Apparently David Siegel didn’t get the memo: It’s the 21st century, not the 19th.
An Oct. 9 __Huffington Pos_t_ article said, “David Siegel, the founder and CEO of giant timeshare company Westgate Resorts, sent an opus-like email to his workers, railing against one-percent bashing and arguing that the president’s reelection would “threaten your job.”
Part of the email said, “If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, as our current president plans, I will have no choice but to reduce the size of this company.”
Apparently, Mr. Siegel did not get the memo about the last two hundred years of workers’ rights either. You know you’re in trouble when a borderline alcoholic Libertarian is defending the working class. Mr. Siegel has clearly crossed a line. The last time I checked Wikipedia, the United States was a federal republic with a secret ballot, not some capitalist dictatorship ruled by MegaCorps. I feel like the ghost of Theodore Roosevelt needs to personally kick this guy’s ass.
Threatening employees to vote a certain way is disgraceful, disgusting and sickening. How the man sleeps at night, I don’t know. He has single-handedly undermined one of the foundations of American liberty: The vote.
Not just the secret ballot, and not just an American’s right to vote for whomever they choose, but all of it. Mr. Siegel has undermined democracy and turned the clock back to playing the role of a nineteenth century textile mill foreman, threatening the workers if they don’t vote for the right man.
That email is truly an auspicious piece of literature, to be so destructive to Republican foundations. It throws away the secret ballot in the name of greed. It crumbles the rights of American voters to choose their candidate in the name of self-interest. It completely and utterly validates everything the 99 percent protestors and Socialists say about capitalism in the name of one deluded man’s political ambitions.
If it’s not enough that the man has to destroy republicanism with a single email, he also has to validate the opposition. Look a Socialist in the eye after reading that email and tell him class warfare is a rabble-rousing myth. Look a 99 percent protestor in the eye and tell him the rich are just like everyone else, that they’re not deluded and out of touch with reality.
This kind of lunacy and idiocy has no place in America. Unfortunately, people stupid and brazen enough to state these kinds of things are beyond regretting their actions. America’s only hope is to make sure people do not affect the election process. Their voice has a right to be heard, yes, but hearing and listening are two very different things. You hear an evangelist preaching outside of the local bar. You listen to your favorite mp3 playlist.
As much as people like Mr. Siegel want to undermine our republic in the name of greed, we must be equally strong in our resolve to not let them. Though they have the right to speak, they do not have the right of being heeded.
