Right-wings MacIver Institute's petty focus on medical excuse notes for teachers begs the question; Is this all you've got?

After all the gut wrenching videos viewed by Wisconsinites during the past three month's of Capitol protesting, from the child protest sign arrest to the lock-out that saw a lawmaker tackled, conservatives found something even more important; those outrageous medical excuse notes to teachers.

In an example of amazingly pettiness, who could have imagined the video of doctors passing out medical excuses to the few teachers and random pedestrians, as an award winner?

It's true. What a stunning issue of international relevance!!

Wisconsin’s MacIver Institute … beat out international competition to win the Grand Prize in the  ‘Lights Camera, Liberty’  contest, which was presented at The Atlas Experience conference in Dallas, Texas last week. On Saturday, February 19, a group of men and women in lab coats purporting to be doctors were handing out medical excuse notes, without examining the ‘patients.’ Osmulski captured the event on camera and produced his award winning video that day.

For a story that had all the relevance of pure conservative eye candy, MacIver pretty much avoided the reason for the protests. Their sideshow video is seen by conservatives as proof that their paranoid misgivings aboutt doctors, teachers and public employees is a justifiable call to vilify anyone who breaks ranks with their ideology.

With that (video), MacIver broke a national news story and it continues to follow the disciplinary procedures against the doctors, teachers and other public employees involved in the scam.

It looks like the authoritarian “father figure’s” pursuit of discipline is first and foremost to the conservative orthodoxy, where punishment sends a stronger message than actionable solutions to our nations problems. 

If you're curious about Atlas, here's  their positioning statement;

For three decades, Atlas has connected Freedom Champions from all over the world. These individuals often face challenges in their home countries and travel to Atlas events to meet with other remarkable free-market advocates facing similar trials in their respective parts of the world.

What the doctors notes to teachers did to threaten freedom is anyones guess, but it does make Atlas and MacIver's vision of free-markets look perverse and cruel. What an ugly message.