[E]ven free-market advocates with a natural sympathy for labor in the corporate state find it hard to side with government employees. How can one sympathize with state school teachers when the government should have nothing to do with education? This doesn’t mean teachers are bad people, but they do the work of a bad system, and their unions are among the most powerful lobbyists in any state capital.Would the working conditions of state workers become intolerable if their unions were restricted? Not likely. But if they did, would it really be so bad if state governments had trouble finding employees?
The rest of TGIF is here.
Sheldon,
ReplyDeleteHow would you like to see us educate our children? I am a public school teacher with more questions than answers. I think we are spending to much money on the wrong things, but I also think that complete privatization would only further divide the poor from the rich.
If you start from the premise that all government is bad, then maybe it doesn't matter a damn if the government cannot find employees.
ReplyDeleteNow get real.
Coercion is bad, Graham. And government is coercion. If you can come up with a government that doesn't use force against innocent people, then you may have something. But you can't.
ReplyDeleteI have no patience or time for ideologues these days and their grand sweeping theories. If you look at issues from the perspective of your particular ideology and then side with the side you think will advance your ideological agenda better- then I don't want to hear from you. Cause this is now serious stuff- we are talking about- people's lives.
ReplyDeleteWhat is going on in this country is about power. There are people who want power centralized- in DC and New York- and they are assaulting all bastions of independent power left that might pose any challenge to theirs- and state governments and their employees are now the target.
And if you can't put asunder your own grand narcissistic pet theories in favor of actual people who live around you- then you are just part of the problem.
Ideologues have nothing to offer in this fight as they always put their dreams and their illusions first over people.