June 5, 2011

What is Glenn Reynolds saying about the Wisconsin protesters?

In this Washington Examiner op-ed:
Although there have been some violent incidents and death threats, overall, despite the talk from many right-leaning pundits about "union goons," the actual danger posed by the union members appears to have been very small by labor-historical standards. 
The protests have been huge, and organizers have tried very hard to keep them nonviolent, but now are they to be criticized for not threatening violence? Reynolds says in the old days, union protests involved "miners, steelworkers and the like," who, working together, developed a mindset like combat troops. The unstated implication is that these were macho men.
But miners and steelworkers are one thing. When the public employees of, say, Wisconsin hit the streets, it looked more like a bunch of disgruntled DMV clerks and graduate teaching assistants, because, well, that's what it was.
He doesn't come right out and say, now we're talking about females and less manly men, but isn't that the implication? I'm sure Glenn would acknowledge (and encourage) women to take on mining, steelworking, and combat, but it seems clear that he is valuing the traditional male stereotype over the traditional female stereotype.
America's DMV clerks aren't known for toughness and dedication on the job, and it would be asking a lot to expect them to display such characteristics for the first time when they're off the job.
I think the protesters who chanted and slept on the Capitol floor for weeks on end and marched in the Wisconsin winter over and over again, deserve credit for dedication and for keeping things nonviolent. They are back now with their tent city — Walkerville — and it seems pretty positive and well-organized. They haven't abandoned the demonstrations and protests, even as they have also applied themselves to court battles and elections. Reynolds characterizes them as having moved on first to an election and then to the courts:
When the street protests didn't work out, the public employee unions decided to make a "nonpartisan" judicial election a referendum over Wisconsin's anti-union legislation.
The Service Employees International Union and other labor groups went all in on the election, but still lost....
So they lost that election, but they've got 6 recall elections coming up next month. The demonstrations continue and election maneuvers continue.
[T]he public employee unions have been better in the legal system than on the streets, getting Wisconsin's Democrat-friendly judicial system to rule in favor of the unions despite rather shaky grounds for doing so.

But mastery of rules and discretion in employing them is exactly what you'd expect from an army of DMV clerks, as opposed to steelworkers, isn't it? 
Why isn't that a good thing? Working through the courts, respecting the rule of law? I know, you might not like the rulings they extract from the judges — judges that you may think are partisan. But what are you saying? They should scare us with street violence? You say you want a revolution? Why taunt them as "an army of DMV clerks" when they work within the system? Isn't that a good thing? I understand that you want their side to lose, but this is an op-ed about tactics.

72 comments:

Dust Bunny Queen said...

He is saying what we are thinking.

The protesters are ridiculous clowns. They are posers, pretending to be something they are not and expect that the rest of us buy into their fantasies.

Co-opting the protests of yore when there were 'real' reasons to be protesting. Miners and other industries that were suffering under terrible and dangerous working conditions that caused crippling injuries. The worst injuries these jerk offs might suffer is a paper cut.

They are also trying to co-opt the civil rights movement which came about to redress the real and terrible wrongs that had been done to the black population. These protesters are just whining about reductions in their already lavish benefits. They have no civil rights wrongs to address.

In addition to trying to pose as champions of labor....the rest of the posers are trying to relive the fantasy of the 60's hippie protests and wallow in the false nostalgia of those times.

Posers and morons.

Shouting Thomas said...

Working through the courts, respecting the rule of law?

You mean, respecting the rule of law when it works in Democrats favor, and refusing to abide by the law when it doesn't.

You forget that the Democrats fled to Illinois rather than abide by the law?

Mike said...

Okay so Reynolds was saying that it's tough to get a "manly" union thug these days. He's bad, bad, bad for pointing that out.

But while your mileage may vary on the point, Reynolds comments didn't bother me. Teachers deserting their posts, taking their students to the protests etc. doesn't sound much like respecting the rule of law to me.

rhhardin said...

Thuggery has moved to the courts.

edutcher said...

I'm sure it wasn't fun when Meadhouse was threatened - twice. And, in some of the videos at the State Capitol, there were attempts at intimidation.

What's happened is that the Lefty media consultants have warned these people how the Rightosphere jumped on the beating of Kenneth Gladney and warned them that the rules have changed. That media is no longer centralized and in the hands of people sympathetic to the unions and that the demonstrators are being watched for bad behavior.

