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Re: Tennessee Volkswagen plant votes against union in UAW defeat
Well there are a number of ways in which I would argue they certainly are a threat both to America and to the ideals that define us. One of which would indeed be forcing membership to support political speech with which they may disagree, and forcing membership to join (and pay dues) against their will. Another would be their status as an interest group. The Founding Fathers recognized A) that political factions would put their own interest ahead of the country's, and were therefore damaging and dangerous to our future and that B) they were also inevitable. Their solution was therefore to set interest group against interest group by dividing powers among the various levels and branches of government. With public sector unions, however, government becomes an interest group. Suddenly, instead of one group of citizens pursuing its' interests possibly to the detriment of another group of citizens, government is pursuing it's interests possibly to the detriment of all citizens. That is a huge power differential, and consequently indeed a threat to our form and even effectiveness of government - which is why even progressive types throughout our history such as Samuel Gompers and FDR have recognized that it is irresponsible or dangerous to unionize the public sector workforce. You create an entity (the public sector union) whose interests are in conflict with those of the people, and then you hand them enormous power to see those interests through nonetheless.
That doesn't make union membership "enemies of America", no. But Public Sector Unions are pretty problematic.
True but still doesn't make them "enemies of America".
Well there are a number of ways in which I would argue they certainly are a threat both to America and to the ideals that define us. One of which would indeed be forcing membership to support political speech with which they may disagree, and forcing membership to join (and pay dues) against their will. Another would be their status as an interest group. The Founding Fathers recognized A) that political factions would put their own interest ahead of the country's, and were therefore damaging and dangerous to our future and that B) they were also inevitable. Their solution was therefore to set interest group against interest group by dividing powers among the various levels and branches of government. With public sector unions, however, government becomes an interest group. Suddenly, instead of one group of citizens pursuing its' interests possibly to the detriment of another group of citizens, government is pursuing it's interests possibly to the detriment of all citizens. That is a huge power differential, and consequently indeed a threat to our form and even effectiveness of government - which is why even progressive types throughout our history such as Samuel Gompers and FDR have recognized that it is irresponsible or dangerous to unionize the public sector workforce. You create an entity (the public sector union) whose interests are in conflict with those of the people, and then you hand them enormous power to see those interests through nonetheless.
That doesn't make union membership "enemies of America", no. But Public Sector Unions are pretty problematic.