By Larry Sand

“All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management.”

The above caveat about government unions – usually known by the kinder and gentler “public employee unions” – was not issued by the Koch Brothers or Donald Trump. The statement was made by none other than progressive icon Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Additionally, George Meany, president of the AFL-CIO for 24 years, once stated, “It is impossible to bargain collectively with the government.” Both men understood that the very nature of government makes it wrong for its leaders to enter into negotiations with any union. When government unions negotiate, they often sit across the table from people they helped put in office with generous campaign contributions. And when these unions go on strike, they walk out on the taxpayer.

In the private sector, if a business is forced to pay its workers more money, those costs are passed on to the consumer. If the cost of a product is raised too high, the purchaser can choose to go elsewhere. Most unions get this and realize they can’t bargain for excessive salaries and perks. But some unions push things too far and ultimately price their members out of a job. An example of the latter is the United Auto Workers, whose exorbitant demands drove car buyers to Japanese models and automakers to produce cars elsewhere, thus sending Detroit down the road to ruin.

But the government unions are always a nightmare for consumers, as they can’t shop elsewhere for services provided by the state, because the government has a monopoly on them. When union negotiators and elected officials agree on exorbitant pay packages and protections for cops, prison guards, firemen and teachers, what can the public do? Call a different fire department if their house is burning down?

There is an exception here with schools, but unless there is a parental choice system in place, where public tax money follows the child, only the well-to-do really have a choice. In exercising that option, they must pay twice, however – in state and local taxes which go to their local public school and tuition payments for the private one.

It’s worth noting that many government union leaders fully understand the conflict of interest. In 1975, Victor Gotbaum, leader of District Council 37 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) in New York City, bragged, “We have the ability, in a sense, to elect our own boss.” Forty-five years later, in 2020, Los Angeles teacher union boss Alex Caputo-Pearl admitted, “We have a unique power – we elect our bosses. It would be difficult to think of workers anywhere else who elect their bosses. We do. We must take advantage of it.”

While all government unions do damage, none is more noxious than the teachers unions because their collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) have been a disaster for students and good teachers alike. The unions don’t treat teachers as professionals, but rather as interchangeable widgets, all of whom are of equal value and competence. To differentiate between effective and ineffective educators as a result of what their students actually learn would necessitate doing away with their fossilized, industrial-style work rules like one-size-fits-all salary scales, not to mention tenure, contractually known as “permanence” and seniority – perennial union mainstays. Many studies have borne out the harm of CBAs to America’s children.

“The Long-run Effects of Teacher Collective Bargaining,” a 2018 study by researchers Michael Lovenheim and Alexander Willen, found that, among men, exposure to a duty-to-bargain law in the first 10 years after passage depresses students’ future annual earnings by $2,134 (3.93 percent), decreases weekly hours worked by 0.42, and reduces employment and labor force participation.

The Lovenheim-Willen study was not the first to detail CBA’s harm to students. In 2007, Stanford professor Terry Moe reported that collective bargaining appears to have a strongly negative impact in larger school districts.

Caroline Hoxby, also a professor at Stanford, made a three-minute video in 2009 in which she explains in plain language how CBAs stifle any management flexibility in determining the best slot for a teacher at a given school, as well as denying schools the opportunity to get rid of underperformers.

Good teachers also are hurt by CBAs. “Wage compression” occurs when the salaries of lower paid teachers are raised above the market rate, with the increase offset by reducing the pay of the most productive ones. “Why strive to become better if I am not going to be compensated for it?” is the attitude of many. Mike Petrilli of the Fordham Institute takes it one step further, claiming CBAs hurt the bottom line of all teachers. According to Petrilli, “Teachers in non-collective bargaining districts actually earn more than their union-protected peers – $64,500 on average versus $57,500.” Petrilli’s study was from 2011, and research from Michael Lovenheim in 2009 and Andrew Coulson in 2010 bore similar results. Also, University of California San Diego professor Augustina Pagalayan reported in 2018 that CBAs do not improve teacher pay.

Barbara Biasi, an assistant Professor of Economics at the Yale School of Management, has studied teacher salaries. She focused on Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s Act 10 in 2011, which all but eliminated collective bargaining for teachers and created a marketplace where school districts could compete for better educators by paying valued teachers more. Among Biasi’s findings is that there is a “34 percent increase in the quality of teachers moving from salary-schedule to individual-salary districts, and a 17 percent decrease in the quality of teachers exiting individual-salary districts.” In fact, about half of Wisconsin’s school districts abandoned their lock-step salary schedules and began to pay teachers for performance, for having advanced math and science skills, taking difficult assignments, etc. 

