California is a state in crisis.  With a projected budget deficit of $21 billion for this fiscal year alone, coupled with what are already some of the highest individual and corporate tax rates in the nation (not to mention onerous environmental regulations), there doesn't seem to be anywhere for the state to turn for additional financing.  And with California's bond rating now the lowest in the nation, the Democratic-controlled Legislature is going to have a difficult time persuading private investors to purchase bonds to raise capital.  Those that are purchased will have to be guaranteed at ruinous interest rates and terms to entice potential buyers to take the risk that the state will end up defaulting on its obligations, rates and terms that will be provided at the expense of  the average California taxpayer.  Five of the six budget initiatives on the ballot yesterday were soundly defeated (and rightly so), and the one that did pass involved preventing some state officials from receiving pay increases while there is a budget deficit.  So what is the state going to do?

I predict that within the next couple months, California will be requesting a bailout from the Federal government.  I can't think of any other politically viable option for the state government officials to take.  And I believe that the Fed will decide, as it has with certain banks, insurers and the auto makers, that the state is "too big to fail."  Think about it.  California produced an estimated 13% of the entire GNP of the United States in 2006.  If considered alone, it would rank as approximately the 7th largest economy in the world.  If the government can claim that the failure of AIG could have catastrophic consequences, surely this would dwarf those repercussions.  By the standards they have already put forth during these bailouts, it would be impossible for them not to step in.

Note that in the previous paragraph, I stated that I could not think of any other "politically viable" options.  That's not to say that there isn't something that can be done.   The best answer in my mind is to simply let it go into bankruptcy, if that's where it's headed.  I don't believe California is "too big to fail."  I believe that if it is going to crash and burn, let it.  California is often cited as a bellwether state, and rightly so.  Let it continue to serve this role.  Let's let California be an example of what happens when a Democrat-controlled Legislature spends far beyond its means, both in good economic times and bad.  An example of what happens when companies and wealthy individuals flee the state to escape punitive taxation and excessive regulation and litigation.  An example of what happens when government is beholden to unions and continually panders to their demands, at the expense of the rest of its constituents.  An example of what happens when the state mandates increased government services at taxpayer expense.  Maybe, just maybe, the people of the other 49 states will start to wake up and see that California is once again leading the nation, by showing exactly where the Obama administration's current policies are leading us.

People always assume that one of the worst things that can be said about a legislator is that they have not sponsored any successful legislation.  I disagree.  In fact, I am here to cry out for an entire session of any legislature that does not produce one single new law or regulation.  Sound crazy?  Let's see if I can clarify this position.

The best government to increase personal liberties and protect individual rights is limited government.  The framers of the original U.S. Constitution understood that.  In under 5000 words, not including the amendments such as the Bill of Rights, that original body of lawmakers set out a workable framework that would allow its citizens maximum liberty with minimum governmental interference.  The most remarkable thing about it is the emphasis on negation; it spends as much time telling the government what it is not permitted to do as it does listing its mandates.  That's because those that drafted the Constitution understood something fundamental about both laws and human nature.

Laws, by their very definition, must proscribe the liberty of some portion of the citizenry.  The more laws on the books, the less free every member of the society becomes.  Of course, some laws are necessary, to insure the rights and freedoms of all against the tyranny of the few, and some might be judged to produce desirable outcomes (for example, the creation of OSHA) that outweigh their intrusiveness.  But neither of these statements change the fact that laws by their very nature restrict and constrain those subject to them.

Human nature, however, is to try to use government to right perceived wrongs and eliminate undesirable practices.  While admirable in theory, most often in practice this comes down to limiting the freedom of all for the benefit of few.  It is also human nature to try to ban through force of law an idea or behavior that the person promoting the new law dislikes.  Think about it, how often do you see Congresspeople and Senators arguing passionately for a law that would only limit their own freedom?  When we say "there ought to be a law..." we are almost always motivated by the actions of another.

