U.S. Unions to Propose "Second Bill of Rights"

The unions need to better understand what a "right" is. One of the requirements for a "right" is that nobody has to give anything up in order for something to be a right. Freedom of speech for instance, doesn't tax anyone or require anybody to contribute anything to it. What the unions view as rights are, in fact, privileges or benefits, not rights. It isn't hard to understand why they want what they want but calling them rights doesn't help get them for them.

 

For the left, that's not a bug, that's a feature!

 

...Let's put this back in perspective: I am promoting a Second Bill of Rights and you are responding to that by calling me "an authoritarian". And you...see nothing at all absurd about this...?

 

The "rights" that were proposed can only be given at someone else's expense and only if other people are coerced into giving them. Thus this "bill of rights"is authoritarian in nature.

 

Unions are flopping around like fish out of water because they are dying and they know it. They are BTW, sucker-fish!

 

First off, that assessment simply isn't true. Explain to me, for example, how assuring the right to vote and participate in political life more broadly in any way infringes on your rights.

Secondly, your contention that the constitutional establishment of the economic rights mentioned in the OP is exploitative to you is based on a frankly false view that says taxation is intrinsically a form of exploitation. In order to believe that, you have to also believe that all wealth spontaneously acquired is acquired through non-oppressive/non-exploitative means. Only thusly can one conclude that the current wealth distribution in this country is just, and polls continually show that most people don't believe that it is. In reality, taxation can be a vehicle not only for state-imposed exploitation, but also instead a vehicle by which the effects of spontaneous exploitation are corrected by way of certain wealth redistributions. It simply depends on how the tax code is used.

Since most of my opponents on this message board support Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, I would cite Mr. Romney's history as an excellent illustration of the point that wealth is generally acquired not by "hard work" or whatever, but simply by being privileged. Mr. Romney was simply born into a great deal of wealth. The rest he acquired by some combination of laying off American workers (often by outsourcing their jobs), bankrupting other companies, and taking advantage of offshore tax shelters and loopholes in the tax code. To briefly recap on that, Mr. Romney's sources of wealth acquisition and retention are 1) inheritance, 2) exploitation, and 3) cheating. Where is the "hard work" that supposedly is the source of all wealth there? Where even is the product that results from what Mr. Romney has done? You see, in reality, most wealth is acquired not by hard and productive work, but by stepping on and cheating others and Mr. Romney's fortune is the perfect example of that. He, like capitalists generally, is no more hard working or "driven" than the unemployed worker on welfare. The sole substantive difference is his level of wealth. That's called privilege. Once we understand that reality, that people are equals, we can start to see the legitimacy of declaring formal economic rights.

 

Are you misinformed, are you hopelessly ignorant, or are you simply LYING?

 

How have I misrepresented the truth in the quoted statement?

 

Think hard. I promise it won't hurt.

 

Where will the quality jobs come from? Where will the healthcare come from?

Both of these "rights" will require someone else to provide them. Both require someone to pay for that "right"and someone to actually do the work to create the thing that the workers supposedly have a right to.

Where will the workers get healthcare if no doctors want to treat them? Where will the jobs come from if no one wishes to hire them?

Thus, these rights must come at someone else's expense and by someone else's effort.

 

Government issuance of "positive rights" must infringe on the natural rights of another.

Guaranteeing a "right" to "quality" employment, a "living wage", higher education, "free" health care, food, housing, etc...
must be underwritten and funded by business owners and taxpayers who are endowed with the identical natural rights as those who would benefit from your 2nd bill of "rights".....

such requires government coercion...which is just another name for authoritarianism.

That you don't "understand" such, suggests one of three things....intellectual dishonesty, ignorance of natural rights, or, again....you simply don't care to acknowledge that which presents obstacles to collectivist agenda.

 

A right to something is a just claim to something. To say that you have a right to, say, higher education, means that you have a just claim to such. What you are then saying is that you are making a claim on the resources of others to provide you with this higher education. How does one acquire a claim on the resources of others?

Those who lay claim to the resources of others are authoritarians.

 

If they are going to so amend the Constitution, they should further modify it so preclude any political activity from those public sector unions. If they can force collective bargaining, they should not be able to fund the fellows political careers that the unions are negotiating the contracts with.

 

Let's see now...no power....except the power to throw a massive temper tantrum and the power to buy seats for union friendly politicians and the power to turn out an army of union thugs and their willing helpers...



You confuse losing a specific political battle and vast over reach with having no power.

 

I would add another right...the absolute right for the taxpayers to vote for or against any collectively bargained public sector contract. It removes the final say from bought politicians and puts it back in the hands of the folk it affects, the union and the taxpayer.

 

That's a non-answer. You'll have to do better than that.