In these trying times, the teachers unions have been throwing their considerable power around with great abandon. Several studies have shown that Covid-related school shutdowns occurred more frequently in states and municipalities with strong teachers unions. In fact, the American Federation of Teachers, the nation’s second largest teachers union, lobbied the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on – and even proposed language for – the agency’s school-reopening guidance released in February. Quite obviously the lobbying paid off as “in at least two instances, language ‘suggestions’ offered by the union were adopted nearly verbatim into the final text of the CDC document.”

These unions have often used the pandemic to leverage benefits as well. The California Teachers Association, for example, issued a “bargaining advisory” in May of 2020, in which it states, “When exercising a ‘get for the give’ approach to bargaining concessions, locals should consider strengthening or implementing consultation procedures language in the CBA. The union added, “Now is the time to secure (contract) language improvements that we have wanted for some time.”

The teachers unions have also been at the forefront of the move to establish the noxious Critical Race Theory in our k-12 schools. At its latest yearly convention in July, the National Education Association New Business Items (NBI) – proposed projects and actions from the delegates for the union to pursue during the coming year – frequently pushed CRT.

For example, NBI A was adopted, which, among other things has NEA “supporting and leading campaigns that result in increasing the implementation of culturally responsive education, critical race theory, and ethnic (Native people, Asian, Black, Latin(o/a/x), Middle Eastern, North African, and Pacific Islander) Studies curriculum in pre- K-12 and higher education.”

NBI 39 continued the CRT theme and has the union joining forces with two Marxist groups – Black Lives Matter at School and the Zinn Education Project – to push their agenda, which includes providing a study that “critiques empire, white supremacy, anti-Blackness, anti-Indigeneity, racism, patriarchy, cisheteropatriarchy, capitalism, ableism, anthropocentrism, and other forms of power and oppression at the intersections of our society.” 

To support its CRT work, NEA now offers a “Confronting White Nationalism in Schools” toolkit. 

Immediately following NEA’s annual meeting, the American Federation of Teachers held an online conference at which president Randi Weingarten described a “new culture campaign” that some lawmakers (and Fox News) are using to distort history, limit learning and stoke fears about our public schools.” 

She added, “Let’s be clear: critical race theory is not taught in elementary schools or high schools. It’s a method of examination taught in law school and college that helps analyze whether systemic racism exists—and, in particular, whether it has an effect on law and public policy.”  

But if Weingarten really believed that there is no CRT in k-12, why would she have Ibram X. Kendi, probably the most vocal and aggressive CRT proponent in the country, speak at the conference? His talk was touted as, “Hear from Dr. Ibram X. Kendi in this free-ranging discussion with student activists and AFT members on his scholarship and on developing anti-racist mindsets and actions inside and outside classrooms.” 

Perhaps the poster boy/patron saint for teachers unions is Bob Chanin, 41-year general counsel for NEA. At the union’s  yearly meeting in 2009, Chanin gave a legendary talk announcing his retirement, and explained why NEA and its affiliates are such effective advocates. “Despite what some among us would like to believe, it is not because of our creative ideas. It is not because of the merit of our positions. It is not because we care about children. And it is not because we have a vision of a “great public school for every child.” NEA and its affiliates are effective advocates because we have power….” 

Chanin is correct, and it is a power they never should have been given, and it should now be taken away. Yes, it’s time to abolish the teachers unions.

To that end, Tim Draper, a venture capitalist from California, is trying to put an initiative on the ballot in 2022 that would abolish all public employee unions in the state. Draper maintains that “…some public employee unions have used their money and power to protect bad employees engaged in unspeakable conduct and others who have completely failed at their jobs.”

What makes contemporary “journalism” so bad is not its lack of objectivity and honesty. What makes it so dangerous is that most people THINK and ASSUME that it’s objective and honest.

The meme says it right. At one time, journalists reported facts and left you to decide for yourself what to think. Today, only facts are reported which serve a particular narrative; when necessary, facts are outright fudged. If busted, journalists barely even acknowledge or apologize for their dishonesty.

Imagine becoming a doctor and being told to lie to your patients. Telling them that they don’t have a disease when you know they do; or telling them they do have a disease when you know they don’t. It would be madness. And if you went to tell one of today’s journalists — well, they would only report what would serve the “woke”, contemporary Communist and government-managed view of events.

Most people have not caught up to the reality that the people we call journalists are actually liars. How do we know this? Because MSNBC and CNN and CBS News and ABC News and yes, frankly, Fox News are all still in business.