Consider the reaction when that twerp threatened to run Meadhouse out of Madison.

But Reynolds has a point made clear by that one stupid sign in the video shot last night, "People have died for unions".

True, but that was 80 years ago and the ones camping out last night weren't them.

Not by a long shot.

Saint Croix said...

Don't public sector unions include cops? To me that's the most disconcerting thing about the public unions.

The big difference is not violent/non-violent, but public union versus private union. A public union was illegitimate in FDR's day.

You might also add that the old union fights were violent because people were dying in the mines etc. Public unions aren't fighting for safety standards. They're fighting to retire with awesome pensions.

KCFleming said...

They're using the rule of law to subvert the system.

Elections decide nothing, and your representatives decide nothing, because the left uses the system to their own ends.

This morning in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, the front page is about educrats and teachers who retire, get a pension, and then are rehired in the same position. This increases their pension.

This double dipping is entirely legal, but subverts the system because it bankrupts it, as has happened in other states.

The leftist public workers are abusing the system by flooding it with endless demands. It's a variant of "work to rule", and is successful because although those are the "rules", the system depends heavily on people doing more than that, and less.

It's disgusting and destructive, but that is their intent.

DKWalser said...

My take on Reynold's column is that he was taunting the protesters and the movement behind them. They failed where they should have succeeded (they couldn't win the judicial election). They were impotent despite all their noise and bluster and Reynold's is taunting them. Is he using male/female imagery? Yes, but that goes back to the playground taunts of yore. Can't you remember the other team being taunted as a "bunch of women" -- even when those issuing the taunts were a bunch of girls?

So, I don't think Reynold's is trying to encourage the protesters to violence. I think he's taunting them and pointing out to the rest of us that the protesters don't have as much power as we might have thought. It's an important message delivered in an appropriately juvinile manner.

Wince said...

Isn't the main difference that acceding to earlier private sector union demands required a struggle that involved employers giving up some of their own money in an arm's length bargain, whereas the public sector union demands simply require a change in the political calculus so that politicians deem it in their self interest to give away more of other people's money?

Robert J. said...

> but this is an op-ed about tactics

Glenn is employing the tactic of mockery, one that needs to be employed against the left more often.

bagoh20 said...

In the private sector where I work, we, like everyone else, experienced a downturn in income. Our response was to cut costs and work harder and smarter. To improve the mechanism that made our income. To make it cost less than it produced.

These people and most union people respond to the same challenge by working less, making their mechanism less effective, and simply demanding their income from others.

I don't respect it no matter when it happened or whether they wear boxers or panties.

BTW, our business is booming now. We are hiring again, and right now we are working all the overtime we want. And it's all paid for by our improved productivity and customer response to our hard work.

I could just imagine how well it would have worked for us to stand in front of our customers and demand that they pay us regardless of what they wanted to pay, or what we delivered.

Hubris like this is only possible through corruption. It's a disease, a cancer on our communities, our culture and our species. It's an evolutionary dead end. We are the Dodo bird. No longer able to fly to save our lives.

Trooper York said...

Some of us are not afraid of being men.

Womanly virtues are for broads.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

JohnJ said...

“Why isn't that a good thing?”

Possibly because it never ends?

Their ultimate strategy is to exhaust the citizenry. How is it a good thing that democracy in Wisconsin has deteriorated to relentless self-interest?

bagoh20 said...

There hasn't been violence because there hasn't been confrontation. The taxpayers getting fleeced are not coming out to confront these people - they are working, waiting, voting.

You don't need violence when the cops are part of your cabal and nobody shows up to represent the opposition.

edutcher said...

Pogo said...

They're using the rule of law to subvert the system.

Close. They're perverting the rule of law to subvert the system.

Half the reason Democrats run for office is to appoint judges. They can't win at the ballot box most of the time and can't win on the merits of their ideas.

So they go to some Lefty judge who will "interpret" the law to give them what they want.

Trooper York said...

Some of us are not afraid of being men.

Womanly virtues are for broads.


This assumes broads are women.

I thought ladies were women.

Hagar said...