Employing someone to work for you also requires coercion. There is intrinsically an authority-based relationship between the capitalist on the one hand and the worker on the other. I have been arguing that, spontaneously, the former party tends to take advantage of the latter. If we can agree that that is true, would it not also follow that a certain amount of societal coercion vis-a-vis the capitalist can either alter or eliminate such exploitation or the social effects thereof, such as poverty (i.e. one coercion to counteract the other, exploitative one)?

 

Leftists are just to stupid.

 

Nearly every union in the US are seeing their power being cut to shreds. They see the lose of power and money they are losing. They want it back. But they are trying to grab it back at the wrong time. You can't force higher wages and benefits on companies and governments when they are fighting for their very existence. We have seen thousands of companies leave the country or go under, trying to compete with low paying countries. We are seeing city after city filing bankruptcy because of wages and benefits promised employees when times were good, but unsustainable now.

We are going through a transition period. Brought on by NAFTA and Free Trade and the banks and it's hurting this country bad. It's brought down wages and benefits and it will bring them down more, especially in state and local governments. Things aren't about to change quickly, but change is coming. As wages and benefits come up in countries like China, Mexico and India and the cost of shipping keeps going up with the price of oil, I think many of these companies will come back.Some are already coming back. But forcing higher pay and benefits on companies now will only chase more away or delay the length of time that companies will come back.

 

You just described America hating leftist loser to a tee.

 

I'm impressed by your intelligence and good grip of English.

 

Though I don't agree, let me just say that I find this more centrist argument a breath of fresh air!

Okay anyhow, concerning your case: why exactly is it that you think we should just passively wait around for the commercial sector to gradually move back into the country? Is the government not capable of actively creating jobs, and thus the according economic growth and improvement of living standards that would render it possible to even address debt issues? Furthermore, is it not possible to simply ban outsourcing? Why, in your view, should it specifically and exclusively be workers who are expected to front the bills brought on by the financialization of the economy, by free trade agreements, and so on? Why need we be one-sidedly dependent on kissing the proverbial asses of the capitalist classes, forever bribing and begging them to PPWWWWEEEEEEAAAAAAZZE bwing ouw jobs back?

 

Absolutely false. Laughably so. NO ONE is coerced into entering a private sector employer/employee contract, thusly, NO ONE can be unwillingly exploited or forced to abide by an employer/employee contract.

You either don't understand, don't respect, or simply abhor individual natural rights and liberty.....and since you're unwilling to spit your wholly unconstitutional, authoritarian bit, I must write you off as irrelevant, and no longer worth my time.

good day, collectivist enemy of everything America was built upon and stands for.

 

If you haven't noticed it's those good paying government jobs with those good paying benefits that's causing so many cities to file bankruptcy, with many more to come. Every state in the union is hurting trying to pay for those government benefits. NYC had to borrow from their pension plan to pay their pension plan. How bad is that?

 

“More Americans work for the government than work in construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities combined,” Moore wrote back April. “Nearly half of the $2.2 trillion cost of state and local governments is the $1 trillion-a-year tab for pay and benefits of state and local employees.” Therefore, it comes as no surprise that so many states and cities cannot pay their bills, Moore concluded.



Eight months later, it appears that his analysis may have been spot-on correct.

“Federal pay rose an average of 1.3 percent for the budget year that ended Sept. 30, according to newly released federal data,” USA Today reports.

By comparison, the wages of private workers rose 1.2 percent during the period, the same rate as state and local government pay growth, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports.

Translation: now is a great time to be a Federal worker.

“Federal workers made an average $75,296 in pay last year, plus $28,323 in medical, pension and other benefits,” a USA Today analysis found.

“That’s about 60 percent more than the average private wage, a difference explained largely by higher education levels and more professional jobs in the federal workforce,” the report adds.

Many would find it odd that, during this time of economic instability, Federal compensation has soared in the past five years. Add to that the fact that the federal government in recent years has hired “several hundred thousand new employees, including many well-paid lawyers and doctors.”

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/sta...-workers-higher-than-they-have-been-in-years/

 

No actually that would be consequential of the Great Recession (lowered incomes leading to lowered government revenues and so forth), which would be the fault of the financial aristocracy.

Do you know how ridiculous that argument is? Applying that same logic to countries would lead to the statement, "America, love it or leave it". The point is that the capitalist dictates the work terms and you know it. Whether one is "willingly" exploited (i.e. willing to endure exploitation to survive) is not the point. The point is that they're exploited. Sure, you can refuse to go along with it. You can always (well, most of the time) leave...leave your job and your income. Does that sound like a real choice to you?

Yeah okay, whatever. Personally, the aspects of America I like don't revolve around exploitation.