After living in a liberal-dominated city for decades, the daily barrage of outrageous ideas becomes routine. It's only when you step back and consider them in their totality that you realize you're someplace you don't want to be, almost like being behind enemy lines.
The last few weeks in Milwaukee have driven that home for me.
A group called "9 to 5" has received enough signatures on a petition to have a ballot referendum in November. They're pushing for all employers--large or small--in the city of Milwaukee to give mandated sick pay to employees. Milwaukee has been suffering an exodus of businesses for years, yet the liberal elite--including the editorial board at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel--see merit in this proposal. My guess is that none of the members of 9 to 5, the liberal elite, or the editorial board have ever run a business.
In 2006 there were more ballots cast in Milwaukee than there are people eligible to vote. Republicans have been pushing for voter ID cards for several years, but Governor Doyle and the Democrats at the state capitol have blocked passage of the bill, even though more than 80% of Wisconsinites favor it. Now it turns out that a liberal group has registered 35,000 new voters for the November elections in an extremely short period of time, yet only conservative radio talk show hosts question how they found that many new voters so quickly. (Perhaps they just got a list of convicted felons living in the city). The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel doesn't ask the obvious questions, but instead defends the group by saying that voter fraud is not a problem in the city.
On the predominantly black north side of Milwaukee, a restaurant owner wants to open a fried chicken restaurant. He's being opposed by neighborhood groups, politicians and the press because there are already two fried chicken restaurants in the area, and there are too many overweight people on the north side. I guess if government can't regulate what people eat, it can at least make it more difficult for them to buy what they want to eat by using the zoning board.
A few weeks ago a couple of gang-bangers felt they were dissed over a wristwatch, so they decided to fire into a crowd of 100 young people at a street party in the wee hours of the morning. Four young people were killed, two of whom were rival gang members involved in the wristwatch dispute. There was the usual outrage, but there were no questions about how a wristwatch could justify the murder of four people. Nor were there questions about what 100 young people were doing at a street party at 2 am. In the end the party held most responsible was the SKS rifle used by one of the shooters.
The son of a domestic violence activist is facing trial for strangling his girlfriend after they finished watching "Natural Born Killers."
A few weeks ago, a popular north side city councilman was convicted in federal court on several counts of extortion and other abuses of office. The charges were filed last year, the councilman was jailed, but he ran his re-election campaign this spring from his jail cell.
The city of Milwaukee may foreclose on the $250,000 home of a man who refused to pay a $50 parking citation.
Today was our neighborhood block party. In attendance were the mayor and our alderman. The party was a thinly-disguised attempt to make amends for the city having screwed up the demolition and reconstruction of our streets in the area over the last two years. I can't remember how many people said to me, "this is a great party, and the city is paying for it, too!"
Please give me directions to a place where there are sane people.
