The World Is Full Of Sheep

[Anomaly]

[quote name='FuturePriest387' timestamp='1329374492' post='2387880']
I am not going off stereotypes. Saying most Unions are breaking the country is not a stereotype, it's a fact. I am not saying Union workers are bad people. Rather, I'm saying most Unions are demanding an extravagant amount of money and pensions. Why should I have to pay for their retirement that they'll begin at the outrageous age of forty five to fifty, and sometimes even forty, when my dad works hard every day and won't be able to retire until he's sixty if he's lucky? Are they paying for my dad's retirement? Better yet, will they be paying my dad fifty thousand dollars minimum a year, not including that nice big pension? No. Why do they even need pensions? Haven't they ever heard of not spending every dime they have and throwing some in the bank so they can make their own retirement and not take more tax money? The fact is, people are starving and Unions are on strike because it's been decided they can't retire at age forty, and are filing grievances because a youth group painted a house for free. Not to mention they're actually winning these grievances. There are good Unions, but America no longer needs them, and they need to take a hike. This is not the economy to be going on strikes in, it's an economy that requires you to be grateful that you have a job.
[/quote]FP,
You are making broad generalizations and can't back it up with facts.
1- You say most Unions are demanding extravagent money and pensions. Possibly. Can you provide any kind or report or study, or is that your opinion based on what you've heard in the news?
2- Why shouldn't Unions provide pensions if other employers provide pensions? Unions are generally the "employer" of it's members, and then provide these workers to the companies. The serve as a mechanism for a Union worker to work for a number of different companies, providing a certain skill while requireing companies to meet standards for pay, benefits. It basically makes insurance and retirement portable from company to company.
3- Unions are striking because people can't retire at 40. That's a new one on me. I've never heard that.
4- America doesn't need Unions. Please explain why not. From your posts, it seems you don't really know what Unions can, will, can't, or won't do for workers.
5- This is an economy to not go on strike, but be thankful you have a job. I'll generally agree with this statement.

I've been in construction for four or five times longer than you've been able to sleep through the night without wetting your big-boy underwear. I've been in a Union, non-union, managed with union workers and with non-union workers. I've been an employee manager and run my own company as owner. I'm certainly not an expert, or know all there is reasonble to know, but I think I have a broad understanding and experience.

Unions are not necessarily good or bad. First off, Unions can and often do provide a tremendous value to workers and employers. Unions can provide training and skills to workers, creating a skill workforce to companies that usually don't employ them for 40 years. Many industries, such as construction, have variable demands. It's a benefit to a company that just landed a job for a new hospital building and needs skilled and qualified electricians for a few months. An electrical contractor could bid the job, get it, and know where to get additional emplyees for the new work. When the job is over and he doesn't have need for all or any of them, they can be returned to the labor pool at the Union hall. A new union member will usually be in a apprenticeship program that will follow him with him from job to job, documenting his development in skill and ability. This also establishes his value to employers.
I know some contractors will hire the least skilled people possible because they're cheaper, and spend the labor to fix what ever problems are found during inspection, which could be little to non of the problems. Not very scary if they are building something simple like a house, but critical if it's a factory, school, or hospital.
I've also seen Unions not develop the skills of their members, working like an employee leasing company, providing temporary employees for a profit to the Union hall in the dues and contributed portions of the benefits. In the same industry, I've seen non-union employeers spend the money for training, paying a better wage scale, providing better benefits, in order to keep trained and productive workers.
Unions are a barganing tool. That power can be used to negotiate fair wages, fair benefits, fair working conditions, and protect the quality and skill of the trades. That same power can be used to demand more than fair wages, benefits, working conditions, while stifling development of skills.
If you've had the patience to read all this, thanks, but you've got to admit Unions aren't all bad, or all good. There are aspects of the Unions that may need to be balanced, but no human organization is perfect or needs correcting.
Think "nuance".