Also a part of human nature is the desire to be seen as doing something positive.  Everyone wants their representative or senator to fight for their best interests.  These legislators, in turn, want to be able to show the people back home that they are fighting.  Unfortunately, the primary bellweather of success in this area is number of laws passed that benefit their home district and the amount of money they can get routed to their home state.  People can see laws, they can see money, and lawmakers can point to these things when the time comes to get reelected.  "See," they say, "I'm working for you."  The problem is that for every law that helps one area, another is harmed.  For every dollar one state gets, another state loses out on that dollar.  Plus, every law must be backed by enforcement, or it is worthless.  This ends up costing the taxpayer more of his freedom, in the form of more money from his or her pocket spent by the government.

That is why I'd like to see, just once, at any level, a legislature that was committed to passing absolutely nothing.  In fact, my ideal would be a legislature that would take up the set of esablished laws and commit to abolishing or revising all of the outdated, duplicated, vague, wasteful or pointless laws currently on the books.  It may not be glamourous, but if they really want to help the people they represent, this step back could presage a huge leap forward.

What's the best way to see if a government has too much power over the lives of the governed?  Simple.  Look at the lengths to which members of that government will go to stay in power.  The recent defection of Sen. Arlen Specter and the current troubles of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi are good examples of this principle.

Senator Specter, a thirty year GOP veteran from Pennsylvania, decided to switch parties.  While the senator has always been a moderate (to put it kindly) Republican, his primary motivation for the switch had nothing to do with his feeling unwelcome in the Republican party, as he claimed in his speech announcing the change of alligiance.  It had much more to do with former Congressman Pat Toomey's decision to challenge him in the Republican primary.  You see, Toomey was leading Specter in the polls by a fairly wide margin.  Specter made his switch because he felt he stood a greater chance at reelection if he switched parties and only had to face Toomey in the general election.  Rather than make his case to the Republican party that had supported him all those years, and let the chips fall where they may, he chose to follow the course of his own self-interest. 

Now Speaker Pelosi, after loudly calling for investigations on enhanced interrogation techniques, finds herself on the defensive about what she knew about these techniques and when she knew about them.  In a desperate attempt to salvage her own position, she has gone from the bald faced lie that she knew nothing about them, to tortured word twisting about being briefed but not being told the techniques were actually being used, to blaming the Bush administration (always a favorite tactic).  Finally, she blamed the CIA for intentionally misleading her and the American public.  Which didn't sit well with Cia Director Leon Panetta, newly appointed by the Obama Administration, who fired back refuting the charges.  In her zeal to demonize the previous administration, and her quest to retain her own power, she may end up losing her position as Speaker.  But to her it was worth being possibly branded a liar to continue holding the reins of power in the House.

Power is something that almost everyone wants to some degree.  Even the desire for wealth is ultimately about power, the power to control your own life.  In a system with limited government interference, as the Founding Fathers intended for our nation, this quest is what drives people to work toward their dreams, whether those be fame, money, or the betterment of society as a whole.  Government service was a necessary sacrifice that people of good conscience had to make to allow their fellow citizens the liberty of pursue their goals.  It was not intended to be an end unto itself.  But the more intrusion by government, the further from that original ideal we stray.  Then staying in power becomes more important than actually serving the people.  Does anyone really believe that anyone in Washington regards their position in government as a sacrifice?

We need to push back against this trend toward more intrusive government.  We need to remind the politicians that they are not entitled to their positions.  They are making a sacrifice to insure the well-being of the nation as a whole, not creating their own little fiefdom in Washington.  If they can't see this, vote them out, no matter how long they've "served."  Otherwise, much like what has happened with the unions and the auto industry, we both end up losing.

In an earlier post, I discussed the impact of a ruling by a judge effectively shutting off the water to California's Central Valley, affecting thousands of farmers and farm workers, ostensibly to save the habitat of a small fish.  In that article, I discussed this ruling mainly from the perspective of unions.  Here, I would like to deal with the other disturbing actor in this ridiculous charade: radical environmentalists.

