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[RedKing]

You know what gets me hot? Liberal interpretations of the Constitution. Oh yeah baby, cite international law as a precedent again....


On a side note, how will Clarence Thomas function now without Scalia's hand up his ass?

[Powder Miner]

Oh yeah baby, cite international law as a precedent again....

*screams*

[Loud Whispers]

Oh yeah baby, cite international law as a precedent again....

*screams*

I love the way you legislate slowly

[Frumple]

Oh yeah baby, cite international law as a precedent again....

*screams*

So is that the (entirely too) happy screaming that annoys the neighbors or the other kind that gets them calling the police? Considering the discussion it could be either...

[Powder Miner]

The kind that gets them calling the police, since I'm largely right of the aisle
(well, a libertarian, but hey)

[Frumple]

That just makes it forbidden fruit ♫

Last time I checked the right side of the aisle's at least as into that stuff as the left, if not as open about it. The second half of your statement doesn't follow from the first

[Powder Miner]

The problem is that "liberal interpretation of the Constitution" usually means "finding some way to subvert the spirit if not the letter of the Constitution", with the exception of certain social issues that not even a conservative Supreme Court is capable of doing anything about, and it's the liberals especially who try to screw around with the First Amendment (*cough* Equal air time *couch*), and if I were to jack off to any part of the Constitution it would be the First Amendment.

Liberal screwing-around with the Constitution tends to apply more federally too -- it's at least usually left to the states so there's at least SOME place to go if you don't approve of conservative screwery, whereas you're a tad bit more screwed on the liberal end because the liberal end is typically much more for federal centralization. One could try to point to national security BSery, but let's be real: when it comes to Congress, the Dems are every bit as bad about that as the Republicans, and the executive branch just isn't listening to the courts, where the conservative judges actually aren't unanimous in favor of PATRIOT-style stuff anyway.

[Bauglir]

I dunno. Scalia was one of the biggest proponents of reading things into the Constitution that aren't there. He explicitly argued that moral beliefs alone constituted an adequate basis for legislation restricting a person's rights, for example.

[Powder Miner]

Oh, I won't argue Scalia having been on the restrictive end of conservatism. I'm just more scared of the kind of replacement Obama would pick, since Obama is hardly a shining champion of political liberties.
(That and annoyed about the new fate of that union case. I greatly greatly dislike coercing people to pay for a union they have no intention of being a part of, and in general I feel unions have far too much coercive power.)

[Flying Dice]

That's because unions have gone from being tools for the weak to leverage their individual power against the strong to one more institution which piles power onto those who already possess it.

Where I work, you flat-out can't bid for any decent jobs unless you're in the union, and even if you don't join you lose $20 from every paycheck just because it might theoretically advocate for you in the future.

[mainiac]

People lose money without a say in it all the time but it's only when it's unions doing it that suddenly people care.  I used to deliver pizzas, I had to pay for company shirts and hats to wear while I was doing it.  That was the cost of getting my job.  But when a union is bargaining for a higher wage without your consent suddenly it's super sad.

Most wage negotiations are inherently between unequal parties.  You have to pick between people getting paid less then the fair price of labor, unions bargaining for a price with an individual employer or governments setting a price by law.

[Flying Dice]

I'd suggest rereading my initial post.

I'm not complaining outright about being stuck with low-level positions as a non-union member; that's just a cost of working in a sector which is highly unionized, and I'll unionize wherever I end up working once I have my Master's and accreditation. I'm not complaining about being barred from working full-time or from getting overtime hours, because in the end this is just a stopgap to help make ends meet, not a career. I'm complaining about the union taking a hefty sum from the paychecks of part-time employees for the theoretical provision of a service which few will ever need or elect to use. I'm complaining about unions becoming tools for senior members to control and extort junior members instead of tools for employees to combat bad employers.

I'm complaining about unions for the same reasons that I complain about authoritarian SJWs more than neonazis: they should damn well know better and be better than that. I expect exploitative practices from employers just as I expect disgusting social and political views from neonazis, so it doesn't surprise or alarm me when they behave like utter scum; they were born from base desires and reflect their nature.

[Powder Miner]

But you signed up for the job, and both sides of the arrangement (you, the business) agreed to it willingly.
Unions in this situation are a third side forcing both other sides (the worker, the business) to their terms in order to gain themselves some money.
And it's still negotiations between inherently unequal parties... just, the worker without the union gets the short end of the stick either way. At least companies don't tithe you -- sure they'll pull moneygrabs with the shirts and hats, that sort of thing, but in the end the companies are paying you -- they have to. They stand to lose and they stand to gain, but they hire you because they need workers and you agree because you need a job.
With unions, ESPECIALLY public sector unions, they stand to lose nothing by pushing, pushing, and continuing to push, and when the government backs 'em up and provides the muscle the situation becomes even more unequal: everyone not in the union has to suck it up.

[smirk]

I'm complaining about the union taking a hefty sum from the paychecks of part-time employees for the theoretical provision of a service which few will ever need or elect to use. I'm complaining about unions becoming tools for senior members to control and extort junior members instead of tools for employees to combat bad employers.

Bargaining fees aren't necessarily about rarely-used services, but also the mere fact that a union shop will pay more and have better working conditions for everyone whether they're union or not. I suppose it varies from place to place; my workplace's union has pretty reasonable bargaining fees and they put a lot of effort into wages and basic worker rights. The fact that some unions are pretty terrible shouldn't be a reason to undermine the stability of all unions everywhere, basically.

[Flying Dice]

Amusingly, the one time I had to pay for a uniform, I was glad to do so because it was both relatively inexpensive and much, much better-suited to the work than anything I could have provided myself.

And yeah, I know that it's just as dangerous to try to tear down the established norm of unions, but it pisses me right off that they've turned into the same shit that they were created to combat.