Disingenuous? Stupid? Ignorant? Liar? Low-Information? All!

Teachers Unions: Bane of the Universe.

In comments:

Megan McArdle(Replying to: LizardBreath)August 26, 2009 4:16 PM

Did you read the article? The union claimed she was being fired for seniority reasons until the teacher herself made them take it off their website.

The hearings are run by an arbitrator jointly approved. Since the arbitrator knows the union will veto anyone who rules too severely against them, they tend not to fire teachers, and they have no incentive at all to speed things up.

Funny, you'd think someone so concerned about the horrors of "big government" would realize that this is two-way street, & it may be possibile that the arbitrators ("jointly appointed, " even Mlle. admits) are equally concerned w/ being perceived as unfair to their other boss, the school system.

Here we have a perfect example of a "market" at work, but she denies the very existence of half the market forces involved. It would almost be worth registering there to point this out, but just like the gun aficionados that she mentions in the item brad dissected below,

this is for most people what Julian Sanchez calls a symbolic belief. They don't really believe that these people are thugs intent on murder--not in the sense that they have, with careful thought, arrived at a conclusion that they are willing to defend vigorously. But it is pleasurable to tell yourself you believe terrible things about your enemies, and so you don't examine the thought until someone says, "Well, how about $500 on it, then?" and you think about how much it would hurt to lose $500 on, and realize that you don't actually have any reason to believe it's all that likely.

(Our emphasis.) Empty "symbolic" belief. Seem familiar? Should someone offer to put $500.00 on the proposition that arbitrators have two employers they must please? How soon will that shut her up?

Whenever it is, it's certain it won't be soon enough.