I think Reynolds is off the beam all right, but perhaps it is because he is trying to work this out in his mind.
The MSM keep talking about "Big Labor," but this is not "Big Labor." "Big Labor" is on life support at ~5% of the labor force and dwindling. The AFL-CIO leadership has been taken over by the SEIU and the membership are 2/3 teachers, government workers, etc.; people that were not even unionized when "Big Labor" was a force to be reckoned with. And "Big Labor" originally was organized to provide protection and give a voice to poor people, who indeed were cruelly exploited and needed protection, while these people are more into institutionalizing their privileges.
It's a different world, and the old language does not fit the new situation.

G Joubert said...

He doesn't come right out and say, now we're talking about females and less manly men, but isn't that the implication?

That's not the implication I get. He's saying in the old labor movement there were hard-working laborers, people working with their hands and their bodies, hard, heavy, sweaty, dirty, and often dangerous work, all for relative peanuts. Nowadays we're talking about pampered and over-compensated public employees, raking in pay and benefits that in the aggregate is fiscally unsustainable. And that's the new labor movement. He's contrasting them.

Working through the courts, respecting the rule of law? I know, you might not like the rulings they extract from the judges — judges that you may think are partisan. But what are you saying? They should scare us with street violence? You say you want a revolution? ... I understand that you want their side to lose, but this is an op-ed about tactics.

I honestly don't know which is worse: thuggery, physical intimidation, and bully tactics, or subverting the system by challenging election outcomes with dubious legal claims, and using partisan if not corrupt judges to issue unfairly one-sided rulings. Yes, the former is most uncivil, but I submit the latter has much more far-reaching and profound corrosive effects, undermining faith in democracy and in the integrity of the judicial system.

dreams said...

I agree with Reynolds, he is saying that the public workers are a bunch of pussies, lazy pussies, girlie man pussies. Althouse is still basically a liberal pussy and is offended. And yeah, what about those pussy Democrats who fled the state and hid out. Profiles in courage, I don't think so Althouse. I have nothing but contempt for those people.

bagoh20 said...

Both my mother and my grandmother were union steelworkers (a welder, and a riveter) The company that employed them and half the town went bankrupt in the 70s. But hey, they made good money and got 13 weeks paid vacation every 4th year and 2-4 weeks on the off years. Problem was that it was, of course, unsupportable, and killed all the jobs eventually.

This is the legacy of unions too. First noble fairness and safety, later unsustainable pay and benefits, eventually lost jobs and industry.

The public sector is messy because there is no competition and customers are forced to buy, but it will eventually lead to the same outcome. It's another Ponzi scheme.

vet66 said...

These protestors are anarchists. There so-called 'tactics' are destructive in the rhetorical sense as well as the physical sense; i.e. destruction of property. These people provide cover for the ELF groups and others of that ilk who destroy property and endanger lives for their goals. They travel to various countries when this or that policy making body travels for a meeting to decide policy the progressive terrorists don't approve of.

The good money is on the bet that neighborhoods around liberal universities support this activity in various ways. The lunatic fringe that use these areas for cover can make not-so-strange bedfellows for any other group that wants to further their cause on the tax payer dime.

Political Correctness thy name is subversion.

GMay said...

Looks like the Professor is reading a wee bit too much into Reynolds here. The failure of her analysis is highlighted by the quote:

"Working through the courts, respecting the rule of law?"

The hostility of the crowds is something I've seen on this very blog. The rule of law, legislative, and electoral processes in WI are all a bit of a running joke in Wisconsin.

You don't miss often Professor, but when you do it's like that old Bugs Bunny cartoon where three batters strike out on a single pitch "Strike one-two-three yer out..."

AlphaLiberal said...

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has an in-depth story on events here.

There are interesting new bits and background. And, really, most of what you con's are telling each other on this is wrong. You're deceiving each other.

Roy Lofquist said...

I see everybody had Kool-aid with their breakfast this morning. I always liked the lime flavor.

Oh, those poor oppressed slaves to the monster capitalists, striving for potty breaks and whippings only on Tuesdays.

My parents lived through those days. In the early 20th century organized mobs ruled much of this country. The police were for sale. Clue, folks - those poor oppressed workers had it pretty damned good for those times. The unions were shakedown mobs with big sticks.

You have fallen for the logical fallacy of projecting the current world on a very different past.

bagoh20 said...

That stuff you watched with your own eyes was a lie.

Sincerely,
Alpha

Alex said...

I have to say that Althouse takes these ridiculous positions just to get a rise out of you folks. She's laughing all the way to the bank.

