Public Employee Unions Grip Our Politics

The lack of responsiveness of politicians and the parties to which they belong was brought up at Eternity Road Saturday. One solution -- the banning of parties -- was whimsically suggested by Mark Alger.

I intruded with my wet mop.

"Whatever we might do to prevent political parties, it would infringe on the first amendment’s free association clause."

I then allowed that perhaps limiting the free association of those working in government might supply us the answer.

"So would it only be in government where free association would be not allowed?"

Well, I revealed that my last question was clearly rhetorical with my next question:

"Then wouldn’t there be a de facto party formed outside—which is kind of what has happened now given the power of vested interests?"

You might well ask: "Well, wasn't it due to concerns about the power of vested interests which brought about, over a period of about 40 years, the various laws passed under the label 'campaign finance reform?' Why didn't that fix the problem?"

Well, considering it was politicians -- already working under the influence of various special interests -- who passed those laws, whatever gave you the impression that any laws would be passed that would exclude those who were already wielding the strongest influence?

Who wants to bet me, with you taking the position that it was better angels who were permitted access under the new campaign finance laws? I'll try not to laugh -- promise.

Anyway, I made the observation that there was one kind of special interests who have more access to the politicians than any other. And somehow they are constantly overlooked as lobbyists all together. It's the public employees unions (PEUs).

Their members are scattered in all arms of government. Where they are not actively talking with elected members, their eyes and ears are collecting information about everyone. Some are certainly innocent of being moles, but it is a certainty that their union reps know how to find out what the rank and file knows or they are not long for their jobs.

How could such a spy system go on for so long without anyone ever making mention of it? Well, they did. Back in the 1950s, public employees could not be unionized. The inherent conflict of interest between being a public servant and making demands on the public was a primary reason for preventing it.

Here is how I put it at Eternity Road:

"SEIU (Service Employees International Union), though a late-comer to political power brokering, has proven to have great power—little doubt by dint of it posing a relentless threat by proximity alone—to sway both parties. They are lobbyists with muscles and omnipresent.

In fact I believe we started to see party differences narrow even more, especially regarding government growth, when the public employee unions recognized their power and started acting.

We are discussing how parties are bad because they constrain outsiders and become gate keepers.

Well, the PEUs are determined to keep it that way; we witnessed them being bussed (we suspect while on our clock) to many venues, and most notably at the congressional town halls in August, where their strong-arm tactics were no longer merely threatened."

Government growth becomes nearly impossible to check when PEUs became legal. It is clear that the two political parties, as I pointed out in Self Preservation, are both statist parties. Their primary difference are one of speed to statist tyranny, not direction.

And as an added bonus, one nutcase at the Huffington Post actually helps make my case. He knows that PEUs are apt to come under attack, and the most prominent one of these is SEIU due to its strong-arm tactics we witnessed at congressional town hall meeting during the month of August. In his sophistic whine today, this is how he began:

First ... they came for ACORN, and the Democrats did not speak out—because they were not ACORN.

Then they came for SEIU....

This is the nothing more than Leftist projection mixed with chutzpah. The statists are telling us where they are most vulnerable by trying to depict their most fascist elements as—victims of fascism.

With public servants well on their way to becoming despotic rulers, only a statist lapdog media would have the gall to label as fascists any citizens on the verge of rebellion.