Let me be clear.  I believe in protecting the environment.  I fondly remember being taken on camping trips to Yosemite as a child, enjoying the beauty of the scenery, the abundant wildlife, and the flourishing plant life.  I recycle, because why waste resources if it isn't necessary.  But when it comes down to impact on a single species, endangered or not, against the lives of hundreds or thousands of human beings, I'll side with humanity almost every time.  These radical environmentalists, however, are against the construction of anything that might have any sort of adverse impact on anything else in the world.

 This leads to some ridiculous contradictions when one of their goals runs face first into another.  My favorite example of this is wind power.  We are constantly being lectured that we need to reduce our carbon footprint and use more renewable resources, like solar or wind power.  Yet, just a few years ago, when a wind farm was being proposed offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, environmentalists were in opposition, as the blades of the wind turbines posed a risk to birds.  Another is nuclear power, undoubtedly the lowest emission way to generate large-scale power.  But how many new nuclear power plants have been approved in the last 25 years in the U.S.?  None, due to environmentalists concerns over safety and disposal of spent fuel.  Never mind that France, so often admired by the left, generates almost 90% of its domestic power requirements through nuclear power.

The problem is, every single action a person takes impacts the overall environment in some way.  A balance must be achieved that weighs the benefits to people to impact on the local environment.  A great example of this is the proposed Carlsbad, California desalination plant.  This plant will be able to supply almost 10% of San Diego's water needs once it is up and running.  It has achieved California Coastal Commission approval (not an easy thing to do here in California).  It will do such things as use solar power to reduce its electricity demands from other sources, and preserve and restore 55.4 acres of wetland habitat surrounding the plant (among the 22 conditions required by the Coastal Commission prior to approval).  Yet it is still facing lawsuits by such groups as Surfrider Foundation for the amount of fish that will be killed by the plant's water intake system.  Not rare or endangered fish, either, just fish.

In this case, and the Central Valley case, the choice is clear.  The lives and livelihood of thousands of people balanced against a fairly unconvincing environmental concern.  Sorry to disappoint all you radical environmentalists out there.  In these cases, I'd rather hug people than trees. 

Senate Bills 773 and 778, which comprise the so called "Cybersecurity Act of 2009," amount to yet another attempted power grab by the current liberal administration.  These bills would have the effect of creating a new bureaucracy, reporting directly to the president, with sweeping powers to monitor and control usage of the Internet in any vaguely-defined emergency.   This new "Office of  National Cybersecurity Advisor," in conjunction with the Department of Commerce would have wide latitude to shut down "critical infrastucture" by disconnecting them from the Internet, if they are deemed to be vulnerable to cyber attack.  They would also be able to monitor private networks of these "critical infrastructure" companies.  Oh, and these companies are defined as things like power grids, banks, and telecommunications.

This kind of broad authority to monitor the habits of Americans by the government is astounding in its audacity.  What does "telecommunications" mean, for example?  Are we talking about the phone and cable company's internal networks, or the people that use their services?  What about VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol)?  What about email or instant messaging?  Yet this is something that is not being discussed on every news outlet.  Can you imagine if a Republican president authorized some kind of intrusive spying on the actions of ordinary Americans?  Oh, wait.  That's right, the Bush administration allowed monitoring of certain phone calls under certain strict limits and was bashed for it all over the MSM for weeks.  That these were suspected terrorists, and that the calls were going overseas, didn't seem to matter.  Now we have an administration proposing that we allow widespread domestic monitoring, under no limits except the ability to twist the wording of the law, at any time, for any reason.  Where is the outcry from those same networks bashing Bush for "domestic spying?"