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='FuturePriest387' timestamp='1329324621' post='2387498']
Exactly. Of course, watch what you say, because this is what's known as "politically incorrect". The only thing that's saved you is you're a regulator.
[/quote]

wanna bet? .
To be fair I was pointing out one of the problems with some unions as they are today, but to be fair, I am from Pittsburgh ( an historically union town) and they are not all bad.

[i<3LSOP]

[quote name='FuturePriest387' timestamp='1329324621' post='2387498']
The only thing that's saved you is you're a regulator.
[/quote]

Don't disrespect the Mother of Phatmass.

[Vincent Vega]

[quote name='i<3LSOP' timestamp='1329425601' post='2388077']
Don't disrespect the Mother of Phatmass.
[/quote]
Ooh she ain't gonna like that...
[spoiler]
[img]http://www.theworkofgod.org/Images/OurLady.jpg[/img][/spoiler]

[Selah]

<3

[kamiller42]

FuturePriest, I do think you will enjoy this video. It's the bright commentarian Bill Whittle discussing manhood, Star Wars, Han Solo, Captain Kirk, Indiana Jones, standing up for good, and guns.

[mild language warning in the intro]
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns1m_aXJa58[/media]

Yes, Han shot first!

This article is a good follow-up to Bill's closing comments.
[quote][b]Study: 'Conservative' Movies Make More Money Than 'Liberal' Movies (Exclusive)[/b]
Wanna make money in Hollywood? Release patriotic movies that promote conservative values and do not denigrate Christianity.
...
“Most moviegoers want good to conquer evil, truth to triumph over falsehood, justice to prevail over injustice and true beauty to overcome ugliness,” Movieguide editor Ted Baehr writes in the report.
[url="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/conservative-liberal-movies-politics-profit-study-287816"]Source[/url]
[/quote]
Amen!

Edited February 17, 2012 by kamiller42

[4588686]

The reason that you keep getting smacked around and treated with something less than deference is because you keep tackling highly emotional subjects (like 9/11, the holocaust, how individuals earn a living for themselves and their families), about which you are obviously less than fully informed, and combining this ignorance with a constant belittling of the subjects in question. You weren't just asking questions. How do I know? Because you didn't just ask (or google) 'why didn't the Jews/individuals on the planes fight?.' You began with a discussion about what an all American bad arse you are (which itself is going encourage people to not take you seriously since that badarsery consists of after school activities), threw in a few questions, talked about what YOU would have done had you been there, and then closed by asking how it was that all those people acted like such sheep. What you should have done is just immediately said, 'hey, sorry, I forgot that I'm fifteen and have no idea what I'm talking about since I have no experiences comparable to those I disrespected' and that really would have been the end of it.


But instead you just keep chugging along. Offending more and more people. Your work experience consists in working at your parents store. Yet you go on and on about what lazy leaches unions are. Some unions are parasitic. But when you work a non-union job in a store that isn't a 'family business' you may have a different perspective and have a greater appreciation of why all those bad, bad unions seemed necessary in the first place.

It's ok not to know things. I'm just getting out of college. There's a lot that I don't know. My longest relationship, as opposed to one night happenings, consists of my current four month relationship with my girlfriend. It's going well. we've had small arguments but nothing serious. Now how do you think the people who have been in long term relationships, I'm talking about one, five, ten fifteen, twenty year relationships, would take me starting a thread announcing how easy marriage is? How their marital problems would be so easy for me to deal with and I know that because I've dated a girl for a whole four months? Probably not well.

The point is a Socratic one, you need a better appreciation of what you don't know.

