The President of the Wisconsin AFL-CIO David Newby offers his thoughts on Labor Day in a Capital Times editorial.
Securing the common good: It should also be a time to reflect on what unionism is all about: Solidarity - an injury to one is an injury to all. That is the basic principle of the labor movement, the understanding that we're all in it together. And let's remember why our government was formed: 'to promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.
Jared Bernstein from the Economic Policy Institute summed it up well in a recent article, saying it's YOYO ("You're On Your Own") vs. WITT ("We're In This Together"). For years the right wing has been promoting a YOYO vision for America. The entire Bush domestic agenda is based on the YOYO principle.
What a nice bouncy little acronym, YOYO – (You’re On Your Own). It is a marvelous image, the individual subject to the ups and downs of life without support other than the string that manipulates him from the master’s hand. To bad it is not entirely accurate. When the left claim the purpose of government is “to promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity”, they mean the purpose of government is to provide the general welfare.
Those of us on the right believe that the general welfare and the common good arise from the blessing of liberty within the rule of law. To say an individual is free to benefit from their personal decisions and labor does not mean that person is without support. It is the rule of law, and especially the restrictions on the power of taking, that promote and secure the blessings of liberty. The success of America arises from the voluntary actions of citizens and not the mandatory obligations to group and government, class or party.
We’re in this together as free people and not as functional sub-units of some larger sub-class. Social justice is achieved at the individual and not the group level. History is full of examples that huddling together for common defense is useful for short term threats but useless against the sweeping tides in human events. It is time the labor movement properly honors the past and then adapts to the present reality by working for the preservation of individual rights within the law.
Those of us on the right believe that the general welfare and the common good arise from the blessing of liberty within the rule of law. To say an individual is free to benefit from their personal decisions and labor does not mean that person is without support. It is the rule of law, and especially the restrictions on the power of taking, that promote and secure the blessings of liberty. The success of America arises from the voluntary actions of citizens and not the mandatory obligations to group and government, class or party.
We’re in this together as free people and not as functional sub-units of some larger sub-class. Social justice is achieved at the individual and not the group level. History is full of examples that huddling together for common defense is useful for short term threats but useless against the sweeping tides in human events. It is time the labor movement properly honors the past and then adapts to the present reality by working for the preservation of individual rights within the law.
