Quote Originally Posted by Walter Sobchak View Post
Quote Originally Posted by Dan Druff View Post
The left is so committed to their racial justice narrative that they're ignoring the super obvious reform sitting right in front of their faces.

This wasn't a first time offense for Chauvin. He behaved badly several times before, and should have lost his badge a long time ago. Most cops in suspected brutality situations have a long history of abusive behavior. The police unions protect them.

If the left really gave a shit about police brutality, they would drop the racial element (since there's no evidence this had to do with race), and focus upon making it easier to dismiss bad cops.

Instead, it's all about the systemic racism narrative.

Now if Chauvin gets off, the impression will be that the racist system let a murderer of a black man walk free, and there will be tremendous civil unrest. Terrible.
I somewhat but not completely agree.

It should be easier to get rid of poorly performing public servants. At the same time, I think it's important to have strong unions in both the public and private sector to protect workers--but only the ones doing their jobs and doing them well. I realize in practice this is hard to achieve, but the current situation where people depending on ideology either blindly support or blindly hate unions is not healthy for the middle class, which basically would not exist without unions plus the social safety net.

Also we can't completely eliminate the racial aspect. It exists and we have to deal with it honestly. What we don't have to do is let it cause a fight to the death between SJWs on one side and Confederate flag-wavers on the other. Fuck all of those people.
Public labor unions are a disaster all around, and they run counter to the entire original concept of unions.

Unions were necessary at a point when greedy corporations were taking advantage of employees, with the theory being that corporations only exist for profit, and there needs to be a counter-entity to protect the interest of employees.

Since public jobs exist specifically to serve the public good, and the government is their employer, there is no profit motive. Therefore, there is no greedy corporation to fight against, and anything unfair to public employees can be addressed at the government level! Public unions exist specifically to place the interests of their employees over the public interest! Not good!

It is essential to provide sufficient means to discipline bad public employees, as "customers" of public institutions can't simply take their business elsewhere.

I got to see the flaws in public labor unions firsthand as a kid, as a public school student. There were some teachers who were incompetent, lazy, or downright abusive. Provided they had tenure, they were protected from any kind of meaningful discipline, unless they broke the law or stopped showing up for work. Even as a little kid, I understood this was wrong.

Police unions are the reason that Derek Chauvin had a badge on the day he killed George Floyd. They need to be abolished or weakened, along with the teachers' union, and all other public labor unions.