MOMENT OF CLARITY: Downward Wisconsin From Dr. Nerenz's Blog

"We used to make things here in Wisconsin.

We made machine tools in Milwaukee, cars in Kenosha and ships in Sheboygan.  
We mined iron in the north and lead in the south.  We made cheese, 
we made brats, we made beer, and we even made napkins
 to clean up what we spilled.  
And we made money.

The original war on poverty was a private, mercenary affair.  
Men like Harnishfeger, Allis, Chalmers, Kohler, 
Kearney, Trecker, Modine, Case, Mead, Falk, Allen, 
Bradley, Cutler, Hammer, Bucyrus, Harley, Davidson, 
Pabst, and Miller lifted millions up from subsistence 
living to middle class comfort.  
They did it - not “Fighting Bob” La Follette 
or any of the politicians who came along later 
to take the credit and rake a piece of the action 
through the steepest 
progressive scheme in the nation.

Those old geezers with the beards cured poverty 
by putting people to work. Generations of Wisconsinites
 learned trades and mastered them 
in the factories, breweries, mills, foundries, and 
shipyards those capitalists built with their hands.  
Thousands of small businesses supplied these 
industrial giants, and tens of thousands of proprietors 
and professionals provided all of the services
 that all those other families needed to live well.  
The wealth got spread around plenty. 

The profits generated by our great industrialists funded charities, 
the arts, education, libraries, museums, parks, 
and community development associations.  
Taxes on their profits, property, and payrolls 
built our schools, roads, bridges, and the safety net 
that Wisconsin’s progressives are still taking credit for, 
as if the money came from their council meetings.  
The offering plates in churches of every denomination
 were filled with money left over from 
company paychecks that were made possible 
because a few bold young men risked it all and got rich.  
Don’t thank God for them; thank them that you learned about God.

Their wealth pales in comparison to the wealth
 they created for millions and millions of other Wisconsin families.  
Those with an appreciation for the immeasurable 
contributions of Wisconsin’s industrial icons of 1910
 will find the list of Wisconsin’s top ten employers of 2010 appalling:

Walmart, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 
Milwaukee Public Schools, U.S. Postal Service, 
Wisconsin Department of Corrections, Menards, 
Marshfield Clinic, Aurora Health Care, City of Milwaukee,
 and Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs.

This is what a century of progressivism will get you.  
Wisconsin is the birthplace of the progressive movement,
 the home of the Socialist Party, the first state to allow 
public sector unions, the cradle of environmental activism,
 a liberal fortress walled off against common sense for decades. 
 Their motto, Forward Wisconsin, should be changed to 
Downward Wisconsin if truth
 in advertising applies to slogans."

Read more here: MOMENT OF CLARITY: Downward Wisconsin