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The hard-left is demanding that we not work or spend money today. So, I’d work overtime if I had a job. As it is, I’m counting writing today’s blog as work, which it is unless you define work as gainful employment. And I’m going to spend my brains out.

It won’t matter one way or the other. This whole goofy May Day general strike thing is going to fall flat in a nation full of wonderful strivers and avid consumers.

What’s really dumb about this whole idea is how many liberals are buying in, either intentionally or cluelessly, into a radical movement that will hurt their (in some cases, our) causes.

As I read the posters, the Madison May Day events have three foci.

First, it’s supposed to demonstrate how valuable illegal migrants are to our economy by showing what happens when they don’t show up for work. Now, I’ve got a feeling that all those hard-working guys doing roofing in my liberal neighborhood are going to put on roofs if the weather is good, general strike day or not. Meanwhile the liberal homeowners will be at the rally so they don’t have to be complicit in politically incorrect roofing.

While I disagree with the method of protest, I agree with the cause. It’s always been ridiculous to assume that we can deport 12 million people, almost all of whom are here because they want to work hard, play by the rules, pay their taxes and get ahead in America. That’s why most of them won’t strike. They want or need to work and they are not liberals or socialists to begin with.

I further agree that Trump’s tactics to terrorize immigrant communities, designed by that little Nazi Stephen Miller, are abhorrent.

It’s long been clear that the things to do are to secure the border (done) and put those already here, who have not broken any laws, on a path to citizenship. But the hard-left doesn’t want to even acknowledge that being here illegally is wrong. Sorry, but no, it’s not a human right to cross into the country illegally. Let’s have those folks acknowledge that it was illegal, pay a token fine, have their record expunged and move on to the visa or citizenship process.

But to link any part of that sensible plan, which most Americans support, to May Day hurts the cause and moves us away from the objective. May Day is an international workers event which is more than just tinged with a little radicalism. It’s fundamentally about socialism, tearing down capitalism and casting the well-off among us as evil tyrants. It’s part of that easy, simple ‘evil oppressors versus virtuous victims’ narrative that animates the left.

Second, here in Madison, the teachers union has tacked on some stuff about “fully funding” public education. I would hope that at some point the union will name its price. What’s the number at which it will say, ‘yeah, that’s enough, now we’ll stop making excuses for why this system is performing so abysmally’?

In this case, I’m not entirely on board. I do agree that we rely too heavily on property taxes to fund education. I do think we should shift (or better yet, entirely remove) those costs from the property tax to state funding. But I don’t necessarily buy the idea that overall funding, especially here in Madison, isn’t sufficient. After all, this community hasn’t turned down a school referendum in 20 years and we just approved the biggest spending increases ($607 million) in our history.

But, as noted above, it’s that third objective that taints everything else. For some reason, otherwise reasonable mainstream liberals have decided to throw in with the radical left on their May Day deal. They’re hitching their wagon to a losing horse for no apparent reason.

Like most Americans, I don’t want socialism, but I don’t think that unfettered capitalism has all the answers either. Instead, I like what we’ve got: capitalism that is sensibly regulated to meet societal goals that it might otherwise ignore. So, I like the free market, but I oppose treating the air and water like a sewer, I’m against child labor and I’m for worker and environmental protections and a social safety net.

I’m also supportive of progressive taxes. It’s just that I think the current system under which the top one percent pays 40% of the federal income tax is good enough. To read the stuff coming out of the May Day organizers you’d think we were living in pre-revolutionary Russia.

So that’s why today I’m a proud counter-revolutionary. I want no part of any movement that seeks to replace our regulated free market economy with socialism, under which everyone shares equally in poverty.

Now I’ve got to go to Costco. You should try the $1.50 footlong hotdog. It comes with a big soda. Is this a great country or what?

Have a nice weekend.