What is happening in Wisconsin is disturbing. Protesters have jumped on the Egypt bandwagon, claiming that “Cairo has moved to Madison,” which trivializes the real brutality and lack of openness of the Mubarak regime, and claims a moral standing for the unions that they simply have not earned. The issue is that the state faces a $137 million budget shortfall (in the short term, and about $4 billion over the long term), and the government unions have negotiated benefit packages for themselves that are no longer sustainable. Something has to give, but the unions and Democrats are working together to make sure that even though the latter have been voted out of power and the former want to keep feeding at the trough, the only ones who give will be the voters and taxpayers. Both the Demcorats and unions are showing that they are absolutely unwilling to bend. As I noted earlier, the Democrats in the state Senate have now disappeared rather than vote, which also allows the protests to keep spinning up.
The protests may spin right out of control. Here are a couple of screenshots from a video posted today at Foxnews.com. They speak for themselves. And there are more in the video.
If pressed, the protesters will undoubtedly claim that the first sign is just a parody of Palin’s map. But what about the second one? Or the one in the video that compares Gov. Walker to Mussolini, a dictator who met with a violent end?
Update: Hot Air has more, including one protest sign that’s clearly past its sell-by date.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member