Those cheering on the Wisconsin Governor seem to have an incomplete recollection of the sayings of their heroes.

Ronald Reagan once said “Where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost”.

Reagan would fail the contemporary conservative purity test. The charlatans, cranks, closet racists and fruitcakes otherwise known as the modern G.O.P. only accepts real merricans nowadays. A real merrican is a god-rearing conservative who loves the baby Jesus and hates the mooslems who want to impose Sharia on merrica.

What is interesting is that this attack on unions and public sector workers is being done at the same time as our brownshirts are doing it here. The global elites want to own it all, and they now feel confident that they can do this. The attack on public sector pensions is about making the ground easier for private firms to be able to undercut public sector workers. If they have to pay decent pensions then the private corporations can’t compete. Therefore public sector workers must be broken, and destroyed. We are now seeing all out class war declared by the greedy rich.

There is even talk in some States of privatisation of whole towns. Get ready for slavery because it is coming.

1. Tim Fenton – “Those cheering on the Wisconsin Governor seem to have an incomplete recollection of the sayings of their heroes. Ronald Reagan once said “Where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost”.”

Collective bargaining is not being forbidden. Nor are free Unions. But of course the problem here is that in these negotiations, one side is missing – the public. The Democrats and their allies in the Union movement meet behind closed doors to vote themselves our money. That is not collective bargaining. It is collusive bargaining.

2. Richard W – “Reagan would fail the contemporary conservative purity test.”

Riiiight. Of course if you listened to that entire speech instead of one little sound bite you would have seen nothing in it that the Tea Party would not agree with. And nothing that is not, in general, true about the present situation.

3. sally – “The attack on public sector pensions is about making the ground easier for private firms to be able to undercut public sector workers. If they have to pay decent pensions then the private corporations can’t compete.”

Actually it looks to me like it is about what it is about – the pension schemes of these States are utterly unaffordable. Which they are. These pensions are not decent. They are obscene. Verging on criminal in many cases. Especially the way that people get to front-load theirs by collusion in their last years.

But if they are all about undercutting the public sector, well, so what? What is wrong with that? If the private sector can do these jobs more cheaply, we will have more money to spend on things that matter. What is wrong with that?

It is race to the bottom, and people like you don’t deserve to live in a civil society.

I hope you like working 6 days a week, with no holidays or pensions, and no health care because there is no limit to the depravity and selfishness of the capitalist. Give them an inch and they will take a yard.

5. sally – “It is race to the bottom, and people like you don’t deserve to live in a civil society.”

The more any society enables capitalists to do their work, the richer it is. The higher wages are. It is not a race to the bottom. And people like you do not know what the words civil society mean.

“I hope you like working 6 days a week, with no holidays or pensions, and no health care because there is no limit to the depravity and selfishness of the capitalist. Give them an inch and they will take a yard.”

There is no limit on the depravity and selfishness of human beings. Which is precisely what we are seeing in the wholesale looting of the state by these Unions in the US. Give anyone an inch and they will take a yard. Which is why we should not give human beings enormous powers over the rest of us. Which is why there are no Saints we can vote in and trust with the sort of powers you want a government to have. Which is why we should leave as many things to free choice, and hence the market, as possible.

I have worked most of my life. Quite a long life by most standards. I have never worked a 6 day week. Why would I start now?

@Sally, please refrain from feeding the very obvious troll, whom I should not need to point out, thought that the only challenges in life faced by blind or near-sighted people would be “hurt feelings”.

7. Cylux – “whom I should not need to point out, thought that the only challenges in life faced by blind or near-sighted people would be “hurt feelings”.”

No he did not. He simply pointed out that the consequences described by the author amounted to hurt feelings. Which was not the language chosen by the original author but was in fact what he said.