when Bill the Butcher murders Brendon Gleeson's character for the crime of getting elected? While fictional, this event in the movie epitomizes where power really lies in any society that does not forcefully condemn authoritarianism. With the bullies. Are we there now? Could you imagine what that film would be like with Bill in charge? How about in real life?Well, the speaker of the Wisconsin State Assembly is giving it his best impression:
Robin Vos is no ordinary complainer. He's a genuine political bully who wallows in the power he wields as the leader of the Assembly's Republicans and makes it quite clear: Cross us and you'll be sorry.It really takes an Op-Ed like this one written by Dave Zweifel, Editor Emeritus of The Capital Times in Madison to tie all the events together as a narrative. The story was prompted by Vos' lip-flapping temper tantrum attacking the Government Accountability Board. A regular reporter is not usually in a position to present past actions as a pattern with each new offense.
Where Vos' degeneracy really shines is in his assaults on the UW system. He is basically kicking a dead horse but the audacity of micromanaging professors' workloads and subjecting any research proposal to a profit test goes beyond juvenile pugnacity into the ridiculous.
The trouble with letting dummies vote for representatives is that sometimes pure bullies with proud ignorant streaks rise to a level where they become really dangerous to important institutions. It is a crying shame that we cannot subject our legislators to tests in the same way they constantly foist ridiculous standardized tests onto students. Just think if we could check how likely it is for an elected legislator to become a sophomoric bully, or a sycophant in service to the filthy rich, or actually stand up for the public interest and try to fix problems. Sounds almost republican in the strict sense.
Now, in a test of just how far Vos' bullying power reaches, the dean of education at Edgewood college wrote an open letter proposing accountability for legislators. Hee hee, ideological drivel meets evidence! Exactly the reason for all the vitriol pointed at education and smart people in recent years. There is nothing crass bullies like Vos or Scott Walker hate more than articulate people employing reason and critical thinking to blow away the authoritarian smokescreen. When deprived of their veneer of power, the right wingers are always revealed to be silly little servants of wealth and privilege. Slekar could have said anything in his letter to challenge the bullies and their oversized egos to pick a fight, he just turned the argument around exceptionally well.
It is not as though silence will somehow cause the 'winger wrecking crew to lose interest in bashing higher education. How far will Vos or the right-wing media machine go to punish this upstart educator?