Alex said...

Althouse does make one good point about the courts. Conservatives sure like it when they win victories for their ideology that makes the liberals enraged.

DaveW said...

There are times when it seems clear to me the professor decides what she wants to say about something like this before she actually reads the article.

Freder Frederson said...

I agree with Reynolds, he is saying that the public workers are a bunch of pussies, lazy pussies, girlie man pussies

You mean public workers like Glenn Reynolds, a professor at a public university.

What an ass.

And his whole little tirade conveniently ignores the fact that a lot more union men were beat up and killed by company goons (and even official government, sometimes military) than union thugs ever claimed.

The body count is much higher on the side of management than labor.

The Dude said...

"I'm sure Glenn would acknowledge (and encourage) women to take on mining, steelworking, and combat blah blah blah"...


That sentence makes no sense. He would acknowledge women? Acknowledge them to take on those jobs? What?

Women are too weak to be any good at any job that requires upper body strength - they are always the poorest performers on any fair test of the skills required to do physical labor. So not only is the sentence nonsensical, the idea behind it is even sillier.

Insufficiently Sensitive said...

It's one thing to defend union labor under a stereotype of forming a coercive organization to divide up the spoils of a for-profit enterprise to the detriment of the owners and investors.

But public 'service' unions are coercive organizations devoted to adversarial actions against all the rest of the public - not just some easily (and unfairly) demonized 'owners and investors'.

They're trying to cash in on the 'labor struggle' against capitalists, and on the glamor of the civil rights movement. But stripping the glitz and glamor from their street theater, they're trying to cash in on our taxes while grasping for money and power to benefit themselves - against us.

No sympathy.

Martin L. Shoemaker said...

Seems to me some people are mistaking a comic editorial for a serious editorial. Yes, it's mocking the protesters.

vet66 said...

Freder: it is my experience that most public workers are as described by Reynolds. When confronted they back down quickly. My experience with these metro-sexual wienies runs the gamut from face-to-face confrontation with a pedophile pervert transferred from one school to another blew a whistle in my wife's ear. Seems the so-called scab teachers called to fill in for the striking teachers on a wage dispute had to run the gamut from the bus to the school gates. I was parked across the street watching. I had a "chat" with the offending teacher who turned a whiter shad of pale during the conversation.

"You will never sub in this town again" they screamed. Until the strike was over and they returned to laying off on Fridays and Mondays. "For the children?" Yeah right!

Another strike saw the protestors cut the valve stems off cars in the parking lot presumed to be full of the scab's cars. Only problem was that the car was full of union cars belonging to union workers held out of town. My car was one of them and I was a member of the union.

Different ideologies? You bet. My ideology is based on the sacrifice and brilliance of our ancestors who fought the British and won. Then they set up a system of government based on the universal theme of the intrinsic worth of the individual, respect for life and property, and the choice to make the most of yourself during our brief journey through this life.

As opposed to the liberals whose ideology is based on entitlement in a perverted interpretation of a "living" Constitution based on the whims of that same drug-entitlement culture of secularism and hedonism.

Your rebuttal fails the logic test because union goals were realized and relegated to the history books. That was then, this is now. We learned and moved on. Same with slavery. We learned and moved on. Only the race baiters and unions struggling to remain relevant beat those drums.

You want to count bodies? Start with the military these days who die in a war protecting our freedoms who are denied the right to vote. Or the old tactic of finding votes in the trunk of a car when the votes are close in Minnesota.

We are on to you.

hombre said...

Pointing out that the new union protestors are effete by the old standards is hardly a call to violence and it is absurd to suggest otherwise.

In fact, Reynolds point seems well taken. In essence: If the courts will do violence to the law on your behalf, why resort to violence in the streets?

Lance said...

Reynolds has a "mocking" thing going right now. His op-ed is written to mock Stern and Trumka, who think they're still as relevant as John Lewis or George Meany.

Carol_Herman said...

Yup. First, there were Right-To-Work states, which drained out the union cesspools. Now? All that's left are teachers. No longer autoworkers. No longer steelworkers. And, miners get shafted by regulation.

While jobs flew the coop.

And, LBJ's vietnam adventure ... is what caused freight to get handled by sea. We dug the deep port in vietnam. The military brought in cranes to move it off ship.

And, then? People who wanted to do business with America, decided why let those container ships go "home" empty?

