The Red Line - Common sense commentary on policy and politics published in leading national and Connecticut publications.

Almost Infamous… to Public Sector Union Leaders

By Red Jahncke on Jan. 19, 2021

Almost Infamous… to Public Sector Union Leaders

I am not famous, but I am somewhat infamous, at least to leaders of two big public sector unions, the Connecticut State Employees Association (CSEA) and the statewide teachers union, Connecticut Education Association (CEA).

Martin Luther King in Connecticut

In the Summer of 1944, He Worked in CT's Tobacco Fields

By Red Jahncke on Jan. 18, 2021

Martin Luther King in Connecticut

After a long summer of frequent violence and riots attending protests and after the recent horrific assault on the Capitol, it is especially meaningful to remember that non-violence was the bedrock of Martin Luther King's activism.

Remembrance is enriched by discovery of new previously unknown dimensions of the person or event. King spent college summers in Connecticut working on tobacco farms. It was the first time he ventured outside the Jim Crow South. He said it was an eye-opening experience.

Marvelously, high school students and teachers in Simsbury have just completed a years-long project to memorialize King's time in Connecticut. The CT Hearst newspapers have a wonderful article by Robert Marchant describing King's summers in the Nutmeg state and the Simsbury high school project.

“Equity” is Socialism by Another Name
By Charles Lipson, OpEd, Wall Street Journal, Mar. 5, 2021 - Post on Mar. 5, 2021

Pres. Biden has issued an “Executive Order on Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities.” Before the election, VP Harris posted a tweet and video: “There’s a big difference between equality and equity.”

Equality means equal treatment, fair competition and impartially judged outcomes. Equity means equal outcomes, achieved if necessary by unequal treatment, biased competition and preferential judging.

Only a powerful central government could impose the intensive—and expensive—programs of social intervention, ideological re-education and economic redistribution necessary to achieve equal outcomes.

That is why radical claims for unequal treatment must be carefully buried in word salads praising equity and social justice.

These evasions raise a hard question: isn’t equity just a new name for the oldest program for achieving equal outcomes -- socialism?

● Read in Wall Street Journal
Operation Warp Speed Is Trump’s Triumph
By Wall Street Journal Editorial, Mar. 3, 2021 - Posted on Mar. 3, 2021

American governments, federal and state, have made many mistakes in the Covid-19 pandemic. But the great success—the saving grace—was making a financial bet in collaboration with private American industry on the development of vaccines. The Trump Administration's Operation Warp Speed is now letting the country see the possibility of a return to relatively normal life as early as the spring.
● Read in The Wall Street Journal

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