The Tipping Point

There comes a moment when the apple cart that looked so solid suddenly gets tipped over, and the path of history changes dramatically. We saw such events unfold in eastern Europe in 1989 when the Berlin wall fell, and then the USSR. We appear to be seeing it again in the Middle East, as one lone protester set himself on fire, and became the tipping point. A dictator in Egypt falls, and half a dozen other dictatorships appear on the brink, including Iran and Libya.

While international tipping points are likely to have significant long term consequences for the US, the more dramatic domestic tipping point is occurring in Madison Wisconsin, of all places. The voters in Wisconsin decided in November they had had enough of out-of-control spending, and they voted for a Republican Governor and a Republican Legislature. The effects of that vote are now materializing in the form of a significant effort by that Governor and Legislature to curb the benefits of public sector unions. Wisconsin is the tipping point, and everybody realizes that although the apple cart is wobbling, it still hasn’t tipped: the unions are shipping in protesters from around the country to support the status quo, President Obama has jumped in to support the unions, and the Tea Party is rallying troops in support of fiscal responsibility – to tip the public union cart over. Wisconsin is Egypt, and if the people can rise up and defeat public unions there, the revolt will spread to other states. The unions know that. With DemocRat legislators fleeing the state to thwart the will of the people, democracy is truly in the balance.

Massachusetts, once at the leading edge of political changes in the country, will likely be one of the last to throw off the public union tyranny, because the stranglehold is so strong here. But I have high hope that if the liberal bastions of the mid-west can succeed in their revolt, the forces of fiscal sanity will be in ascendance even here. If not, Massachusetts will continue down the path to irrelevancy, continuing to lose people, continuing to lose representation in Congress. So for the sake of the future of Massachusetts, support the forces fighting the public unions in Wisconsin any way you can.