True, the "waterfront" jobs of yore, are just that. Ports were dug and deepened in states that picked up the business from the mafia goons.

Wisconsin?

Maybe, that's the last stand where the union goons shot what remained of goodwill?

Sure. There will always be children. But chalkboards? And, inept teachers? In our day and age of the computer? I don't think so.

As to journalism, Mark Twain (in Life on the Mississippi) does an ode to how journalism flourished (outside of NYC, and San Francisco), once the telephone came along. And, turned newsrooms into literary classics. In particular, he lauds New Orleans.

One invention begets others.

sorepaw said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Alex said...

Walker Recall moving ahead

What can I say- the WI GOP shit the bed BAD to get this kind of backlash.

Anonymous said...

I reject the premise that protests that are non-violent are inherently virtuous.

Alex said...

Althouse seems to be rushing to the defense of the public sector workers out of an aggrieved sense of fairness or something. Please I'm TRYING.

Trooper York said...

I was listening to WFAN this morning and Richard Neer the hippy dippy flower child of the sixties was talking about the recent incident where the catcher for the San Francisco Giants was injured at a play at the plate and is out for the year. The General Manager for the Giants bitched and moaned and wanted the guy who ran into him run out of baseball. Neer was going on and on about how we had to change....that now there are words we can't say anymore ....and things we can't do anymore....and how we have to change with the times....how we have evloved into a new way in Obama's America...you know the usual politically correct bullshit that we hear from the like of Alphaliberal and his ilk.

I tried to call in but I couldn't get through. You see what they should do is instead of shin guards and a mask they can put the catcher in a dress and a nice hat so the runner will know not to bump into him as he tries to score a run.

Trooper York said...

Why don't we aske Billy Martin or Earl Weaver or Babe Ruth or Miller Huggins or Ted Williams or Enos Slaughter or Pete Rose about that?

garage mahal said...

First they ignore you. Then they mock you. Then you recall. Then you win!

Trooper York said...

Or for the unions we could ask Louis "Lepke" Buchalter or Gurrah Shapiro or Dopey Benny Fein or Joseph Olivieri or Tough Tony Anastasio or Tony Scotto or Sock's Lanza.

Just sayn' douchenozzles.

Banshee said...

So can anybody camp out, or will people beat you up and stuff you in a manhole if somebody puts up a pro-Walker tent?

Roux said...

The protestors are a joke and they made fools of themselves and their movement on a daily basis. They were not serious and when it came down to organizing and coming through in an election, they couldn't even do that. In fact the silent majority just went and voted. They didn't act like fools at the capitol. They just did what they always do.

Bayoneteer said...

Ann's a lawyer and law professor. Of course that's how'd she see it. Every body has their quirks, preferences and biases.

Jessica said...

"Working through the courts, respecting the rule of law? I know, you might not like the rulings they extract from the judges — judges that you may think are partisan. But what are you saying?"

In response to this, I would simply say that the attempts to invalidate Walker's legislation via the courts are not done because anyone thinks that rules were actually violated. They're done to try to stop legislation that the protestors disagree with. These court challenges are not attempts to "work within the system" or to find out if laws were truly broken. They're simply attempts to find something, anything, that a sympathetic liberal judge can use to stall and, if necessary, invalidate the legal passage of legislation voted on by an assembly that was elected last November. These protests and sit-ins and appeals to the courts are nothing but flipping the bird to all the people who voted in the last election in November. These actions are effectively saying to the voters, "We don't care if you voted legally. You elected someone that we liberals don't like so we're going to do absolutely anything we can to invalidate the election." Notice that this never includes actually campaigning and attempting to persuade people that the liberal point of view on this issue is the correct one.

If they truly are all about the rule of law and upholding the assembly's rules and regs (which were never violated), then the question they have to answer is this...if Walker's legislation had not passed, would they still be bringing the lawsuit? I think we know the answer to that question.

Hagar said...

What G. Joubert said above.

Dad29 said...

Actually, Perfessor Althouse, "the system" is a bit tiresome. "The System" has detached itself from practical reality and in many cases from moral reality, e.g., abortion.

"The system" is in the process of breaking down from its own weight.

For example NOT of the 'moral' variety, see 'outsourcing.'

