially if it is subsidized by those hard-hit Wisconsinites–should have job security and benefits beyond the rest of the state’s (and the country’s) populations.
It’s just that so many other people have written about it, I’d rather not be an echo chamber of what you’ve already read a gazillion times. This is the city, after all, which is nicknamed “Mad-town.” For a reason.
Even Buckingham U. Badger (a/k/a “Bucky”) is embarrassed by them.
Tags: Democrats, Governor, liberals, Mad-town, Madison, Madtown, Moscow on the Mendota, protests, Scott Walker, teachers, unions, Wisconsin
Debbie is one of the very few people to acknowledge that Joe McCarthy was correct on the Communist threat…
Shootist on February 22, 2011 at 4:04 pm