The Disconnect: Public Employees and The Public

Much has been written and said on this issue, and others have said it more skillfully than I could. See the post Union Thugs at publiusnm.org, one of my recent favorite blogs. Growing up, my view of unions have been mostly positive due to reading books like the The Jungle by Upton Sinclair about the horrific conditions of the meat-packing industry in the early 20th century. Then as a working adult I was a union member for a very short time in the private sector. A short time because I realized then that the union and the company were working hand in hand to feather their nests at the expense of the union member.  When private companies suffer the collective bargaining of the unions, if too many concessions are demanded, the private company goes out of business and the workers are out of a job. Not so with public employee unions. There really isn't any bargaining involved at all. The public unions, to whom the politicians are deeply indebted to, merely tell the legislators their demands and they are granted. The legislators have no need to bargain, as it is not their own money that is being spent. They merely return to the source (the taxpayer) and tell them they have to raise taxes or else schools will be closed, houses will burn and violence will take over the streets. This is exactly the tact that Gov. Brown of my state of California will take if the Republican legislators in Sacramento renege on their pledges to not raise or assist in raising taxes and a tax bill gets on the ballot. Barrels and barrels of money will flow from the public employee unions to pay for ads intended to scare the sheeple into extending the taxes that were voted down previously. And because taxpayers dare to raise their voices and demand their taxes get spent more judiciously instead of being continually asked for more, they are disrespected and held in contempt by legislators throughout this country.

Andrew Joseph Stack-Canary in the Coal Mine

Early coal mines did not feature ventilation systems, so miners would routinely bring a caged canary into new coal seams. Canaries are especially sensitive to methane and carbon monoxide, which made them ideal for detecting any dangerous gas build-ups. As long as the canary in a coal mine kept singing, the miners knew their air supply was safe. A dead canary in a coal mine signaled an immediate evacuation.

Andrew Joseph Stack was our canary in the coal mine. Instead of methane and carbon monoxide, he was sensitive to the helpless feeling one gets when being taken advantage of by a bully. Read his suicide note. How many of us feel we do not have a voice in our government? How many of us do not feel represented by our representatives? How many of us smile when we see the already-too-high taxes taken out of our paychecks yet again increase? Just today I heard one of our clueless California legislators has introduced another "soda tax" bill that "would lap a 1-cent levy on every teaspoon of added sugar and other caloric sweeteners in commercial beverages sold." Of course the tax would be paid by the beverage makers, but you know it will be passed on to the consumer. I don't drink enough of these types of drinks for it to cause my pocket book pain, but I am so sick and tired of these bastards taxing every little thing. Every time we turn around they are trying to force another "revenue enhancement" on us in the guise of improving our lives. But our legislators are just crack addicts looking for a fix. And after this fix, they'll be looking for another and another until we are sucked dry. We have a parasitic form of government here in California. California legislators and the multitude of government workers feed on the taxpayer and produce nothing of value. I heard a quote today that a particular government worker put in $124,000 of his own earnings into his retirement and is expected to receive $3.8 MILLION in retirement benefits. Parasites I tell you. Rat bastard parasites, or as Andrew Joseph Stack coined them "thieves, liars, and self-serving scumbags". Today's incident is a window into the parasite-infested soul of the American taxpayer. The canary has stopped singing.