On Wisconsin

My state legislature in this session and since early 2011 has been essentially eliminating many policies and laws that were firsts in the United States. This has been the final stage in a wholesale shift from Wisconsin tradition and  early Republican, progressive values.

 Some critics of Governor Walker and the current state government often look at this process as going backwards, and returning to the past. I do not agree. 

I think Wisconsin is following its traditional role in the United States. Wisconsin is still on the cutting edge (no pun intended, some would say the bleeding edge) of a transition that is afoot in the United States as a whole.
As the founders and their mentors (Aristotle, Cicero, Cincinnatus, Montesquieu, etc.) believed, a republic is in a historical sense, a fragile creature, dependent upon certain conditions. History teaches that absent those conditions, it transitions.
The Republic of the United States was well on its course of transition before i was born. Humorously though, it still maintains the trappings and solemn words of its youth, much as the Romans retained the trappings of their august republic until the very end of the empire. But i digress.

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It is not news anymore that the particular form we transitioned to was the oligarchic form called a Plutocracy. But Wisconsin is plowing the road towards a philosophical destination fit for the form and our time, Neo-Fuedalism .

The literature on the subject neo-fueldalism is in its nascent stages  (here is a fun example  and another ), and, here is a Google Scholar search string .
So, Wisconsin is in the forefront of innovation, you may not like the privatization of "public" education, parks etc. Wake up and smell the market opportunities bucko.