Random Nuclear Strikes

I’m always on the fence about unions – half the time, I think they serve a noble purpose, the other half I find them to be just as bad as the employers they claim to protect workers from.

However, this essay has a solid point about the value of Public Sector Unions that I hadn’t considered before.

“The thing that pundits like Andrew Sullivan, Megan McArdle and David Brooks don’t seem to grasp is that public sector unions shield public servants from political pressures. We have to interact with politically connected, powerful, influential people every day, from the building inspector who decides if a new development is up to code to auditors and so forth. We are answerable to our managers, who are not members of the bargaining unit, and they to their directors, who are also not members of the union and are either political appointees or serve at the pleasure of political appointees. Managers in public service walk a very fine line between the enormous pressures they get from legislators and executives above and from their service constituencies below. Unionization allows workers to perform their duties to the taxpayer without fear for their livelihood. It is a powerful shield from the vicissitudes of political life.”

I figured out what all those Irish unemployed mortgage brokers are up to. Just got this email:

“This is to inform you that your email #05, 17, 18, 22, 34, 37 Bonus 35 have been selected for a cash prize of € 4.5 Million from the IRISH NATIONAL LOTTERY ONLINE DRAWS. Contact Jonathan Gates by Email: [email protected] Tel:+447024088692 with the following: Names:, Country/Address of resident:, Occupation:, Date Of Birth:, Phone Number:”

Fleecing suckers in other countries is at least a more stable revenue base than the real-estate bubble circle-jerk turned out to be.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

I wouldn’t necessarily hold this sort of thing against the president — after all, I’ve still got a bunch of Christic Institute stuff in the garage somewhere from my days as an undergraduate at UC Berkeley — but the emphasis of this hit piece does seem to be on the presumed intensity of the young Obama’s belief in the inevitability of a Leninist revolution in the United States. Still, I don’t find this guy’s recollection particularly damning, mainly because — wait for it — at the time Barack Obama was all of 19 years old.

Some may find it striking that Barry was so passionate about the cause even after the recent election of Ronald Reagan, but really, I heard lots of this sort of talk at Berkeley even in the late ’80s and early ’90s. I’m not surprised to see this sort of thing coming out of an Occidental student in the early ’80s.

[rolleyes]

Frankly, the fellow writing the piece seems to have had much better revolutionary credentials than BHO, which should make him a much more suspicious character — and yet today he’s writing for the American Thinker. Meh.

I’m sorry, pal, but saying Democrat legislators in your state running away to hide is “a perfectly legitimate part of the process” is pretty much an automatic disqualification for the Republican nomination. I had high hopes for Mitch Daniels, but this level of cluelessness about the political landscape and how it’s changed in the last few days just doesn’t cut it.

the activities of today are perfectly legitimate part of the process. Even the smallest minority – and that’s what we’ve heard from the last couple days – has every right to express the strength of its views and I salute those who do.

Bullshit.