-By Warner Todd Huston
Imagine a fast food place that makes you buy a cheeseburger when you want a chicken sandwich. Oh, they don’t mind if you buy the chicken sandwich, too, mind you, but you are forced to purchase a cheeseburger every time you walk through the doors whether you want it or not. Seems a bit like a rip off, not to mention unAmerican, to force you to buy something you don’t want, doesn’t it? Well, this is unionism. Only unions prevent you from even having a job in your chosen profession in the first place to have the cash to buy your chicken sandwich unless you follow their rules. That’s forced labor for other’s benefit.
We used to call that a form of enslavement… now it’s called union membership.
Case in point, teachers unions and teacher’s support for California’s Proposition 8 — the sanctity of marriage law now embroiling California in such turmoil.
During this debate over the definition of marriage in the Golden State, the California Teachers Association (CTA) has wasted $1.25 million of its member’s dues money to advocate for gay marriage and to destroy Prop 8.
Recently, the Prop 8 supporters lost a fight in the Courts to keep the names of donors to the effort secret. Gay advocates rejoiced that the horrible people that would donate money to the gay marriage ban would be “outed” for all to see.
It turns out, though, that records are showing that individual teachers have donated more money to support the gay marriage ban than to support the defeat of the proposition. NPR Reports:
Teachers, aides and counselors in California public school systems gave about $2 to support the marriage ban for every $1 they gave to oppose it. The educators gave some $450,000 in individual contributions to advocates supporting the ban and about $210,000 to those opposing it, according to the NPR analysis.
So here we see teachers giving at a two to one ratio to support the idea that gays should not be legally allowed to claim marriage under the law. Yet, the union has wasted $1.25 million of those same teachers dues money to aid gays in this fight. By their donations, teachers are repudiating the very organization that claims to represent them.
This is staggering.
What this shows is that the union is not representing the majority of its own members. The CTA is advocating the exact opposite of what its members want. Realize that the union is lavishly wasting the dues money of its own membership on things that same membership seems to oppose. Also realize that these members do not have the option of telling the union that they do not want to have their money wasted on efforts they oppose. Members are forced to sit silent as their money is forcibly spent against their wishes.
How American in spirit is an organization that takes away all choice and freedom from the individual? Where is that American spirit of liberty and personal freedom when a group that holds power over an individual citizen’s job dictates so much of his life, forces him to pay their way in life, and takes away the fruits of his own labor to support their pet causes and ideals?
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, Human Events Magazine, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
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