Posted on 03/14/2011 9:04:02 AM PDT by Doctor 2Brains
I’m distressed by the fact that the emerging narrative on unions, (even among conservatives, and this is horrifying for what it means for the future of the country) seems to run like this,
“Public sector unions are REALLY bad. There are some bad things in private sector unions, too, but they aren’t pure evil like public sector unions. Private sector unions, especially at the turn of the century, were actually pretty good.”
This is pure BS! It is very, very, very scary when, even here on FR for Pete’s sake, people do not recognize the following two things:
Unions can ONLY!!!! exist because of government force applied selectively against private property owners (evil, rich people),
ALL UNIONS REPRESENT GOVERNMENT SANCTIONED THEFT OF PRIVATE PROPERTY FOR THE PURPOSE OF BUYING DEMOCRAT VOTES.
I expect ignorance of these facts elsewhere, but here on FR??????????????????????
Here’s how the purely evil, anti-American, communistic, welfare-begging private sector unions work…..
I set up a business, using MY PRIVATE PROPERTY (my capital and/or cash money). I pay for the space, using MY PRIVATE PROPERTY. I pay the taxes using MY PRIVATE PROPERTY. I supply the parts and inventory, using MY PRIVATE PROPERTY. I pay for the insurance, using MY PRIVATE PROPERTY. I pay the labor, using MY PRIVATE PROPERTY. I recruit, hire, and advertise, using MY PRIVATE PROPERTY. Oftentimes an entire life’s savings (MY PRIVATE PROPERTY) is at stake. My future, my standing in the community, my credit, and MY PRIVATE PROPERTY are all at stake. If I fail, I stand a good chance of being economically crippled for life.
One day, on MY PRIVATE PROPERTY that I own and acquired using MY PRIVATE PROPERTY, one of my employees, who is only in my presence because of the risk of MY PRIVATE PROPERTY, comes to me and says, “Here’s the story, Bub. From this moment forward I am going to begin organizing YOUR OTHER EMPLOYEES, to work AGAINST YOUR PRIVATE INTERESTS and do everything in our power to TAKE BY FORCE AS MUCH OF YOUR PRIVATE PROPERTY AS WE CAN GET OUR HANDS ON. We are going to spend a great deal of time and effort ORGANIZING AGAINST YOUR INTERESTS TO DO EVERYTHING IN OUR POWER TO GROW STRONGER AT YOUR EXPENSE, IN ORDER TO TAKE YOUR MONEY. You might as well have your business competitors working here on the shop floor. If you do not agree to our demands, we will go on strike, make your life miserable, harass and threaten and/or MURDER IN COLD BLOOD anybody you may want to hire in our place.”
Now the one and ONLY way that such a thing could EVER take place is for the government to step in and say, “Mr. Employer (rich, white, capitalist, male), if you fire this union man, you are going to jail.”
Plainly and simply, no union could ever exist in a free society. Yes, in a free society, you should be able to form and join a union of any type at any time for any purpose whatsoever. AND YOUR EMPLOYER SHOULD BE ABLE TO FIRE YOUR HAPPY ASS IN A HEARTBEAT FOR DOING SO.
FREEDOM IS A TWO WAY STREET.
I find this ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. Truly. A man strolls onto the PRIVATE PROPERTY of another man and tells him how he will employ his PRIVATE PROPERTY going forward, OR ELSE!, and hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people the world over think that the first man is not only somehow better than sub-human filth, they actually see him as a hero! To me, this is one of the most perverse and mystifying examples of twisted human thinking the world has ever seen. I can’t say it enough; you come onto my PRIVATE PROPERTY, and bargain with me, using the THREAT OF GOVERNMENT SANCTIONED FORCE, about how much of my PRIVATE PROPERTY you will allow me to keep! And this is somehow acceptable?
As I say, even conservatives, (who have escaped the liberal brainwashing that begins when we are still in the womb on guns, race, US history, etc., etc., and do not subscribe to the easy notions that are so readily picked up by the unthinking) seem to fall for this trap. Seem to believe that…
“The work place is filled with mean managers and mean bosses who were/are really mean to kids and women and workers and paid them pennies instead of the legitimate millions that they were REALLY worth, making evil white male capitalists even richer, and they enslaved them and coerced them and made them work real hard and were really, really mean. THANK GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! for the government stepping in and saving women and children from mean bosses and really mean white capitalist men.”
Needless to say, each and every single word of that narrative is as totally false and ridiculous as the liberal narrative on US history, or bad guns, or evil white men. If you know people who believe that stuff, you cannot help them. DO NOT waste your breath on them, DO NOT do their research for them; have them read Sowell or Williams or von Hayek, or von Mises, or Friedman, or even Stossel when they write of “sweatshops” either in today’s 3rd world or in America at the turn of the century.
Thanks for reminding us. I’m afraid all of us to some degree absorb by osmosis the socialist propaganda that constantly surrounds us at times.
Public sector unions are far more destructive than private sector ones because they can legally take your money for themselves. The exception is the GM bailouts. That is why there few private sector unions but mostly public sector ones.
Well put and very true.
I disagree, and here is why:
There are still companies, and I know the people who work in them, where there is absolutely NO protection, that included medical care after injuries. The pay, the hours, the conditions are early-20th-century-like, or worse. Supervisors choose who gets to work overtime and that means their friends get lots of money. Many companies get warned when OSHA is going to come in so they clean up and straighten up prior to the visit, and then go back to their old ways. All employers/owners/management are not kind-hearted, fair people.
Sometimes you have to take the good with the bad. Unions have gotten out of hand, but they are still needed in some places as long as those in charge at companies act inhumane.
Personally I’m wise enough to work on driving a wedge between public and private sector unions for a fight we can win against a divided enemy vs a fight we can’t win against a unified enemy.
I like my credit union. :o)
Oh, and don’t tell me, “They can go work somewhere else.” That’s a cop-out and not always possible.
Employees don’t like it, they can quit. Free markets do not require kind-hearted and/or fair people.
Government is instituted to protect property of every sort . . . This being the end of government, that is NOT a just government, . . . nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has . . . is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest." - James Madison
I don’t have problems with unions in some dangerous industries like mining or highrise construction.
In the first sentence, the word "proper" should be "property," of course.
Excellent idea.
Truth of the matter is that unions are no longer necessary in this country because employees are very well protected by numerous laws enforced by the labor boards, OSHA, EEO, and others.
See post #8.
See post #1.
Have to agree, then subject remaining unions to, the same antitrust regulation that corporations are subject to and the same malpractice regs that docs and lawyers face,... and private sector unions will evolve into a positive segment of the competitive economy.
Allow property owners the right to use their property as they wish and unions will evolve into extinct decomposing crap.
I did. It is a rant of generalizations and screams.
All unions are not “government sanctioned theft.” Only the public ones and, for now, General Motors, are government sanctioned.
Public servants should never have been allowed to unionize in the first place, on that I totally agree. They were already protected by the government. Are Congresscritters unionized? Just wait, then we won’t be able to vote them out. LOL
I’m afraid the responses prove the main thesis of your essay. It’s absolutely pathetic.
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