Of course it doesn't exist.  Once again the liberal double standard rears its ugly head.  If done by a liberal administration, it is only in the best interest of the people.  The possibility of abuse (probability in this case, given the broad mandate) is dismissed out of hand.  The liberal elitist belief that only they know what's best for everyone else is all that matters.  This is also just the first step on the slippery slope to controlling yet another outlet of free speech.  Incremental losses of liberty like this need to be fought, before they become fundamental losses of liberty.

I read a brief article on the new hate crimes legislation and decided to present a more detailed analysis of why I think they are pointless and even counterproductive to society.  First, I will delve into why they were ever thought to be necessary.  Then I will discuss why the left is enamored with this kind of legislation.

Hate crimes laws originated during the Civil Rights movement.  They were put into place as a way for ensuring justice was being done.  There were many areas, particularly in the South, where local law enforcement (all white) would simply ignore crimes against blacks by whites.  Obviously, this is a miscarriage of justice.  There needed to be a way for federal law enforcement to intervene in these cases, and hate crimes legislation was the vehicle chosen.  A better choice would have been a federal law mandating investigation and arrest of local law enforcement for not equally applying the law, but unfortunately hate crimes legislation was used.

The problem with hate crimes laws is that they are effectively thought crimes.  To be convicted under a "hate crimes" statute, the prosecutor must prove that the primary motivation for the crime is that the victim was targeted because he or she was a member of a special "protected group."  But this sort of bias is fairly hard to prove conclusively.  Unless the perpetrator is a card-carrying member of the KKK, and the victim was black, the argument will all boil down to psychological analysis of the criminal in question.

But even more important than that, the conditions that may once have provided the impetus to create these laws no longer exists.  A single cop might be a racist, or a group of cops homophobes, but an entire police department as well as the district attorney's office?  I find that hard to accept.  Plus, police departments are now integrated, with people of both sexes and every race, creed, and belief system.  Can you imagine a police department ignoring a crime because they disapproved of the victim?  That would be national news and the weight of every government agency, plus public opinion, would fall on those officers like a ton of bricks.

So what do these laws do?  Nothing.  Look at the name of this new proposed legislation, the "Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009."  This would seem to imply that somehow this legislation would have helped in the Matthew Shepard case.  What it doesn't say is that the perpetrators of that crime are serving life sentences in prison, without any sort of "hate crimes" law needed.  So where is the driving need for this type of law?

That driving need is in the core of the liberal ideology.   By enacting this type of legislation, you create protected groups.  By their very nature, protected groups will then see themselves as victims.  Liberals need people to feel like victims so they can justify further intrusion into people's lives by government.  It also divides people by reinforcing the differences between groups.  Liberals need that so they can appear to be helping one group against another.  We would be much closer to Dr. King's dream that people "will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character" if the type of liberal arrogance exemplified in hate crimes legislation were stopped.

I've been fascinated by the storm of controversy and liberal invective surrounding Miss California Carrie Prejean.  Now that Trump has stepped in and said she can keep her crown, I'd like to take a moment to discuss the whole issue of free speech and why the left needs a reminder of just what it means.

The right to free speech is perhaps the most important right guaranteed to the American people by the Bill of Rights.  It is essential to our discourse on the path our society will take.  And it has been under assault for a long time.  The nature of that attack is the movement known as political correctness, which is what Miss Prejean ran afoul of with her comment on gay marriage.  Never mind that her answer reflected the beliefs of the president, the majority of voters in California, or the majority of people nationwide.  A small, vocal minority decided it was offended and immediately moved to penalize her for speaking her mind.

The problem is that we do not have a Constitutional right to not be offended.  In fact, the reason for the provision is so that people who say offensive things are protected.  If a statement offends no one, there really is no basis for protecting it.  Only speech that someone might find offensive needs to be backed with the force of law.  But the law of political correctness demands that anyone who deviates from a specific group's defined position must be punished (for another example of this, remember NOW's reaction to Sarah Palin?).

