Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Why?

The latest news, via NYT, is that Koch operatives are working with activists in other states to encourage union showdowns:
Even before the new governor was sworn in last month [in Wisconsin], executives from the Koch-backed group had worked behind the scenes to try to encourage a union showdown, Tim Phillips, the president of [the Koch-funded] Americans for Prosperity said in an interview on Monday.

State governments have gone into the red, he said, in part because of the excessively generous pay and benefits that unions have been able to negotiate for teachers, police, firefighters and other state and local employees.  
“We thought it was important to do,” Mr. Phillips said, adding that his group is already working with activists and state officials in Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania to urge them to take similar steps to curtail union benefits or give public employees the power to opt out of unions entirely.
It's clear the Koch-effort is to completely break the back of government unions. One has to ask, "Why?"

For most libertarians the evil is the government employing these people for these government jobs in the first place, not that they are union members once they become government employees. To be sure, no good is coming out of these people operating as part of a union, but the real problem is that these people should be in the private sector in the first place. Where's the Koch call for real libertarian solutions such as ending government involvement in education, healthcare and charity. Where's the Koch call to End the Fed?

The Koch effort simply appears to be an attempt to support establishment Republicans. Breaking government unions helps crack a Democrat power base. But who are these Republicans that would fill the power void? On FOX news, this past Sunday, Wisconsin Governor Walker said he does not want to fire any government employees. The sponsor of an anti-union bill in Florida, Senator Thrasher, was hailed for being responsible for directing taxpayer money for expansion of a government university.

Ohio Governor John Kasich just signed, to much fanfare, a JobsOhio program that will take taxpayer money for a "public/private" effort to create jobs. The program will be run by a board consisting of the Governor and 8 directors appointed by the governor! Talk about a set up for crony capitalism. Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, while dissing President Obama's healthcare monstrosity, signed an executive order creating the wacky Indiana Health Benefit Exchange. Daniels paints it as a "free market" alternative, but a free market doesn't require a government "exchange". Daniels also for a period ran the Office of Management and Budget for George W. Bush. Have you noticed how successful he was in bringing that budget under control?  And, just last week, Pennsylvania Governor Corbett  authorized a $42 million shipyard bailout. Two ships will now be constructed — even though there are neither buyers now, nor any in the foreseeable future — and hundreds of union jobs will now be subsidized. This in a state with a $4 billion plus budget deficit.

How can any of these Republicans can be considered anything close to anti-big government? Why would the supposed libertarian Koch brothers be supporting actions that would do nothing but create further strength for this Republican establishment? Why?

5 comments:

  1. "It's clear the Koch-effort is to completely break the back of government unions. One has to ask, "Why?"

    Well, quite frankly, Scarlet, i don't give a damn. I don't look a gift horse in the mouth.


    "For most libertarians the evil is the government employing these people for these government jobs in the first place, not that they are union members once they become government employees."

    Sure, but let's face it. The public sector is simply not going to be abolished any time soon, if ever. Even though i wouldn't vote for anyone, i'd still welcome any step toward breaking the power of the dependent classes and their unions.
    As a matter of fact, i think education may be the single most important department of the government for libertarians, because they are factories for tomorrow's braindead statist sheep. So anything that would break, say, the teacher's union is welcome to me.


    "Where's the Koch call for real libertarian solutions such as ending government involvement in education, healthcare and charity. Where's the Koch call to End the Fed?"

    They're not libertarians. But anything or anybody that calls for lower or lowering (of) taxes is better than Democrats and their unions. The state is funded through taxation. So any party urging for lower taxation is always better.

    So let's see the protests as a duel between unions and the Koch oligarchs. We don't have to like either one, but if only one is going to win this fight, we have to make a choice who we'd rather see win, since there is no such thing as a perfectly equally bad choice.
    The Kochs? Or the scum that indoctrinates kids to be subservient to the almighty state?
    How about the scum who's union protects outright armed fascists who raid and kill?

    I ask this question after reading this:
    http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/79145.html
    and this:
    http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/79160.html
    and this:
    http://reason.com/blog/2011/02/16/how-hard-is-it-to-fire-a-polic

    and a LOT of other wonderful things we can enjoy thanks to Union-caused virtual immunity.

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  2. It IS an attempt to support establishment repubs. Public sector unions give tens of millions of dollars to Democrats, nada to Republicans. So there's a symbiotic relationship between public sector unions and the Democratic party. The Democrats ensure that public employees get outrageous pay and benefit packages, and the unions then turn around and give lots of money to the Democrats. And the taxpayers pay for it all.

    For all the talk about the right to collectively bargain by public employees, no one asks who they are bargaining AGAINST. In the private sector, the union and the company are two private parties negotiating a deal and will meet somewhere in the middle. In the public sector case, both parties are negotiating the deal, but the people who pay for it all aren't in the room. I call these people TAXPAYERS. The Democrats and the public sector unions, in this case at least, are simply looters.

    As we have seen in state after state, and certainly with the Federal government, politicians are remarkably generous with other people's money. Especially when it benefits themselves.

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  3. Cannon, that has to be some of the most stupid stuff I have ever read.

