Correct

How does Wisconsin being the 49th state to have a concealed-carry law jibe with being a test ground for ALEC? And like it or not, the good people of Wisconsin are in favor of the other "ALEC" issues you mentioned.

Previous attempts at passing concealed carry failed. With ALEC and a rubber-stamp administration, it went through. Test passed. Given the results of the Nov. 6 election, I think the good people of Wisconsin are looking at the bigger picture and the un-Randian idea that "helping your neighbor" is the effective model for life and success.

Wouldn't 'progressive' mean that we would be the first rather than the last state to have concealed carry?

The bill passed the senate with a 25-8 vote. Seems like ALEC has taken over the loony left in the state senate now, right?

Cow, it was considered "progressive" when landowners could build villas without having to surround them with moats and/or feed/clothe private armies to protect their lives and property. It meant civilization-society and law-had progressed to the point where respect for the law, not threat of force, diminished crime. Through that lens I can't see "concealed carry" as anything but regressive. The progressivism in this circumstance is that we were one of the last hold-outs and might be still if not for a rubber-stamp administration and special interest puppet governor.

The November 6th election? Like the Wisconsin State Senate elections?

The second to last state in the nation to pass CCW and we are the test ground? Don't you think that they should have waited for the test results?

Giving your neighbor your other neighbor's stuff is not really a model that we should follow.

ALEC and Ayn Rand, Bren's speed bumps to a rational conversation.

Bren:

I would have thought that the empowerment aspect of concealed carry is what makes it progressive. As society regresses into lawlessness, the progressive solution is to find an alternative to the system that is failing to prevent crime. That solution is concealed carry...

Greg, how does "helping one's neighbor" translate to "giving free stuff to your neighbor" these days? It never really did before. I'll take generosity of spirit over Randian selfishness any day.

Cow, the idea that people with enlarged amydalae, resulting in heightened states of emotion and fear, are making fear-based decisions (such as concealed carry) that impact everyone, is not progressive in my mind. Progressiveness is decision-making that moves society forward, removing fears in a rational method.

Thirty-Three states have voter id laws. Wisconsin is/was among the last 1/3 of the states that has/had no voter-id laws. Seems Wisconsin is behind the curve in enacting some kind of a voter-id law;not very progressive, we weren't first!

I do think we erred in enacting our 'own' voter-id law. We should have followed/modeled it from a state that had their ID law Constitutionally tested.

http://www.ncsl.org/legislatures-elections/elections/voter-id.aspx

By 'moving forward', you mean creating an armed police force run by the government, and taking away the rights of private citizens to defend themselves against threats?

Bren is proving how Obama got reelected. Low informed and emotional with justice wanting to be served.

Good grief = now Bren is into his ALEC agenda yest again. (Palm to forehead)

@CowDung...I hope you haven't felt it is necessary to arm yourself. To me that would be a truly sad day. We may not see eye to eye politically, but I respect your views and intelligence. If you feel you need to buy and carry arms, that's a sorry state.

Well, we have encountered a disconnect. What Greg, Jay, Cow, and Steve believe to be "progressive" legislation I find embarrassingly regressive. I'm proud that our state resisted regressive legislation as long as it did.

Cow, I'm not sure how adding a national police force to our existing security protocol would move our country forward.

Ima, "yest?" ; )

Bren... just my own brand of neo-utilitarian linguistic pragmatism. I'll leave the challenges in exploration of thought to Lyle Ruble, Brian Carlson and Nick Poulos. It's sure fun to read through the smoke and flames.

Lyle:

Don't worry--I do not own any firearms and don't have any plans to do so. I do strongly support the right to own weapons and carry though. I grew up in a rural area with no local police jurisdiction. Fortunately crime wasn't an issue for us at the time, but I can recognize that there are situations where one would be better off providing their own security rather than relying on the police...

I do and plan to fire at ready this weekend. I will think of Lyle every pull of the trigger.

Voter ID was the hottest topic of legislation in the field of elections in 2011, with legislation introduced in 34 states. Hello ALEC.
http://www.ncsl.org/legislatures-elections/elections/voter-id-2011-legislation.aspx

Bren - The entire idea of charging the wealthy to pay even more in taxes to help a government run it's failed business' defies logic.

BTW, BHO is now requesting $1.6T - double what he initially requested. What is the plan? It has to go prop up his union pals.

@ Craig Lest we forget --- Scott Walker pushed for the stadium too --- $500.000.000 or more was not too much to pay for the stadium, but he turned away $800,000,000 of our Federal tax money for a public railroad --- he had no problem using public money for a private business --- wonder how he will handle a new playpen for the Bucks --- I guess as long as Kohl owns the team Walker will probably lay low, but if Kohl sells it to a Republican --- hmmm

The entire idea of charging taxpayers to build a stadium for a privately-owned team defies logic. Yes, having the Brewers in Milwaukee provides jobs for maintenance people, concession workers, parking attendants, etc., and provides some business for restaurants in the immediate vicinity. We aren't asked to build business venues for others...

Bren: Thanks for the support.
David: I have an image of you 'riding that train' high on hemp....
Please cite a source that Scott Walker pushed for the stadium too, as I believe Tommy was the Governor waaayyy back then.

David, nobody said no to Saint Bud, party affiliation not withstanding. You know that. Everybody who needed to be taken care of it get it through the system, was.