A liar does not lie every time he speaks. The same applies to what we call a journalist. Just because a journalist is saying it does not make it true — or false. But the point remains: How can you trust a journalist who claims to be honest, objective and strictly fact-based about anything? Remember during the George Floyd riots. Journalists actually stood with cameras facing them, stating, “No violence here. The demonstrations are one-hundred percent peaceful.” As looters and violent rioters attacked innocent people in the background. Even when faced with violence generated by the terrorist organization Black Lives Matter that could not be evaded, the people we call journalists continued to refer to racist organization terrorist activities as “peaceful demonstrators,” as if repeating it in a mantra-like fashion would make it true.

I suspect that most people by now do at least sense the truth of what I’m writing. But most of them will reply defensively with something like, “Well, where am I supposed to get my news? Should I keep my head in the sand?” Earth to the defensive: YOU’RE NOT GETTING NEWS FROM PEOPLE WHO LIE. I will grant you that finding objective truth in a world where millions of dollars are spent on evading it is a serious problem. But for God’s sake, stop kidding yourself that what you’re getting from these highly paid propagandists has anything to do with objective truth, other than occasionally by accident.

Journalism schools used to teach the principle: Consider the source. Now we must apply that principle to the journalists themselves. Because they are not journalists; not even close.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

Elton John is not totally retiring, but refuses to play in the U.S. He says the U.S. has gone crazy politically and wants no part of it. Does he mean the Communist-fascist President, the bought-and-sold Congress, the intimidated Supreme Court, the rigged elections, the medical and green fascism, the stifling of free speech, and the politicized FBI weaponized against political opposition and our own citizens?

Nope. He says Florida isn’t permitting doctors to treat gay people. Of course, this is false. It’s disinformation. It’s the same Elton John who begged people to get the so-called vaccine back in 2021. Will an apology be forthcoming?

35 years ago, I had the opportunity to meet Elton John at a private party. Upon my request, he played Candle in the Wind for myself and party guests. It’s a great memory, but I so wish this talented performer had kept his mouth shut about his love of totalitarian rule.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

When someone “ghosts” you, they obviously no longer wish to communicate. But it’s impossible NOT to communicate. By ghosting you, they convey that while they may have liked you in some respects, they also disliked you, and repressed that dislike. The repression festered and they finally had to slam the door shut.

It’s startling and hurtful when you’re ghosted. But it’s also revealing. The person you thought liked or loved you never really did–or did, until he didn’t. It’s best to absorb the hurt and move on. You don’t need someone in your life who doesn’t want you. And if you respect yourself, you’ll know they lost something good, and didn’t deserve it.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

“The radicals are setting fire to our Constitution, abolishing free speech, attacking religious belief, erasing our borders, corrupting our elections – and we have corrupt elections – and trying to impose their blasphemous creed and woke communism on every American man, woman, and child. And that’s what they’re doing, and they’re trying so hard. We’ve never had a situation like is going on right now in our country, but the people in this room will never let them do it. They’ll never let them get away with it … Our nation is teetering on the edge of tyranny.”

— President Donald Trump, yesterday

If you would rather hate Donald Trump than face the objective truth of his words, something is deeply wrong with you.

There is little future for ignoring Lord Montgomery’s first rule of war —

Rule 1, on page 1 of the book of war, is: ‘Do not march on Moscow’…[Rule 2] is: ‘Do not go fighting with your land armies in China.’

Speech,1962

America does not have a justice system. It’s organized crime. Only WAY more dangerous. It has false moral credibility and almost unlimited military and economic power, which no underground mobsters ever enjoyed. America was originally a free country — literally a wilderness, at first — and grew into the greatest, most prosperous nation in human history, lifted by freedom and the moral strength of a free people.

Now we are an awful mess, because we let our government grow into the biggest monster ever seen. We allowed parasites to acquire power on the backs of productive geniuses and average people who worked for a living.

The grotesque narcissists and sociopaths in power (absolutely BOTH parties) are the byproducts of a malignancy, created by a government wildly out of control and a media-intellectual establishment as dishonest and vicious as anything ever seen. America — actually the whole free world — has cancer.

Cancer can be defeated, but it takes unrelenting force and courage, as any cancer survivor knows. You have to eradicate the malignancy. You don’t compromise with it. Remember that, as more and more of your freedoms go away.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

Being humble means having a low or modest estimate of one’s character or importance. It means selflessness and viewing others as more important than oneself. This is widely regarded as a virtue.

Humility as a Core Concept in Religion

Humans are supposed to feel humble before God and burdened with original sin. God is credited with creating the earth and all the creatures on it. He is said to be omniscient, totally moral, all-loving, and omnipotent. He can violate the laws of nature through such actions as the “virgin birth,” miracle cures of disease, and bringing back people from death. In contrast, humans are inferior to God in all these respects and must be obedient to God in order to get into heaven and avoid hell. When humans sin, to be saved they must beg God for forgiveness.

