I hope the Republicans in Wisconsin pass their modest proposals regarding public sector unions in the state. Paying up to 50% of your own pension costs and 12.6% of your health care costs as well as having your wage increases pegged to the CPI (unless voters approve a higher number) seems eminently fair to me.

It especially annoys me that a number, something like 40%, of teachers called in sick so that they could be paid to protest and say incredibly incorrect things (they are teachers after all) like "this is democracy in action" which I heard a crowd chanting towards the Capital in Wisconsin. That may be freedom in action, but encouraging Democratic politicians to flee the state and threatening Republican lawmakers and blocking the Capital entrance is certainly not "democracy" in action. What happened in November, when Republicans were put into power in Wisconsin, was "democracy in action."

Anyone else have any thoughts?

Yes, I have a thought. You're an arse. Seriously.

Not because you have an opinion I may disagree with, but because you automatically assume that anyone who disagrees with you uses cloying bullshit and doesn't have a valid argument to make.

Your inability to consider the fact that there may be another side to the story says that it's worthless to try to debate with you.

Is it your new ploy to claim that it is worthless to debate someone? You do that a lot with grill. Actually, I agree with that one and I even agree with many of grill's sentiments, even if his arguments are rambling, incoherent, and often conflicting. Still, I would like to hear your arguments about how teachers train our future and children are our future and that the legislature should raise taxes so that the rich pay their fair share rather than cutting the budget by breaking the backs of our teachers and other union employees who are essential to us.

I consider the arguments on the other side (as two of my poll questions clearly show, even if they were unfair categorizations) in the same way that you do. Meaning I look at the other side simply to bolster my own arguments and to have a general understanding of where they may take their argument. I know I am not going to change your mind and you are not going to change mine, the same goes for most of the regular posters in the politics forum. However, there may be some who are on the fence or who simply do not know about this issue and those people may be susceptible to my line-of-thought (or yours).

A lot of people are making the mistake of equating private and public sector unions. They're really not the same thing at all. Public sector unions employ politics all the time to get their will done, while private sector unions do not have that luxury and actually have to rely on negotiations.

Mike - overreaction much? Caius provided his opinion and asked others for their thoughts. What do you want him to do, argue against himself?

Exactly. My feeling is that public sector unions get two bites at the same apple. Meaning, it tries to elect its preferred candidates who have pro-union views and then when the union negotiates contracts, it does so with representatives of government who it may have just elected. Even if its preferred candidates are not elected, it still negotiates with a representative of the government who does not have as strong of an incentive to do hard bargaining with the union because they know that even if they negotiate a lousy contract, the government is not going to collapse or lose business. Finally, when the contract goes through, the union will kick back money to its preferred candidates.

Why exactly do we need public sector unions anyway? I can at least understand the historical argument of why a steel or auto worker might want to unionize, for example due to poor working conditions. I do not understand why teachers need a union. They do not have poor working conditions whatsoever and historically their conditions would be the same as their pupils. Furthermore, if they did not like their conditions, they could vote for elected officials who could enact new policies or pledge to raise their wages.

At least when a private sector union, like the NFLPA, negotiates a contract with the NFL owners, it does so against an adversary who has an incentive to get a good deal for its side.

Walker's starting to remind of old union-busting techniques.

You mean like hiring Pinkerton's? Committing violence? Closing the business completely or moving to a different state? The only people I hear advocating violence are the union backers.

Do you ever miss an opportunity to jump on a hyperbole?

His trying to dismantle collective bargaining among public unions is pretty much textbook. I kind of wonder if there are agent provocateurs within it too. Not that unions are pure and holy, though.

Did you completely ignore the point about public unions being completely different from private ones?

Nah. I blame the internal structures of public unions.

what does that even mean?

From what I gather: public unions are doing pretty well compared to private ones, but along with the factor of being really overly contented, they may now be in fear of being in the same boat, due to the economy, state/municipal/federal debts, and due to the long-term interests or ideology of those trying to pass this bill through, even if this particular bill isn't totally unreasonable (I can certainly see why they would be paranoid of union scale-backs performed by Republicans in this political climate). The whole thing is a mess. I was being hyperbolic just to get you guys to smell blood. I do like these discussions after all, they're far from Grillian stupidity.

EDIT: Unions private and public really do need internal reform too. I think there's a mistrust of reform from the outside, which I suppose isn't unreasonable either.

EDIT II: 60 degrees out? I'm disappearing for now.

I want him to offer poll options that aren't basically "I disagree with you and therefore I am an idiot". There was no option I could choose.

Starting off a debate with insults hurled at those who might have a different point of view than you is no way to have a rational conversation.

Do you agree?

A. Yes, Mike, I agree with you.
B. No, Mike, I disagree with you because I am an asshole
C. No, Mike, I disagree with you because I am too stupid to understand the point you are making.

Are these poll options more palatable?

The Kochs are behind this now too? Fuck, maybe they should be alarmed.

Oh, I didn't pay attention to the poll options. I guess he fixed it now?

BTW, Caius, I didn't look at the poll, because all I saw was Dems and Republicans. I view it more as a taxpayers vs public service employees kind of thing.

So is The Democratic National Committee's Organizing for America group.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0211/DNC_playing_role_in_Wisconsin_protests.html?showall

Yes, thank you for changing them. As it was, I couldn't choose any of them.

Hmm, I'm more terrified of the Kochs. Mitch Stewart doesn't have pockets nearly as deep and their promotion of anti-science spiel to fund their environmental destruction is more nefarious (has OfA spent $50 million to convince the public global warming is a lie?). I find it odd considering that Obama isn't really pro-union. There must be fissures in OfA. The Kochs have connects that can make OfA wither and die in envy, easily. $100 billion annual profits do that. But why should anyone be surprised, their dad helped found the John Birch Society.

Why are you terrified of the Kochs because of what their dad did? Were you terrified of Ted Kennedy's because of his dad's deeds? Are you terrified of Barack Obama because of his dad? Seriously, this line of thinking is completely stupid and just exposes your intellectual shortcomings.

As for Obama, his support of public unions is not at all surprising - public unions are the lifeblood of the Democratic party funding.

Um, I already mentioned their own misdeeds. It was an aside, because in their case, we probably can see exactly where the rotten apples came from.

OK, I admit I haven't been following this as closely as I could, but it seems to boil down to this:

Governor: Time to cut taxes for all the rich people! Uh oh! Now we don't have any money! How could that happen?!!! Guess we have to make unions pay more, even though we have valid contracts. Better dissolve the unions too and make it so that they have no power to fight this.

Unions: Oh no you don't.

Governor: Yes I will!

Unions: OK, we'll agree to reduce our income so the budget can be balanced.

Governor: What, are you crazy? This was never about money -- it was about destroying unions. Don't be so daft.