Labor Day

It is unfortunate, yet oddly fitting, that the abysmal August job numbers came out right before the Labor Day holiday.  The least-working President in American history had to endure yet another economic wedgie to add to his unprecedented string of epic fails.  

Or maybe it is a grand design.  Liberals have been working for years to take Christ out of Christmas, Thanks out of Thanksgiving, Independence out of Independence Day, Memorials out of Memorial Day, so maybe it is just a reflex action for them to take American Labor out of Labor Day.

Labor Day parade organizers in Wausau, Wisconsin banned Republicans from the holiday parade this year because the GOP stood up to public sector unions – the principle of the thing, don’t you know. In an instant after the city informed them they would have to pay for the parade themselves if they made it a partisan event, they relented.  Principle just ain’t what it used to be.

But at least we now know for certain what that first principle of liberalism is: I am entitled to celebrate my own bad self at your expense.  That pretty much sums up what they do every day of the year in cubicles and conference centers and vans with red plates; they call that daily celebration of their own bad selves at our expense “government”.    

Funny they should claim Labor Day for their own; it should be about doing work, not avoiding it.  Last week, the govbots got on their horse in one Wisconsin school district to defend the “right” of teachers to take 20 sick days off during a school year already punctuated with union holidays, winter and spring breaks, summers off, and conferences galore.  In another district, anger boiled over at the suggestion they up their work day by 30 minutes and put in a (gasp) full eight hard.  No, really – and for as many as five straight days in a row.  I know, I know.     

In yet another pre-Labor Day noogie from our vacationer-in-chief, Mr. Obama’s EPA issued a slew of regulatory pronouncements designed to choke the life right out of the American industrial and energy sectors last week.  The President had to quickly back off and rescind his own edicts, deciding we really can’t afford to enact job killing regulations right now.

Which begs the obvious question: when could we ever afford to enact job killing regulations?  A month ago, when the President gave his EPA the go-ahead to unleash their regulatory kick in the nuts?  Did he think that was a good time to enact job killing regulations?  Please don’t tell us that Mr. Obama just figured out this week that we need jobs.  Although that would explain a lot.

I read that some Congresswoman from California took the opportunity of the upcoming holiday to blame the high rate of black unemployment (16%) on racism.  Three words: crock.

I forget - was it the KKK or the skinheads who drove vocational educational programs out of public schools?   And whose idea was it to pass kids that can’t read to the next grade so we don’t hurt their self-esteem?  Who was it that replaced basic skills with a curriculum full of politically-correct pabulum?  Who was it that insisted on bi-lingual education and tried to get Ebonics recognized as a language?  Who sued and sued and sued until all moral instruction and teaching of traditional values were driven out of the school systems?   Who taught situational ethics and cultural equivalence?

Who blocks school choice and prevents inner city kids from having a fighting chance to be educated and employable?  Who was it that tried to replace grades and awards with stickers and hugs for everyone?  Who was it that insisted that unions run the schools?  Who was it that packed school boards in order to negotiate work rules with themselves?

Liberals, that’s who.  A half-century of unionized government monopoly schools has produced an unemployable underclass who can’t read or cipher and lacks the basic social skills to win and hold a job.  You guys expect us to throw you a parade for that?

And who was it that taxed employers out of the cities?  Who didn’t want those icky, icky factories in their gentrified Chardonnay neighborhoods?  Who shut down the offshore oil industry?  Who cut off the water to California’s agriculture industry?  Who was it that increased the minimum wage and drove black teenage unemployment to over 50%?  Who was it that forced banks to give mortgages to people who could not afford them and now can’t move to where the jobs are because they are handcuffed to upside down mortgages?  

Liberals, that’s who.  They have ruined public education; they have ruined the economy; they have sacrificed our jobs on their altar of environmental guilt fantasy; they have chased producers overseas; they have unionized the public sector and increased both its bloat and its sloth.  You guys expect us to throw you a parade for that?

I don’t know why you think this is your day.  You are the enemies of work; the job killers.  They should throw you a parade in China; you have delivered world industrial leadership to them by driving it out of America.  Enjoy your bratwurst.

Those of us who work rings around you are not ceding Labor Day to you just because you have the arrogance to claim it for yourselves.  93% of private sector workers choose to work free of union interference. Labor Day is our holiday, too. More of us are left-handed than belong to your unions.  You are not even the most popular lefties in the workforce anymore.  

Work is freedom of association put to the purpose of mutual prosperity.  The exchange of one’s labor for capital is the most basic of capitalist transactions; it is the daily proof that we still own ourselves.  That is indeed something to celebrate.

Celebrate workplace liberty this Labor Day.  Enjoy yourselves.   


“Moment Of Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D.  Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.com to find your moment.