FOUSESQUAWK: Obama and the Unions

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Obama and the Unions

Think about what the teacher unions in Wisconsin are doing. Think about what the teacher and government worker unions have done to California.

Any questions?

12 comments:

Siarlys Jenkins said...: Thank God for the teacher's unions in Wisconsin!

(In California, the ones you really need to be worrying about are the correctional officers unions. They've bankrupted the state pushing for huge sentences, even for the relatively harmless, to boost job opportunities).; February 22, 2011 at 9:03 PM
Miggie said...: The unions are bankrupting Wisconsin as well as many other states. There should be no public sector unions. Not only do they have the ability to incapacitate the state, the unions have an unholy alliance with politicians which makes any negotiation a sham. All kinds of problems develop when each union pushes their special interest agendas on to the legislators the unions financed (with members' dues).

Unions in the private sector are a different matter. But I think closed shops and closed states create problems. I don't believe in granting an artificial unfair advantage.

Nobody should be forced into doing anything, like joining a union or buying healthcare insurance. Force is rape and is the opposite of free choice and liberty.

Competition and natural forces of supply and demand work out best in the long run. Look around.
.; February 23, 2011 at 1:45 PM
Siarlys Jenkins said...: Miggie, as certain English commentators used to say about Spiro T. Agnew, you are a blithering idiot. (He was a scholar compared to what you have offered here, as Barry Goldwater was a deep thinker by comparison to George W. Bush.)

Wisconsin is nowhere close to bankruptcy, unlike California. What are you talking about? Get your own house in order.

The Chamber of Commerce had an unholy alliance with government long before unions got a piece of the action. That is why, in my great-grandfather's day, the United Mine Workers of America provided in its constitution that no person could join the union who belonged to "the Nazi Party, the Communist Party, or the Chamber of Commerce." (Actually, the Chamber of Commerce prohibition was the oldest of the three, predating 1919).

I was helping a young lady with her geography homework this afternoon, and it included a blatant ideologically loaded question about the difference between free enterprise and a command economy. The answer she will turn in reads "In a free enterprise economy, those in command of wealth pretend that the rest of us are making a free choice."

There is no free competition or natural law of supply and demand between a man who owns all the means of production and work, and a starving man with no land of his own and a young family to support. None. You are an apologist for fraud and robbery.

Capitalism has neither a rear end to kick nor a soul to save. Blessed be the name of the Lord.; February 23, 2011 at 7:16 PM
Miggie said...: The Golden Thread that runs through the fiber of the chronic loser, the underachiever, is the belief that the MAN controls everything and everyone is subject to his whims.

Malcolm Gladwell pointed this phenomena out in his book, the Outliers.

Those not afflicted with this worldview from childhood, believe that they influence and can control their environment. They work harder, study more, practice more and they achieve more. They don't see conspiracies behind every tree or insurmountable obstacles that keep them down.
.; February 25, 2011 at 4:13 PM
Siarlys Jenkins said...: Your first paragraph is indisputable Miggie. A perfect description of the scab, the turncoat, those who feel grateful for crumbs from the table because THE MAN controls everything, so take what you can get and look out for number one. Real men, and women, who have confidence, drive, ambition, and know the meaning of hard work, join unions and work hard for what they deserve.

Perhaps you don't know that "The Man" is a term which slightly predates the original Populist movement. In southern agricultural communities, farmers depended on credit from "the advancing man," or "the furnishing man," or among African American farmers, simply "The Man," to get their crop planted. They were lucky to have enough to pay off their debt after a good crop came in.

I'd give you Jack London's definition of a scan too, but you can google it easily enough.; February 26, 2011 at 3:09 PM
Gary Fouse said...: Siarlys,

"A perfect description of the scab, the turncoat, those who feel grateful for crumbs from the table because THE MAN controls everything, so take what you can get and look out for number one. Real men, and women, who have confidence, drive, ambition, and know the meaning of hard work, join unions and work hard for what they deserve."

Frankly, I'm surprised that a man of your vast knowledge would resort to such obvious union jargon to make your point. Jimmy Hoffa couldn't have said it any more "eloquently".; February 26, 2011 at 3:51 PM
Siarlys Jenkins said...: Jimmy Hoffa couldn't say anything, he's dead. When I review my vast knowledge of history, I carefully choose the facts most appropriate to the conversation I'm engaged in. I do sometimes miss the days when union members put on their best three piece suits for marches, even when they knew the employers' good squads were going to come beat them bloody. There was a certain air of respect that doesn't come across the same way dressed in jeans and slogan-decked t-shirts.; February 27, 2011 at 5:48 PM
Gary Fouse said...: Especially when they are the ones doing the beatings these days.; February 27, 2011 at 6:03 PM
Miggie said...: Actually, I was referring to Siarlys in the Golden thread paragraph. It was re-inforced later when the student he helped will turn in "In a free enterprise economy, those in command of wealth pretend that the rest of us are making a free choice." He believes this view from the bottom.

There is always some reason they (specifically including Siarlys) don't achieve what they feel they could have is because "those in command of wealth" didn't "give" them free choice.

It is the standard Leftist/Socialist/Communistic worldview.

Personally, having been born and bred in the US, I never faced any such restrictions. I was able to achieve whatever my work ethic, my education, whatever other capabilities I brought to my employers in my earl career, and in the companies I owned or led in my later career. If you brought me skills and abilities that I needed or wanted or will make a profit for me I will hire you. And I paid them accordingly.

You had some other career path that must have made you feel bitter about all those who you felt took advantage of you. Too bad you are passingon and passing those loser views on to people to people who ask for help on Geography homework.
.; February 28, 2011 at 10:28 AM
Gary Fouse said...: Miggie,

And you t6hought all the communists went away when the USSR collapsed, right?; February 28, 2011 at 11:51 AM
Miggie said...: Gary, I thought that their political and economic views were so thoroughly defeated that no one would ever spout that nonsense again. It was that much of a demonstrable failure.

As Dennis Prager has discussed several times, as soon as someone joins the union, he puts the welfare of the union above all else. He can't do better and earn more on his own, he has to have the whole union benefit before he participates. I would never put myself in that kind of situation. I want to get what I am capable of earning myself, and not the amount of squeeze the union can put on the employer.

These Wisconsin teachers want what they want and they want to be sure they will continue to get what they want, no matter what it does to the state.

It is not like the Wisconsin education system is so successful or that they EARNED the rights they demand, it is something they feel they are, well, entitled to. They are now fighting for the entitlement to continue in the future.

The Governor was specific about what he would do about the public unions when he ran. The majority of Wisconsin voters agreed with him and they still do. No matter of violent union protest will change that election.

Incidentally, I never saw or heard of any Tea Party rallies or protest get as violently ugly as these Wisconsin protests.
.; February 28, 2011 at 4:37 PM
Miggie said...: PIMF (Preview is my friend)

Sorry I messed up this sentence sent to Siarlys. It should read:

Too bad you are passing those loser views on to people who ask for help on Geography homework.
.; February 28, 2011 at 6:07 PM