There is a tendency on the left to want all of the rights but none of the responsibilities or consequences.  This is the case with free speech.  They believe that they should be allowed to say anything they like, but they do not want to hear anything that may run counter to their own beliefs.  They label anyone who doesn't believe as they do as a racist, or a bigot, or a homophobe, and try to personally destroy that person.  They shout down opposing views in an effort to silence the message.  This is a classic intimidation tactic directed not so much at the person involved, but at the rest of us.  "Don't speak out if your opinion might be unpopular in some quarters, or you'll be next" is the message that they want to send.  And it often works because, at heart, Americans in general are a kindhearted people, who do not want to harm or offend others and so many of them go along with the liberals and censor their own speech.

I have to say, the gay community wasted a golden PR opportunity.  If one gay rights group had stood up and said, "While we disagree with her position, we absolutely stand by her in support of her right to speak her mind and we condemn those personally attacking her," they would have won some friends among those kindhearted Americans out there.  But instead, they either stayed silent or allowed Perez Hilton and his ilk to be their de facto mouthpiece, spewing his hateful vitriol to anyone who would listen.  That will damage their movement by turning more mainstream Americans against them.  It's also worth noting that almost no one on the right called for punishment of Perez for the hateful things he said.  Same goes for Janeane Garofalo, with her comments on the Tea Parties.  There was disagreement, and disapproval, but not the kind of personal attacks we see from the left.

This bullying tactic of the left only continues to work when people are afraid to speak out against it.  We need to come together as a nation and remember the words of Voltaire, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."  We need to stand up to the bullies, tell them we won't be silent, and speak our minds without fear.  We need to marginalize them and stop giving in to their tactics.  That's why Prejean's answer was so important.  It reminds people that we must say what is in our hearts and minds and not self-censor for fear of hurting someone's feelings.

Just speaking my mind.

It's fascinating how successfully the left has branded the Republicans "the party of no."  They've managed to change the focus from what we are for to what we are against, and in economically difficult times, being labeled an obstructionist is naturally a detriment.  It gives the appearance of not wanting to help those who are truly struggling.  This accusation of uncaring indifference is then further contrasted with the sweeping changes already implemented in the Obama administration's first 100 days and the proposals and policies still to come.  Obama and his cronies come off as good guys ("At least they're trying something!"), while we are portrayed as obstacles to be overcome.  This could partially explain the president's still fairly acceptable approval ratings, even in the face of increasing public discontent with his individual policies.  But this situation also reminds me of a couple of instances from my childhood.

When I was five, my family and I went to the nearby department store (I can't remember which store; it's been a long time since I was five).  I, of course, very quickly managed to break away from my parents and head directly for the toy section.  While I was basking in this wonderous monument to my unadulterated greed, I came across a bag of marbles that had broken open and spilled onto the base of the counter.  They were beautiful, clear glass with multicolored spirals right through the center.  I sorted through them for awhile, looking at the varied colors and patterns, until I heard my parents walking along the toy aisles, calling my name.

I got up and just couldn't resist taking a handful of marbles and putting them in my pocket.  After all, the bag was broken.  The store couldn't sell these, so why shouldn't I just take them?  I was sure it wouldn't be any problem.  But as we climbed into the car to head home, my parents heard the marbles in my pocket clinking against each other.  They made me show them what I had taken, and then almost immediadely decided what to do.

I was walked back into the store between my parents, straight to the Customer Service desk, where my father asked to speak to the manager.  When the manager came over, I was terrified.  My father turned to me and told me, "I want you to explain to the manager what you did, return those marbles and apologize...right this minute."  Crying, I did as I was told.  As we walked out, my father turned and also apologized to the manager, and told him this would never happen again.  He was right; it never did.

