Should Government Employees be Unionized

By Charles Tolleson

Wisconsin republicans are trying to pass a bill that would prohibit state government employees, except police and fire people, from forming unions. The democrats and their union worker base are saying government employees should have collective bargaining rights.

Everyone seems to link government employees with private sector employees when it comes to collective bargaining. Some people think

both government and private sector employees should have the right to belong to a union. The two groups however are not equal in providing products and services to the consumers.

Government employees operate by force and under a monopoly. Their customers do not have the choice to go to another provider of services if the cost from the government employees for that service is too high and the service is poor. If private sector employees of a company gain above market pay, by unions or otherwise, then the consumers can go to another company that provides those private sector products at a cheaper cost and with better service.

Government organized workers become lobbyists to create jobs, jobs that produce nothing, for the government employees.

Government unionized workers pay union dues, which come from the taxpayer. These union dues in turn are used to elect other government employees, politicians, who will give the government employees what they want. The government employees, politicians, get what they want in return, elected. Most of the government mob’s union dues go to the democrat party candidates. No wonder a republican governor in Wisconsin is trying to prohibit government employee unions, unions that support his opponents.

Yesterday was a rainy and cold day in my condo neighborhood. The private landscapers hired by my homeowners association were at their regular scheduled work. I went to five city parks and saw no government employees, anywhere. On clear days when I do see the city park employees in their work environment, I see them moving around so slowly I think they should be arrested for loitering. The doddling done by a crew of two government park employees could be done by one private sector employee. Government employees have better pay, vacation, and more personal days off than private sector employees. Private sector employees have to work ten years more, 55 for government employees and 65 for private employees, to get full retirements.

Many government retirees get cost of living raises in the pensions. Government employees think their pensions are sacrosanct, untouchable, no matter how dire their pensions’ fiscal situation. When Colorado passed a law reducing the COLAs of 3.5% for retirees, the Public Employees Retirement Association filed a lawsuit to block the legislation on the grounds they have a valid contract with the State. My private sector pension has no COLA and it was reduced by 18% due to the company I worked for going bankrupt. Despite my pension reduction, I still have to pay taxes for those retired government employees to live as elites, elites who retired younger than I retired.

The government union employees represents that democracy is one group plundering another group. The government employees have become the new aristocrats and their servants are the private sector producing taxpayers. Some government employees who retired due to disability, (sore back, stress, etc), do not even have to pay income taxes on their pensions.

“Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work.” Albert Einstein

Charles Tolleson

Another Protest Against U.S. Ally

By Charles Tolleson, February 18, 2011

Protesters in Bahrain were killed for protesting against another tyrannical government that is an ally to the United States. The protesters lay dying as the tanks rolled by. The last words they saw before they died- “Made in the USA.”

If a person in the United States aids and abets or in anyway contributes to a crime committed by another person, that abettor is charged as a conspirator to the crime and if convicted will serve jail time.

The U.S. officials that aid and abet the foreign tyrannies should be tried as conspirators to crimes that violate human rights. Of course there is no court powerful enough to arrest the conspirators so the conspirators continue to enable these foreign tyrants.

You say it is in America’s best interest to deal with foreign tyrants. The people who conspire with criminals do so because it is also in their best interest, not the best interest of society.

Since the U.S. is the most powerful nation on earth its leaders never have to worry about going on trial for crimes against humanity, especially crimes committed against people in other countries. The U.S. hoi polloi will condone the crimes committed by their leaders the same way tribal members always tolerate crimes against other tribes. Lt. William Calley was convicted of war crimes in Vietnam. After serving time the local citizens shopped at a jewelry store Calley managed. If the Japanese had miraculously won the war after the atomic bomb was dropped the Japanese would have tried President Harry Truman, General Curtis Lemay and Colonel Paul Tibbets as war criminals.

The per capita income of Bahrain’s population is $29,000 per year. Most of that income, derived from oil, goes to the Al Khalifa royal family who rules Bahrain. It is quiet impressive that the family can fly in their own private Boeing 747 jet when the country has slightly more than 1.2 million people in population. The Al Khalifa family has ruled Bahrain since 1820.

Tyranny is where one person tries to tell everyone else what to do. Democracy is where everyone tries to tell everyone else what to do. Freedom is where no one tells anyone what to do.

Just because tyrants are replaced with other forms of central control does not mean individuals will have freedom. The Internet and information sharing will lead to more individual freedoms, not to more centralized bureaucracies that operate by force.

