Minnesota Rep. – Unions are ‘communist’

[n2doc]

A Republican state legislator in Minnesota, answering a constituent’s letter, has described unions as communists and likened organized labor to Hitler and Fidel Castro.

The constituent, Robin Seifert, wrote to State Rep. Tom Hackbarth asking that he support a proposal by Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton to increase taxes on the top 2 percent of income earners in the North Star State.

Hackbarth replied:

“I can’t believe what I’m hearing from folks? All, similar letters to yours. Are you a Union member? If so, are they the communist giving you this propaganda?



more
http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/2011/06/14/minnesota-rep-unions-are-communist/

The guy needs to go back to grammar school. And take elementary school history as well

[fascisthunter]

1. Simple-Mindedness is Dangerous

especially from those who wish to govern. The World is a bit too sophisticated for that little brain of yours. Did your parents lock you up in your bedroom and force you to be home-schooled right wing ideology or what?

[arbusto_baboso]

2. Wait, didn't Hitler BREAK UP labor unions? More rightie historical revisionism?

Is it that they don't know, or are they just bald-faced liars?

[kenfrequed]

7. Yup

The Nazis destroyed actual unions and replaced them with party controlled organizations that had no bargaining power. Oh, and they killed labor activists.

[arbusto_baboso]

8. So, that actually makes right-wing hero, Ronnie Raygun, more like Hitler than any progressive.

Interesting.

[socialist_n_TN]

18. They also killed communists and socialists

In fact the Nazis went after these labor organizations and leaders of same WELL before they went after the ethnic groups like the Jews and the Roms.

Obviously another RW idiot who doesn't know squat about history.

[maxsolomon]

3. we've regressed 100 years.

it will take generations to change The Stupid, if it's even possible.

[KansDem]

4. Are we *still* calling people "communists?"

When I was in junior high, the quickest way to "win an argument" was to call your adversary a "Communist." That was the ultimate insult and usually stopped the kind of verbal back-and-forth that went on between two "debaters."

I remember one year at the school's annual talent show, the audience got into the practice of clapping simultaneously after a performance. Instead of the usual applause, the auditorium was filled with a kind of "RWOOP-RWOOP-RWOOP" as not only did the kids clap together, but also stomped their feet at the same time.

The MCs (student-council, honor-society types), confronting this regularly-recurring clapping and stomping, would shout "STOP...COMMUNISTS!!! into their microphones, and the melee would die down for the next act.

This occurred several times during the program, but I never forgot how these kids equated the act of everyone doing the same thing as "communism."

[JHB]

17. New rule: when you call policies we had under Eisenhower "Communist"...

...you're officially a ranting nutjob and proud of it, just like the guys back then who called Ike a communist.

[qb]

5. Here is an example of the stupidity that will make government shut-down in Minnesota a reality.

:banghead:

[ej510]

6. And republicans are terrorists.

[lpbk2713]

9. Are you now or have you ever been ...

a fuggen idiot?


What a fuggen anachronism. This clown must use a sundial to tell time with.


:rofl:

[mzmolly]

10. I hope the Minnesota Police, Teachers and Firefighters Unions

are paying close attention.

[TheKentuckian]

11. Sounds like State Representative Dried Piss for Brains has written an effective ad

against himself if the Democrats will go at him.

I'm picturing the old standard Joe McCarthy segment asking "Are you or have you ever been a Communist" looped with pictures of cops, firefighters, teachers, and blue collar worker.

Finish with Representative Hackbarth calls hard working Minnesotans like the police that protect our streets, the firemen that save our lives and property, and hard working construction workers Communists. Tell Representative Hackbarth that he hasn't and will not represent the workers of Minnesota.

[Old and In the Way]

12. With an articulated argument like this, I have to wonder

what his nom de plume is at FreeRepublic.

[spedtr90]

13. Hackbarth was arrested in a Planned Parenthood parking lot with a loaded gun

http://minnesotaindependent.com/74579/family-values-hackbarth-found-with-gun-in-planned-parenthood-parking-lot

[ej510]

14. Proof of terrorism.

He's a fucking terrorist.

[JHB]

19. Of course not, he doesn't look all muslimy, does he?

He may not have known it was a PP parking lot, but only because he was focused on stalking a woman who may have been shopping in the same area.

He was "looking for his girlfriend" who he thought might be with another man. Not that any rational person would think that a person they chatted with on an online dating service and only met in person twice (in very neutral "have coffee" circumstances) and never gave her phone number nor other real contact information would qualify for the description of "girlfriend". So he was engaged in serious creepy-guy behavior--ARMED--and now he's ranting about commies?

I'd wonder at how a guy like this gets elected (on a "family values" platform), but it's been far too long since I was that naive.

[MrScorpio]

15. Republicans are idiotic nt

[JHB]

16. we won the Cold War with strong unions and high taxes on high incomes.

If we were "communists" back then, what were the Russians?


oh, right, they were the guys who spied on their own people, tortured prisoners, rewrote their history when politically expedient, covered up massive energy-related accidents, spent way too much of their resources on their military, and whose leadership ignored the standard of living for the average citizens while they lived well in their splendid dachas.