Can anyone defend the Chicago Teachers Union?

@CountScrofula "If they gleefully send their members into classes during covid and someone dies they could be successfully sued."
Who said anything about gleeflly? This is what they get paid to do, teach IN schools.How will "they" (who? the union? individuals?) get sued if someone dies.
There is now insurmountable evidence that schools are safe places for students.

@LamontCranston I'm just telling you how the law works man, may as well go shout at clouds.

Also the unions represent the interests of their members. If the members say "we want this" the union does it.

@CountScrofula Proudly spoken.

@CountScrofula Unions can stop donating to political parties as soon as corporations, PACs, and individuals stop.

@LeopoldBloom I don't think it should be illegal. I just think it's bad unionism.

@LamontCranston And the union's job is to express and represent the interests of the teachers they represent. There's two sides and the two sides talk their points to reach an agreement. In theory anyway. Yes it is the teachers job to teach but the union is there to represent their personal interests so as to the job not harming or mistreating them.

@CountScrofula It's the only counterweight to the right wing money machine. Of course, some corporations contribute to politicians too. We need to repeal Citizens United and get money out of politics.

@LeopoldBloom Unions don't have a moral duty to support some shitty political party that just happens to be less-worse than the conservatives. Like our power lies in the ability to seize the workplace and control the economy, not just as a passive dues farm for neoliberal campaign money.

Using the US as an example, years of Democrat rule has lead to insane inequality and a collapse of union membership. They trade power so easily with Republicans because nothing fucking changes.

But they collect union dues as campaign funds because they claim to be pro-union while actively working with interests that undermine the goals of the working class. They are the enemy of the working class. The Republicans being worse doesn't mean the Democrats should get my members' money.

Particularly when that money can be used shutting shit down and making gains. Members can use their better salaries to donate. I want no part of it.

@MethDozer Whether it is in the public interest or not.

@LamontCranston To an extent yes. In that they aren't representing the public. They are representing their memebers.
To an extent no because employee interests representation in and of itself is part of the public's interest.

There's nuance.

@CountScrofula Unions have been losing members since the 1950s. The only exception is public sector unions.

As long as campaign contributions are unregulated, I don't see why unions shouldn't participate in the same way other organizations do.

@LeopoldBloom You do realize he's union representative dontcha?

@MethDozer I'm aware of that. I was a union treasurer until I was promoted to management. My point is that until the law is changed, unions should contribute to candidates the same as corporations do. Maybe you missed where I said that I'm against that for everyone.

@LeopoldBloom His point is that both sides are equally opposed to labor rights and contriburing to either is contributing against worker interests. He kinda has a point. When you contribute to the system, you are feeding the system and validating it. Unions are there to represent workers, not politics as a whole.

@MethDozer One way to represent workers is to contribute to the politicians who will protect workers' rights. If you think both parties' positions on workers' rights are the same, you're delusional. One party wants to bust unions and eliminate the minimum wage; the other wants to raise it.

@LeopoldBloom he makes a gokd point thought that the Dems do much damage to worker rights. Loke he said, they are just slightly less shitty. Like praising one slave owner because he whips them less then that slave owner. But at the end of the day they are both promoting slavery.

@MethDozer We don't have a choice. Because of the Bernie Bros who stayed home in 2016, we have three more Federalist Society hacks on the Supreme Court who wouldn't be there if Clinton had been elected.

Personally, I'd love to see AOC in the White House, but it's not going to happen, and I'm not going to throw my vote away on Vermin Supreme or whoever the alternative candidate is.

@LeopoldBloom Oh boy
Here we go blaming Sanders supporters and ignore the fact the DNC made two, TWO targeted efforts to rig the primaries against him. Just like they did when they chise to eat their own over Yang and Gabbard.

Yep, it's Sanders fault. Nit the DNC's fault for gaming against their strongest candidates with the most engaged base. But hey, he was stealing Clinton's rightful place.



I think you may have just vidated Scroffs point perfectly without even realizing it.

@LeopoldBloom Leopold, again with the gross and wretched exaggerations? Do you prefer "penumbra" constittutional "law" to original intent?
Do you sneak into the national Archives at night to watch the "living constitution" breathing stentoriously?-like something out of a thirties horror film.

@LeopoldBloom This notion that somehow unions are a counterweight to corporations in politics is ludicrous.

Go to open secrets and do some comparisons. AFL-CIO vs Amazon and see who they donate to and how much money.

The biggest union-buster in America donates MORE money to the Democrats than the house of labour itself.

The notion that the Democrats somehow prioritize the interests of the AFL-CIO over those of Amazon is absurd, and the AFL-CIO is not what I'd consider a decent union that represents the interests of workers by any means.

@LamontCranston "Original intent" is just an excuse to "interpret" the Constitution to favor conservative conclusions. Let me know when the "originalists" on the Supreme Court conclude that the "original intent" of the second amendment was to only allow registered members of a government-regulated militia to own guns.

Marbury v. Madison established judicial review, which despite not being in the Constitution, wasn't objected to by any of the original framers who were alive at the time. The "penumbra of rights" is just as valid as "original intent" and is used by conservatives even if they don't specify that particular term.

@CountScrofula Which is why Citizens United should be overturned and strict limits placed on campaign financing. Corporations donate to Democrats, too. I just don't see why unions should be excluded in the current free for all.

@LeopoldBloom Eh, the idea of living interpretations over literal wording kinda makes the document meaningless and nulls the drive or purpose of properly reamending it.


Literalism only makes sense of we want the document to actually mean anything. The idea it could mean this now but something else at another time is kinda absurd and lazy. Dangerous even.

@MethDozer The problem with literalism is that the document still has to be interpreted in light of what the framers intended, and how that applies to modern conditions. It's neither possible nor desirable to have a perfectly literal interpretation. For example, does the Equal Protection Clause mean that the laws in each state should be identical? A purely literal interpretation would say yes, but based on the framers' known views, that's not what the clause was intended to mean.

Same with "freedom of speech" and "freedom of the press" with regard to the internet, which is neither spoken nor printed. But the expanded interpretation says it applies to all communication regardless of medium.

@LeopoldBloom The internet doesn't require any new non literal interprtation what so ever. In fact that's a prefect examole of the merits of literalism since a literal interpretation would grant the same protections to the internet as it would to a newspaper in tradtional print.


Living document is batshit and lazy idea. It makes the words meaningless and the rights just privileges based on whims. There's ni point to actually ammending it as it is supposed to be if you can just reinterpret as seen fit for the moment.


I call hogwash on your claim about a literal interpretation would require identical laws in each state as well. It just requires equal protection. You living document people just want to be able to change and control the rights that are granted without actually having to go through the process of changing the document or being stopped from doing so when you can't win the case to do so. The idea an ammendment means one thing at one time but can mean different thing at another time based on human decision and whim means it means nothing at all. It makes the whole thing symbolic and vacuous.



If you can't shoot straight you shouldn't shoot at all.