The other story happened when I was six.  I was walking home from school, and saw my mom walking up the street to meet me.  I rushed over to see her, not paying any attention to the fact that I had to cross the street.  Not bothering to wait for the crossing guards, I ran across the street.  Luckily, there were no cars coming and I made it across alright.  But before I could rush down to walk home with my mother, the crossing guard, a girl in fifth or sixth grade I guess, grabbed my arm.  She proceded to lecture me about how dangerous what I had just done was and told me not to ever do it again.  Then, she waited (still holding my arm) until my mom got to the corner so she could explain what happened.  Needless to say, I was in trouble again and heard about it the rest of the way home.

This may sound odd, but we in the Republican party need to take a page from the gay rights activists.  They took an insult and made it their own.  We should do the same.  Take pride in being "the party of no:" no more government overspending, no more legislative pork, no more punitive taxes penalizing the successful, no more government intrusion into business or personal lives.  We need to explain why "no" can help the average person to powerfully transform their own lives.  Because sometimes the more mature person has to tell the spoiled child, who wants everything now, free, and without consequences, "no."  Simply for their own good.

With the massive TARP bailout of the banks and their unprecedented actions regarding Chrysler and GM, the Obama administration has put the business world on notice.  The government is now a silent partner in your company.  If your business is struggling, and the Federal government deems it important to the economy, they have every right to step in and start making changes, with or without your consent.  This new power of government to intervene in and direct the actions of private business will have a chilling effect on the overall economy for many years to come.

Let's start with the bank bailouts.  These large banks essentially wanted to prevent the kinds of "run on the bank" scenarios that panicked investors and depositors during the Great Depression and to insure credit markets could remain liquid.  So they asked the Federal government to support them with an influx of cash.  We can debate the merits of granting them this reprieve from feeling the consequences of their own actions (buying exotic investment vehicles involving bundled mortgage securities, for example), but what came next is truly frightening.

First, they began giving the banks restrictions on how their businesses could operate.  These included such things as salary limitations and such.  Okay, fine.  If the taxpayer is going to have to ante up, maybe a little regulation is necessary.  But then some of the banks resented this outside control of their operations and began asking to give the money back, confident that through their own cash reserves and business practices that they could weather the storm of this economy and prosper on their own.  Also fine.  Not wanting the increased regulation and deciding to sink or swim on their own merits?  That should be more than fine, that's the American way.  The government said no.

Wait...what?  These banks were essentially saying that they had decided that they did not want or need the money, and yet the government overruled them.  That's definitely the first time I've ever seen the government refuse to collect money they were owed.  Then came the stress tests, which were secret government analyses of a given bank's ability to survive independently.  Not surprisingly, these concluded that the banks needed even more capitalization and, if they couldn't raise it on their own, the government would have to inject more money into them, effectively giving them even tighter control of the operation.  Then there was the proposal to convert the government owned shares of the bank from non-voting preferred stock to voting common stock.  Yes that's right, the Treasury Department of the United States would become a voting shareholder in multiple major banks (I'm not sure what the status of this last proposal is currently; it was one of many possible options floated during this debacle, but the fact that the idea was even mentioned is frightening).

Next, on to the auto industry.  First came the assertation that these automakers needed an infusion of bailout cash to prevent bankrupcy and the accompanying job losses.  Okay, maybe that makes some sense with unemployment running at double digit rates in most of the country.  But then came the problematic issues.  First came the firing of the CEO of GM, not by his board, or through some sort of shareholder revolt, but by the President of the United States.  Then came the governments offer to Chrysler to buy out investor debt in the company for 29 cents on the dollar.  When some of the creditors refused, the Obama administration allegedly threatened them, then demonized them in the press, and then let Chrysler go into bankrupcy anyway.  Hm, bailout money well spent.  The proposed retructuring will have Chrysler owned by the UAW, Fiat, and the U.S. and Canadian governments.  Now soon GM will have to show sufficient progress in its own restructuring or it too will be sent down the well of bankrupcy (to their credit, Ford refused the bailout money and seems to be gaining market share).