To show how far flung the U.S. Military Nation is, the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet has its headquarters in Bahrain. I wonder how much we pay the Al Khalifa “Royal” family of mobsters to headquarter the 5th fleet in Bahrain. I also wonder how many young sailors in the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet know they are enablers to tyrants like the Al Khalifa family that deprives people of their natural rights and individual freedoms. Do these young sailors realize they are conspirators to human rights crimes by conspiring with the U.S. officials that are conspirators to the tyrants of the Middle East that commit crimes against humanity? The U.S. Military Complex will tell you their presences in the Middle East insures the flow of oil. And a rooster believes he can make the sun rise by crowing!

The reason people in the rest of the world hate us is not because of our freedoms, but because of our support for tyrants who do hate freedoms.

"What a thing it is to have a country that can't be wrong, but if it is, is right, anyway!" William Dean Howells


Charles Tolleson

Military Promotions, Up or Out

By Charles Tolleson, February 13, 2011

F.A. Hayek wrote a book, “The Road to Serfdom”. Chapter ten of Hayek’s book is titled, “Why the Worst Get on Top”. I believe the military’s policy of “up or out”, get promoted or resign, is an example of Hayek’s theory of why the worst get on top. One must go along to get along.

I worked many years with former military officers. They had short and medium careers; 5 to 10 years. Others had 20 years and were retired. I saw no difference in the performance of those who had short careers and those who had careers long enough to collect a retirement check.

I wondered why some of the men had spent only 5 years in the military as an officer when these men were such outstanding men in quality of skills and character. As I inquired I found out that many of these men simply were not the “go along” type. They did not believe in spending hours at the Officers Club drowning in booze. They advocated for efficiency instead of bureaucracy. They spoke out against unnecessary wars. They spoke out against a foolish attack on an enemy’s fortified position without first bombarding it with air strikes or heavy artillery.

These men were not likely to get promoted, thus, they were asked to resign. Those who remained never critiqued ineptness of the military nation and the unnecessary wars created by those who simply wanted to grow the military nation for promotions and other perks. Of those who got promoted to seniors ranks you will never hear them advocating to end the unnecessary wars in Afghanistan or Iraq or to close some of the hundreds of unnecessary military installations in foreign countries. You will hear them talking about how “stressed” the military is, meaning the generals need more, more, and more, even though the current U.S. Military has enough TNT equivalent power to kill each person in the world 6 times!

General Eric Ken Shinseki was fired for advocating more troops would be needed in the Iraq War. The U.S. instead hired thousands of private mercenaries. Maybe it’s time for some military officers to have tenure and cannot be fired. They could advocate their positions in private and before closed sessions of congress.

It has been a long time since I first heard about the military's "up or out" procedure. I hope it has changed to a procedure that allows junior officers to inquire, advocate, and critique missions and proposals.

Charles Tolleson, Veteran

Environmentalists Want Fewer Humans

I did a search of, “Environmentalists want fewer humans” and got over four hundred thousand hits. The environmentalists think too many humans are ruining Mother Gaia.

Environmentalists think there should be fewer humans so the other animals will have more food. They don’t mention how much food an elephant consumes. Do they want fewer elephants? What would they say if the Buffaloes return to cover the plains like they did in 1800 and consume all the crops?

The late Julian Simon debunked most of the myths about over population. Wired com had a good review of Simon’s work here. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.02/ffsimon_pr.html

The environmentalists might have more success if they advocated breeding miniature people like breeding miniature dogs and miniature horses. A Boeing 747 could carry twice the number of miniature people than normal people using the same amount of fuel. With miniature people cars could be smaller and highway lanes would double in quantity making traffic less congested. The Willis Tower in Chicago could have 220 floors instead of 110. Currently you can put 6 billion people in the state of Texas and each person would have 1100 square feet of land. If you have miniature people that means you could put 12 billion people in Texas and each would still have 550 square feet of land. If buildings were smaller to accommodate miniature people the cost of heating would be less. Miniature people would consume less food and other resources.

Miniature people would have more relative office space. “According to the International Facility Management Association, the average American office worker had 90 square feet of work space in 1994, but by 2010, that same worker was down to just 75 square feet of personal space in which to stretch out on the job.”

Miniature people will be able to lift more than their body weight using Iron Man Eco Skeletons.

I think the environmentalists should stop worrying about population increases and worry more about waistline increases. A welfare world is becoming obese.

The population will start to shrink as more women start using the birth control pill. Giving the choice of an independent career or tied down to commitments to others; a husband or children, women all over the world will choose to have only one child, or two children, or none at all. How many they choose will not be enough to replace the population.

Whether miniature or normal, the human body is a blob of atoms that are driven by desires and fears. After death the atoms slowly escape the blob and form other matter, even other blobs, and the cycle continues.

Charles Tolleson, Tall Blob