Given human inferiority, religion logically views pride or self-valuing for one’s virtues and achievements as the worst of all sins, the cancer of the soul. Practically, pride “goeth before the fall.” Morally, pride is considered unjust because, by implication, it puts humans on the same plane as God, though they are obviously inferior. Many decades ago, I saw a light-hearted movie in which a woman was talking to a friend and said how much she loved her husband because he was so modest. The friend replied, “Well, he has a lot to be modest about.”  Religion views this to be the case for the whole human race.

Christian virtue is largely based on the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount. The overall themes are selflessness and obedience. In the end “The first shall be last and the last shall be first.” “The meek shall inherit the earth,” although, of course, in reality, they never do.

Here are some common examples that have been proposed as ways to practice humility and thereby avoid the sin of pride.

• Listening, asking for advice, learning from others
• Thanking people for their help, giving earned credit to others
• Belittling or denying credit for one’s own contributions, especially if one works with others
• Confessing one’s own weaknesses or flaws
• Consideration of others, politeness
• Giving to charity
• Graciousness when losing a competition

Actually, such examples of humility do not involve self-belittlement but rather commitment to reason and justice and thus make one worthy of self-respect.

Pride: Sum of All Virtues

A newborn knows nothing. Starting at birth, learning things from others, starting with parents and then teachers, is necessary for survival. As one grows, if one wants to thrive, one needs to proactively gain and actively seek knowledge throughout one’s life. Thanking or acknowledging others who enhanced your life in some way (i.e., gratitude) is giving them their due. This applies even to those who are not living. For example, we owe a tremendous debt to Greek philosophers such as Aristotle, the Founding Fathers of America, and many others who have helped make the world a better place. Pretending to be a know-it-all is to harm oneself. Imagine, for example, the foolishness of trying to run a business while refusing to listen to the ideas of experts, capable employees, and others. To be just, give credit to others where credit is due.

Learning from others does not negate the reality of your own discoveries and achievements, including the hard work involved in processing and applying what you learned and putting forth the efforts needed to attain goals. Making the most of one’s freedom to think and act is a source of earned pride. If one adopts pro-life virtues such as rationality, integrity, honesty, productiveness, and justice, and gains the benefits they make possible, one deserves to feel proud. Aristotle said pride was the sum of all virtues. Real, earned pride is a healthy internal state based on your thinking, actions, and their consequences. At the same time, be proud of being just by giving others credit where credit is due.

Real pride is not based on just aspirations and is not the same as boasting or trying to dominate every conversation. The purpose of boasting is to impress others. Using others’ approval as your standard dooms you to dependency and endless self-doubt. After all, there is virtually always somebody, somewhere in the world, at some time, who in some way knows more and has achieved more than you. So what? That does not negate what you have achieved, because that is based on the choices you make, i.e., using your free will to think and act.

What if you are asked by others about what you have achieved or how good you are at something? Ask them exactly what they want to know and then tell them the truth. Give them concrete examples. Neither embellish your achievements nor deny your limitations or your actual skills.

Having some flaw, such as ignorance of certain facts or making an honest mistake, is not necessarily proof that you are fundamentally no good, provided you take steps to acknowledge and correct any errors. Irrationality, the refusal to use reason or take reality seriously or to engage in deliberate dishonesty, will promote deserved humility.

Consideration and politeness are based on the fact that other people have rights and values too; you are not the center of the universe. Narcissists try to live in a “me-only” world. This makes real friendship and intimacy impossible.

The Role of Charity in a Rational Life

What about charity? Some people in life do better than others, sometimes due to their own faults and sometimes not. You may feel empathy for some of the less fortunate and the less able. But if you are an honest person, you must hold in mind that you did not cause others’ problems, such as through dishonesty. And you certainly did not cause slavery, as evil as it was, and could not support every poor person in the world. That would make you selfless. If you are selfless and have no personal values, you are not a person at all. That would be humility.

What about donating to a non-profit? There are tens of thousands of possibilities. Start by asking: what is important to you personally? Is there any group or organization that you think is doing something that has personal meaning, something that is a value to you? Then consider what degree of involvement you want and can afford and act accordingly.

If you lose in an honest competition, say a game, congratulate your opponent for their achievement because it is just– they earned it. Sometimes you can learn from them.

Be Proud – When You Have Earned The Right To Do So

Humility, looking down on what you have achieved is nothing to be proud of. It is a negation of your right to your own life. Life is a process of setting and pursuing goals in order to attain values and thereby achieve happiness. To enhance happiness, do things to make you proud. Never accept unearned guilt for your honest achievements and virtues.

Edwin A. Locke