We are currently in a situation where the credit markets need to loosen up to allow companies to continue to do business.  Yet who would lend or invest in this kind of capricious regulatory environment?  It would seem impossible to do due diligence on a company you are preparing to invest in or loan money, when the government can step in at any given point, restructure the corporate environment, remove personnel, dictate operational direction and even restructure the terms of your loan or investment.  So investors and banks will be less likely to intervene, which means tighter credit for struggling companies, which may mean more bailouts.  Government has never proven itself competent to run a business (see Postal Service, Amtrak).  Until this administration stops this repressive invasion of private companies and boardrooms, more companies are going to struggle.  And some of these may just end up with a new, unwanted, not-so-silent partner in Washington.

I recently read an article describing comedian Paul Rodriguez' address to a Republican audience about the impact of a judge's decision that would shut off water to farms in the Central Valley area of California to protect a fish.  One comment he made struck me.  He said he went to the United Farm Workers union to see if they would help him fight this action, as it directly impacted their members (latino farmworkers).  They declined, on the grounds that they didn't want to help any of the white farmers.  Besides being illogical (no farmers, no need for migrant workers; plus the fact that Rodriguez himself is one of those farm owners), this statement got me thinking.  Why, in this day and age, do we still need unions?

There is little question that unions were necessary at one time.  When unions began, there were no protections for workers written into either federal or state law.  Employers were able to pay any wage they wanted.  They had total control of hours worked and working conditions.  The prevailing feeling at the time was that the workers should just feel lucky to have a job.  Employees realized that if they were to have any say in the conditions under which they would labor, they would have to unite and use their collective power to pressure their employers into granting them concessions.  They effectively (and bravely) used strikes and threats of strikes to coerce management into improving their quality of life.  These early unions were true heroes, fighting for the rights of the common man.

But then the government decided to get involved (one of the few times I would agree with government intervention, though perhaps not the scope that they now have).  Now, we have things like minimum wage laws, overtime rules, anti-discrimination laws, OSHA, and other regulations specifiying minimum standards that employers must uphold for workers.   The government itself had counterbalanced the power of employers and set the ground rules for the great game of capitalism.  Unions should have become superfluous.

But by now the power of the unions was entrenched and power is a hard thing to relinquish.  They were perceived by the general public as heroes standing up for the little guy, and by their members as champions of their interests.  So these unions continued to pressure employers for more and more perks for their members, regardless of the costs to the employer.  But then something happened.  More and more employers began to offer better wages and additional benefits (on their own terms), probably in the hopes that the workers would not feel the need to unionize.  It worked, and union membership began to dwindle.

In my last job, my employer paid me almost twice what I felt the duties of the job merited.  Yet, to her it was worth it.  Why?  Because that way she could attract only the best.  I probably wouldn't have accepted the job if it had paid commiserate with the duties.  I could get that kind of job anywhere.  Intelligent employers have found that paying more than the competition, or offering better working conditions or perks, allows you to recruit and retain the best.  Look at Google's corporate office for a great example of this.  But they do it within the structure of their business model.  They give as much as they need to in order to attract the talent level they require, but without impairing their ability to profit from their enterprise.

The modern union distorts this dynamic.  They constantly pressure management to give them additional perks, whether or not the employer can actually afford to grant these and remain competitive.  They must do this, in order to retain any relevance.  If they are not getting ever more for their members, what is the point of having a union?

So now we are where we are today, where the UFW will not assist in opposing a government policy that is directly harming their members, because it might incidentally help the employers of those workers.  A nation where inflated salaries and pension benefits for UAW workers has crippled the auto industry's ability to compete in a changing market.  A country where ever more billions of dollars are thrown at education because of the teachers unions' demands, and yet our students are falling farther and farther behind relative to the rest of the world.  And a place where (particularly here in California) unionized government employees can get an annual pension that is greater than 100% of their final year's base salary (meaning we're paying them more to retire).  Somehow I think we'd all be better off if unions became a thing of the past.