The first victim of the 9/11 attacks was a man named Daniel Lewin. Daniel lewin was a lot of things. A good husband. A brilliant mathematician and influencer of the internet as it exists today, and a genuine bad arse flupper mupper. How do I know he was a bad arse, you ask? Because before going to MIT Lewin served in the Israeli Defense Force, specifically in a unit known as Sayeret Matkal. never heard of Sayeret Matkal? That's ok. Most people haven't. The Israeli army is one of the best in the world. And their elite units are amongst the best and most daring in the world. And Sayeret Matkal is the pride of the Israeli army. Unofficially, of course. Because officially the unit didn't exist until recently. Although in truth it goes back about half a century. Lawin tried to foil the hijackings. And he got stabbed in the throat. He got stabbed in the throat by a guy who had nowhere near the level of combat training that he had. Because that's what happens. However great 'reaction reflexes' or whatever you called it you have that no guarantee. because, you see, we're all about one bad move away from death and it only takes one tiny mistake for an individual who was a few years prior one of the most elite soldiers in the world to get stabbed in the throat by a guy with a box cutter.

And that uncertainty means a lot. Because no man is an island. You know that you'd fight if the Nazis came to your house? No you don't. I'm good friends with a girl named Elvira. She lived in my dorm. Before coming here she had lived in Bosnia. Specifically a region known today as the Republic Srpska where the worst of the killing occurred. Her father has combat training. Before the war he had been a police officer. So why did he run away with his family? why did he let himself live in a refugee camp in Srebrenica rather than go out fighting? The same reason most young Jewish men showed a similar deference a half a century before. because they never know how a fight is going to turn out and they had families. If he had fought the Serbian thugs who hunted his family then he would have given those men reason to pay 'special attention' to his wife and his daughter. And considering that brutal rape was the favorite weapon of ethnic cleansing of the Serbian army you really don't want to know what those soldiers would have don to women who's male relative had given them reason to pay special attention to.

You don't know what it's like to fight in the most awful land war in history. You don't know what it is like live day after day having your friends slaughtered in front of you. To be frozen and starving and without hope because nobody has hope because everybody is dying constantly. And then be captured, transported thousands of miles into German controlled territory without money with no knowledge of the local language and no means to disguise the fact that you are a POW or a Jew (believe it or not the were not dressed in the latest fashions in the camps).

You don't know what it's like to have to make these excruciating calculations. If you do escape or fight everybody housed with you is going to die. But if you are complacent you're probably going to die as well. But maybe if you hold out you'll live to see the Germans defeated. If you fight others will pay if you lose. Reality is complex and there are no easy answers as to what the right thing to do is. So stop pretending that you have any idea what being in that sort of situation is like. You don't know what you'd do. Maybe you would get up and fight (and probably die) or maybe you'd pee your pantaloons and cry. Both options are perfectly possible and you don't know which route you'd go down until it actually happens. Nobody blames you for not having those experience but show a bit of respect for those who do or did.

Edited February 17, 2012 by Hasan

[Jesus_lol]

Hasan nailed it.

[Winchester]

pfft

[PhuturePriest]

I'm sorry. You are right. Please forgive me of my ignorance and pride.

Edited February 17, 2012 by FuturePriest387

[Winchester]

[quote name='FuturePriest387' timestamp='1329462626' post='2388381']
I'm sorry. You are right. Please forgive me of my ignorance and pride.
[/quote]
[img]http://www.ackbar.org/images/ackbar.jpg[/img]

[Papist]

[quote name='Winchester' timestamp='1329485172' post='2388404']
[img]http://www.ackbar.org/images/ackbar.jpg[/img]
[/quote]

He apologizes and asks for forgiveness. And this is the response he gets. Very disappointing.

[Selah]

Forgiven *hug* Now you can join the Homestarmy! ^_^

[sixpence]

[quote name='BG45' timestamp='1329171232' post='2386546']


Quite, though I say that as one of the only non-unionized folks on campus. The janitors are unionized. The secretaries are unionized. The profs are unionized. The Grad Assistants have a non-protecting association with no power or funding lol.
[/quote]

awww here the TA/GAs are part of the teacher's union... and they actaully fought Rutgers and got them to give us our promised raises

Edited February 17, 2012 by sixpence

[Winchester]

[quote name='Papist' timestamp='1329486555' post='2388418']
He apologizes and asks for forgiveness. And this is the response he gets. Very disappointing.
[/quote]
I stand by my Admiral Ackbar.