    "anything or anybody that calls for lower or lowering (of) taxes is better than Democrats and their unions."

    stupid, just absolutely stupid. Another idiot who believes team red is better than team blue. Corporations are just as bad as the unions. They take tax payer money just as much as the unions do, however the corporations get to hide under the cover of a "private" company. Look at a ton of corporations development projects over the years and you will see almost every single one is helped in part by taxpayers. The best tax is no tax. The best corporation is no corporation. There is nothing at all free market about corporations, their whole exstitence is because of the state, they are funded by poor schmucks like me and others who get paid crap wages and then get a good chunk taken out to fund the corporations building of sports stadiums and sky scrapers. If there were no state there would be no corporations, because they are welfare queens who can not survive without taxpayer money.

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  4. "Cannon, that has to be some of the most stupid stuff I have ever read."

    I'm not impressed, especially since you've missed my point entirely.


    "anything or anybody that calls for lower or lowering (of) taxes is better than Democrats and their unions."

    stupid, just absolutely stupid. Another idiot who believes team red is better than team blue."

    One team *is* better than the other, not by virtue of taking nothing from me, but by virtue of taking LESS from me.
    Again, putting some insults in there does not improve your argument, nor your reading skills.


    "Corporations are just as bad as the unions."

    There is no such thing as "just as bad". You are a moral relativist and thus irrational.

    "They take tax payer money just as much as the unions do, however the corporations get to hide under the cover of a "private" company."

    Corporations are a benefitting class. Unions are a dependent class. Without the state corporations would still exist (although they would have no special status) but would have to depend on quality of product or service to attract customers.

    Public worker unions would NOT exist, period, and neither would state employees. They are COMPLETELY dependent on the taxpayer, not partially, completely. No state, no public employees.

    Again, your moral relativism between the two betrays your ignorance. But that's your problem, not mine.


    "Look at a ton of corporations development projects over the years and you will see almost every single one is helped in part by taxpayers."

    How nice of you to admit my point by saying "is helped IN PART by taxpayers."
    Now you're getting it. They're helped IN PART by taxpayers, not COMPLETELY, like public workers and their unions.
    Get it?
    Unions and public workers worse than corporations.
    Thanks for agreeing with me that complete dependence of coercion of taxpayers is worse than partial coercion of taxpayers.

    I would even go so far as to say that maybe, just maybe, corporations are just using the coercive system to their advantage because whether they do or don't, it's going to be there anyway and if they don't use it to screw others, others (like unions) will use it to screw them.

    Sure, no state is the best. But with the existence of the state, i have (slightly) more sympathy for the partially private side over the completely coercive side.

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  5. @ Berserk

    "The best tax is no tax.
    The best corporation is no corporation."

    Duh. Are you now thinking you're telling me something i don't know?
    What did i say?
    I said "The public sector is simply not going to be abolished any time soon, if ever."
    Therefor, we have to deal with what we DO have to deal with. And in this particular case it's a battle between (partially) private and completely public. The ones using the system versus the ones who would be nothing without it; who's entire existence rises and falls on coercion.
    There is no "just as bad" here for anyone who knows how to separate concepts in reality.
    Unlike some, i have absolutely no illusion that one fell swoop will rid us of government or taxation, so even though i don't vote i will still support ANY improvement, no matter how small.
    And quite frankly, i prefer the Koches over murder of innocents and the murderers getting away with it, thanks to their unions.
    I also prefer the Koches over public school having little kids arrested by fascists because government, public school employees, police officers and the unions that protect them are treating citizens as dangerous criminals at toddler age, just because they can.

    Maybe you don't, but that says a lot about you.


    "There is nothing at all free market about corporations"

    Strawman. Never said there was.


    "their whole exstitence is because of the state,"

    Lie. Their whole existence is not because of the state. Their continued existence or success MAY BE because of the state. Without the state, as a private company, they may have continued to exist. They are using the system, they are not necessarily dependent on it (except for those who's whole market is based on state caused calamity, like the military-industrial complex)


    "they are funded by poor schmucks like me and others who get paid crap wages and then get a good chunk taken out to fund the corporations building of sports stadiums and sky scrapers."

    Don't blame corporations for taxes, blame government. And maybe your getting paid crap wages because maybe you don't deserve more.
    Again, there is a question whether they would do most of these things even without the state.
    There is no such question with public workers and public unions.

    Let me make it clear AGAIN. I am not "for" corporations. I am saying they are less evil than public workers and unions who's entire existence is based on coercion. The full 100%

    Just like i consider a pickpocket less evil than a man who breaks into your home with a shotgun and robs your house, threatening you with death while doing it, those that are partially dependent on coercion are less evil than those that are completely dependent on it.

    "If there were no state there would be no corporations, because they are welfare queens who can not survive without taxpayer money."

    Complete and utter nonsense.
    The likes of McDonalds do just fine stuffing cheesburgers down peoples mouths.
    They just do a little better if they get help from the government.
    Without government, they'd still be stuffing cheeseburgers down people's mouths.

    You should really learn to think logically rather than irrationally or emotionally. It would improve your arguments, Mr. Berserk (fitting name).

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