On the subject of County Stadium, does anyone have a long enough memory to remember how that site was originally discussed for the proposed Bradley Center gift? That was nixed by Bud Selig on the grounds that another sports arena next to his precious stadium would hurt his business. That meant the County had to find land downtown for the Bradley Center, at extra cost.

So Bud had some real chutzpah sticking his hand out to the taxpayers for his spiffy new stadium some ten or fifteen years later. They count on us not remembering these things.

@Bob McBride -- Did you delete a comment? My memory goes as far back as when the only cable company in the metro Milwaukee area was RVS. I don't know about the horse-races in the various communities to finally get their cable, though.

I believe Walker was in the state assembly at the time. I can't seem to find voting records for individuals, but he may have voted in favor of the 0.1% stadium tax...

Bud's a saint. He singlehandedly (really?) brought baseball back to Milwaukee at enormous personal and financial risk (really??) for no other reason than his love of the game (really???). Next to, perhaps, Vince Lombardi, Bud is Wisconsin's most beloved non-playing sports figure of all time (really?????). Why else would there be giant statue in his honor at Miller Park?

If you've got a really long memory you might remember, as well, the whole cable franchise horse race and stories about grand pianos being bestowed upon certain individuals by TWC (which I believe was just Warner Cable back then) at the time. One of the more peculiar incentives I can recall.

Randy, yes I did. I felt the need to add a tribute to Bud in the post, so did that and reposted. Maybe they were RVS back then. I remember the piano gifting because the sister of a girl I was dating at the time was working for Dennis Conta, who I think was working as a consultant and on behalf of one of the companies vying for the contract.

@Bob McBride -- There's the comment. I will add that my memory goes as far back as RVS Cable struggling to get their studio and their tower built. And then it was several years after that before my area got wired for cable. It was still RVS at the time, and I forget the acquisitions and name changes since. No grand pianos were involved.

@Bob McBride -- It was indeed RVS at the very beginning, named after Richard V. Steffen, the owner (along with his wife Lois). They got the tower and the studio built and began wiring communities.

And yeah, there was a lot of behind the scenes politics but no pianos. They were on a shoe-string at the beginning.

I'm going to have to dig around on this. I don't think the pianos necessarily came from the winning bidder at the time.....I'll see what I can find.

This is what I remember, basically...

http://www.putnampit.com/milwaukeepress/Warner.htm

If you read down through it, you get to this:

The next week, Ald. Kevin O’Connor denied receiving an $1,800 campaign contribution from Warner, but he did acknowledge he got “about a grand a piece” from Warner’s registered lobbyists Robert Friebert and John Finerty.

Now, based on the time this was occurring, it would have been right around the end of my drinking career so it's entirely possible I mistook, or someone I hung with at the time heard and mistook "about a grand a piece" for "a grand piano". It certainly wouldn't have been the oddest mistake I made at that point in time.

I remember in the early days of cable, individual communities around Milwaukee had various different providers/channel line-ups. The seven North Shore communities combined and let a single build-out contract to Viacom. My girlfriend in Elm Grove had a different channel line-up and cable company.

Google RVS Cablevision. You will find a lot of references to municipalities in this area. To the best of my recollection, the authorization for their tower happened in 1978, which I dimly recall because I was at the Town meeting. After that, I don't know how it went. We didn't get cable here until about 1982 or 1984.

I'm not disputing your account, Randy. It's more the circus around that particular awarding of the city contract that I remember.

There was a bit of a circus in 1978 with the building of that tower, and I'm kind of proud of the part I played in helping it go ahead. I think it was Tosa that got cable first, although don't hold me to that.

The technology has changed since then. There are no more antennas on that tower -- just satellite dishes.

@McBride -

LOL!!!

I'm Sorry....YOU PEOPLE don't know Kobe beef from meatloaf....

Okay, well just for Jay...

It's like dousing a slab of Kobe with A-1 and requesting "un oignon de floraison" on the side.

I would have described it as stepping in gum but your analogy works too! ; )

Is she one of those Irish travelers you read about every 5 or 6 years going from town to town?

By message you mean the lies and millions spent tarnishing his career. Good job.

I disagree Lyle, I do think another candidate, or perhaps a better run campaign, would have resulted in a different outcome. I think the voting record of this state, mostly, shows a healthy fear of the extreme ends of the political spectrum. Wisconsin voters distrust both the far left, and the far right, preferring something in the middle.

There is little doubt that Baldwin falls into the far left category. Thompson, and his campaign, allowed her to set the agenda and tone of this election. He let her sell herself to the voters as the moderate candidate. To hear her commercials, you would have thought that she was the fiscal conservative.

I don't think that this state is conservative. But its not liberal either. For the most part, its somewhere in between, and that's why it seems almost schizophrenic at times with how it votes. And that's why I think this was a winnable seat, with a better candidate and/or campaign.

Oh, once last aside. Whoever thought it was a good idea to run that horrible Thompson commercial with him riding a Harley and trying to look tough, needs to never work in politics again. Can't really sell yourself as a Schwarzenegger tough guy when you are probably closer to Jerry Lewis.

I wonder if it was the same guy that had Dukakis do the photo op in the tank.

Indeed Cowdung.. The comparison is spot on.

@Bob McBride....Spot on. If I remember correctly you predicted this last spring.