doublegunshop.com - home Forums Ken Burn's Teddy R.

if we did not have greedy, abusive employers, there would be no need for unions.

anybody here ever work in an automobile assembly plant?

52 an hour, every hour...

"Historically, conservatives have been the parties of business and liberals of the commoners, and that's about it."

Ha !!! No one here in America buys that old lie King,the ONLY party of the "commoners" is spelled TEA !

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/bill-clinton-now-enjoys-1000-cigars_803486.html

Bill Clinton enjoys a Gurkha cigar, "the Rolls Royce of the cigar industry." He "loves the Gurkhas," Gurkha chief executive officer Kaizad Hansotia, maker of the HMR cigar, which stands for His Majesty's Reserve. It is, according to Hansotia, "the world's most expensive cigar."

One box is $25,000 -- and the price will rise next year to $30,000. "The cigars are close to $1,000 each," says the cigar boss to Bloomberg.

The stage was set for the 1937-38 collapse with the passage of the National Labor Relations Act in 1935 � better known as the "Wagner Act" and organized labor's "Magna Carta." To quote Sennholz again:

This law revolutionized American labor relations. It took labor disputes out of the courts of law and brought them under a newly created Federal agency, the National Labor Relations Board, which became prosecutor, judge, and jury, all in one. Labor union sympathizers on the Board further perverted this law, which already afforded legal immunities and privileges to labor unions. The U.S. thereby abandoned a great achievement of Western civilization, equality under the law.

The Wagner Act, or National Labor Relations Act, was passed in reaction to the Supreme Court's voidance of NRA and its labor codes. It aimed at crushing all employer resistance to labor unions. Anything an employer might do in self-defense became an "unfair labor practice" punishable by the Board. The law not only obliged employers to deal and bargain with the unions designated as the employees' representative; later Board decisions also made it unlawful to resist the demands of labor union leaders.[34]

Armed with these sweeping new powers, labor unions went on a militant organizing frenzy. Threats, boycotts, strikes, seizures of plants and widespread violence pushed productivity down sharply and unemployment up dramatically. Membership in the nation's labor unions soared: By 1941, there were two and a half times as many Americans in unions as had been the case in 1935. Historian William E. Leuchtenburg, himself no friend of free enterprise, observed, "Property-minded citizens were scared by the seizure of factories, incensed when strikers interfered with the mails, vexed by the intimidation of nonunionists, and alarmed by flying squadrons of workers who marched, or threatened to march, from city to city."[35]

You kind of make my point much better than I ever could. History doesn't tell us to demonize conservatives, libs do. I also knew you would come to your senses. I didn't really believe you would think a union could cross a line. You pulled out one of those 'code' words. Just as 'working person', 'middle class', even 'minimum wage' are all just wink and a nod for the big business of unionizing the proletariat.

On a brighter note, if constituents have a 'contract' with politicians for a certain tax rate or health system, and a politician goes ahead and 'changes' it. Why can't the contract of a retiree be 'changed'. What's the big deal, either way, it goes to the gov that know much better than the individual what to do with it. Right.

Well, no, on your last sentence. Governments know what we want but---always doing our thinking for us---manipulate public opinion to what they want. A member of our majority conservative government has introduced a bill to give more power to Members of Parliament but was forced to gut it by the prime minister.

Forget that democratic contract notion, with voters or party or leader. As for "demonizing" one party or another, that's crazy and old-fashioned. A Nova Scotia politician just published a book, acclaimed as required reading by every citizen, that proves all pols act the same when elected. Punk's game, Craig. Punk's game.

To think I almost missed this post. Of course public employees compensated at higher levels than the Free Market are sociopathically entitled welfare cases. THAT is the only way to view it "intelligently". Of course it is an intentionally-created "dependency ethos", no different than any other involuntary exchange of goods and services forced upon free and equal citizens who are forced to pay for it. It is only your sociopathically unconstitutional statist religious beliefs that rationalize this. Pushing the fantasy that government employees are somehow sacrificing their lives, implying that they are in some way victims, is preposterous. Since they are compensated considerably higher than the free market due to political favoritism, your point is anti-intellectual at best, and is really more like a sociopathic statist religious fantasy.

Elucidate please on your involuntary exchange forced on the citizenry paying for the services. Governments ostensibly acting from will of legislatures negotiate contracts with nurses, doctors, teachers etc and on breakdown often force them back to work if in essential services, usually with strong public support.

No one here says public workers are sacrificing their lives for anything, and those receiving higher compensation than the private sector get it the same way others do: numbers, organizing skills, political influence, appreciation for services. (I was former national councillor of the American Newspaper Guild.)

The issue is how compensation levels are determined. If, due to awarding a socialist collective a monopoly on providing the service, of course corrupt politicians are going to award as much compensation as possible in order to buy the political support of the collective. This is possible only because of the unconstitutional monopoly. That's why the services should be open to public bid, in order to make the service subject to the Free Market, and not just another statist religious vote-buying scheme.

I plead guilty to failing to respond in great detail in my posts. I don't type very well, and it takes longer than I want to spend at my age to refute foolishness. I would like to make one point though concerning the extensive hatred exhibited here against any individual who draws a check from the government whether it be retirement benefits, unemployment, social security, welfare, whatever. I don't doubt there is fraud committed in these programs. I do doubt it is pervasive. Given the level of outrage expressed here, I have to wonder why no one expresses the least concern about General Electric or Verizon paying no federal income tax or about corporate welfare in the Farm Bill. Find out how much taxpayers are subsidizing Florida sugar producers and other corporate farmers and compare that to teachers' salaries. My point is the criticism here always goes to the least-well-off. Welfare and subsidies to those already rich beyond comprehension doesn't get a shrug. Ken, I assure you teachers don't write the tax code. I think we both know who does, and apparently that's OK with you. It's not OK with me.

I think you're off base, but I can appreciate your tolerance for other points of view.

The US has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world, do you have your facts straight, or is liberal rhetoric supposed to be taken as fact, just because someone can repeat it like a broken record. Some folks might appreciate that INCENTIVES are offered to create jobs. Why, because many 'pensions' are ponzi schemes that are pushed on our kids and grandkids.

Your guy just handed us the largest income tax rate hike ever. Why's that okay with you, don't have taxable income. If it's not okay with you, why do you keep voting lib and make fun of others who feel the same, that it's not okay.

You're way off base to say that only the 'least well off' are criticized. If you're willing to see, you may see that the criticism is directed at policy that makes sure we have a big supply of these 'least well off'. I'd doubt there're many teachers who write tax code, but it may be just as valid to say that there aren't a whole lot of teachers that create jobs.

GE, Verizon, the farm bill? You've never been interested in 'discussing', solyndra, cash for clunkers, free cell phones, explosion in the food stamp program. Farming, how about the policy of turning off the water to kalifornia's central valley because of some nonindigenous minnow, best part the feds trucked in IMPORTED PRODUCE for relief.

I believe it's a hands off issue, but I'll ask again, if taxes can be raised on working folks, what is the slightest bit wrong with taxing other forms of income, and what's wrong with raising that tax rate every now and then for 'worthwhile' pork. If all current lib social projects are a good thing, what's wrong with pensions being trimmed to redistribute in order to keep dems in power.