While Rightists insist that it is labor unions which drive manufacturing offshore, and Leftists insist that it is pure greed, anyone who actually pays attention understands that it is regulations and taxes (in that order) which make doing business in the US a very onerous and expensive process.

Sure, there is LESS expensive labor offshore, but labor is usually only 5-7% of the cost of any product. Sure, there is MORE profit from overseas operations, but that profit results from far less regulation.

Then you have "education" whose products cannot construct nor parse a sentence, nor think logically through a series of propositions; a legal system which is convoluted and at war with common sense; governments which--like all good bureaucracies--reproduce employees like rabbits, ......

One should think long and hard before declaring "the system" as 'the vehicle' for redemption of the US.

Dad29 said...

Here's another example of "the System" at work:

http://dad29.blogspot.com/2011/06/you-think-im-kidding-about-statism-and.html

Oh, yah. It's worth saving, alright.

Meade said...

AlphaLiberal said...
"Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has an in-depth story on events here."

Good article. Confirms and illustrates well the arrogance and complacency of Wisconsin Dems. Who knew they were such weenie puppets of the powerful public sector unions?

The accurate name for "Walkerville" is really something more like "AFSCME-AFL-CIO-NEA-SEIU-ville" since those are the entities responsible for their own members' current miseries.

SunnyJ said...

Excellent points made here by many. Personally, I think he points out the "virtualness" of american life...and how the watering down of our face-to-face living shows itself even in the reality show version of labor demonstrations. It's all phoned in. It's all made for TV reality show, me watching me, watching me, watcing me narcissism. We're a faded memory of ourselves...americans...tough, smart, resourceful, riding in like the calvary...willing to admit a mistake, stand up take it like a girl...and keep going forward.

There is letter of the law and there is spirit of the law...the protestors use the letter of the law but have no investment in the spirit of the law. We have demonstrations by the letter but not in spirit.

It's americana-lite...less body, fewer calories, less of everything except inflated cost.

Hagar said...

It always have puzzled me why Americans pay more for foodstuffs with the nutritional value removed.

Penny said...

"The accurate name for "Walkerville" is really something more like "AFSCME-AFL-CIO-NEA-SEIU-ville" since those are the entities responsible for their own members' current miseries."

If only that were true. It's not.

Unions are nothing without masses of people willing to give up their individual voices to the "collective".

It is not without irony that "professionals", like teachers, would enter into such a voiceless arrangement, and then pay dearly through union dues, to do so.

We'll never accuse them of being "good business people", and consequently, their REAL business, teaching, is already bankrupt. Not talking dollars.

The same can be said for voters who gave up their voices to legislators, never bothering to check in to see exactly how that was working out for them.

"Negotiation" and "compromise" aren't bad words in the right hands.

And today's moral ...

"As long as I keep my fingers pointing outward, there is NO hand righter than my own."

Phil 314 said...

I don't get "the tents"

The signs and the salt trucks were more effective.

Penny said...

"I don't get "the tents""

Then you never went camping with clowns.

Carol_Herman said...

You don't go "camping" where there are no trees. No places to go when you need to go. And, it's 2 O'Clock in the morning.

You know, this was an EPIC FAIL! The story didn't take off because of Anthony Weiner! Who could'a said he put his underpants on his head. As a jest.

Sometimes, the left, when they can't quite get a hang at propaganda ... really look like putz'es. But who knew?

The left bends so far to the left! (And, I thought it was only Bill Clinton's penis.)

While you sure can sell expensive camping gear to people who won't even be using this stuff to set up in their backyards.

(I have a tent. When my son was five, it was a big deal to set it up, and have friends over. They thought they were alone.)

Did manufacturers of these tents give discounts just to get their labels out there?

orbicularioculi said...

Come on people, these union members are PUBLIC Employees. They work for us and have been paying off politicians for years to feather their salary and pension beds. They have NO RIGHT to extort the taxpayers! They still don't get it. They're also lawbreakers and pussies.

FloridaSteve said...

Sorry Ann but.. really? this is bordering on a troll like post. I'm not a law prof (maybe that helps) and it was pretty clear what he meant. I realize it's your nature but try to stop over thinking it.

I'm Full of Soup said...

DBQ:

That was one of your best alltime comments!

george said...

Nice, hi-tech tents tho.

Tim said...

