Common Sense

I was talking to Whitley today. Rapidly, a general discussion of public employee unions ensued. Now, Whitley and myself are both members of a private sector union, and Whitley is an elected official. I brought up the point that with a little research, one can easily see how the public employee unions, especially here in the Peoples Republic of Illinois, have a complete stranglehold on the the taxpayer. Whitley agreed, and stated that massive reform is needed. The disagreement came on exactly what kind of reform.

For the sake of brevity, I will not go into the boring details here. A little bit of looking up facts on your own will suffice. But the discussion eventually went toward the state of Wisconsin.(Home or the world champion Green Bay Packers). This is where the evil governor, Scott Walker has had the guts to take on the unions of the public sector. About time someone did something, I said. Whitley cried bloody murder.

Unfortunately for me, the real crux of the issue is the one thing I neglected to mention to Whitley in our discussion. If you read the bill Walker has set forth in Wisconsin(home of the world champion Green Bay Packers), you will see that it provides for the choice of the state worker on wether or not they want to join the union. The individual choosing. What a novel concept. This is exactly why union leadership is so opposed. If the individual can choose, they will see the amount of union dues collected  decline, probably dramatically, as many employees will opt out of union representation. The less union dues collected, the less money they have to throw at the scummy politicians come election time. This is really where the controversy lies.

I asked myself(and I forgot to ask Whitley) why individual choice is the most sacred concept in the world when it comes to deciding whether or not to abort the fetus in one's belly, but when it comes to joining a union, choice is not allowed. If you want the job, you join, no questions asked. Interesting.

My guess is the overwhelming majority of folks we saw screaming at the Wisconsin capital are ardent supporters of the right to choose when it comes to abortion. (Or am I wrong?) Yet they don't feel the right to choose matters when it comes to joining a labor union. Too much inconsistency here for averageuncommonsense. Any help?

In the end, Whitley gave a me a cd he burned for me and departed. We're still buddies and always will be. But maybe he had a little something to think about?