I thought he was saying that the pampered public employees don't exactly need a union like say the UMW did back in the days when UMW members bled and died to improve some truly outrageous working conditions. To the point the UMW (among some others, notably NOT including the UAW) have earned the right to exist forever, just on the basis of what they have done.

caradoc said...

Ann, you may call it "working within the system" and say it's respecting the rule of law, but I'd say you're wrong there. Just because they're using the "system" doesn't mean they're respecting the rule of law. In fact they're doing everything they can to overrule it. Sumi is not respecting the law, she's twisting it to achieve a political end. That is NOT respect for the rule of law. Kloppy was running with a deliberate position on a case she didn't have full info on and that is not respecting the rule of law. I know you're a lawyer, but law is much more than just judges and attorneys. They attempted to overthrow an election with what amounts to a form of barratry (sp?). Now that that has failed there are recalls. There are already questions about their propriety. And while permitted by law they are also a potential for abuse of it as well. And too many of them can destroy the ability of a government to function.

Simply put, just because you can use the quirks of the legal system to your advantage (while pointedly ignoring it's purpose), doesn't mean you should, and doesn't mean you are respecting that system.

bagoh20 said...

"The body count is much higher on the side of management than labor."

That's why they get the big bucks. I prefer management. Unions are anti-upward mobility.

Anonymous said...

These so-called union folks are convinced that bluffing the weaklings in government will lead to victory. They are right of course because they know weaklings. This continues until we get a better class of representatives. After that, these ribbon clerks will be down and out. Can't happen soon enough.

sarge said...

"The protesters are ridiculous clowns. They are posers, pretending to be something they are not and expect that the rest of us buy into their fantasies"

sarge here yar dust bunie yar want walkers pinkertons an thar union boyz shootin each at each other

yar right that wud be real an no fantasy hahahaha. sarge wud like yar the realist to take up arms 1st

+1

sarge said...

"The protesters are ridiculous clowns. They are posers, pretending to be something they are not and expect that the rest of us buy into their fantasies"

sarge here yar dust bunie yar want walkers pinkertons an thar union boyz shootin each at each other

yar right that wud be real an no fantasy hahahaha. sarge wud like yar the realist to take up arms 1st

+1

Anonymous said...

I have no problem with "working within the law." What I have a problem with is a bunch of empty-headed Obamabots repeating their "we've been deprived" mantra and "organizing" their stupidity/ignorance and claiming some kind of victory. It's pathetic, really. And yes-it's funny to see such coddled government employees claiming the mantle of "union" when what they really have borders on an arts and crafts club for bored bureaucrats in search of some form of self-validation.

Jaded said...

There is NO RIGHT to collective bargain with elected politicians against We The People, when the States and the Federal Government finally get that through their thick skulls the unions will be finally and gratefully kaput!

Kim said...

"but law is much more than just judges and attorneys..."

And all over America comes the sound of fainting lawyers, judges and law professors.

This time, Glenn got it right (as did Dust Bunny Queen's first comment), and Ann got it wrong.

$9,000,000,000 Write Off said...

People "deserve credit for ... keeping things nonviolent"?

That's the soft bigotry of low expectations, like giving a baby credit for taking a poop.

Moneyrunner said...

"I'm sure Glenn would acknowledge (and encourage) women to take on mining, steelworking, and combat,...

I’m always amused by the unstated assumption of Liberals that their position regarding gender roles is the obviously right one. If Liberals believe that women should be as easy and free in their sexual expression as the ladies in Jersey Shore, it is the only enlightened opinion. If they believe that men are sexist pigs who objectify women, it’s also the right opinion and you won’t get whiplash from the change of direction.

Opening doors for women is sexist; not opening doors is sexist depending on the phase of the moon or the Liberal women speaking.

Women should be miners/steelworkers/combat riflemen …. but if they get injured or killed, it a big deal.

Don’t force your morality on me, but if you don’t approve of homosexuality and gay marriage you are a bigot.

Where do law professors get their ideas? There’s an interesting video at the WSJ today by Naomi Schaefer Riley, author of "The Faculty Lounges," discussing the failure of tenure to actually protect unpopular (read “Conservative”)ideas. She remarks that professors spend 15 years keeping their heads down, agreeing with the profs who will decide if they get tenure. What makes anyone think that after that they’re going to “come out of the closet” intellectually and espouse conservative ideas? Tenure primarily insures that professors can retire and still collect full pay while TAs teach the undergrads.