Collective Bargaining

So I finally got around to watching that new OPSEU video- the one that is supposedly an attack on Tim Hudak.

The last time these people put together an anti-PC Party video, it was a $20,000 exercise in surrealism that nobody but me even paid attention to, so that's what I was expecting this time around. Funny thing is- this one isn't an attack on the PC's. It's an attack on their own members, but we'll get to that in a minute.

First, I want to establish that these videos that attack conservatives are the work of people who have never even spoken to or seen a conservative before, and that's why watching them is so jarring. They are not willing to examine the basic assumptions conservatives make and understand them on an intellectual level before tearing them apart. And because they aren't willing to think about our ideas, there is no reason to believe that they would accept anything Tim Hudak or any conservative would say. They, like all progressives, just don't like conservatives and believe that whatever we say is wrong before we've said it.

In this way, those on the left are fundamentally conservative in their own thinking. They are unwilling to accept anything conservatives have to say and want to keep their minds completely pure of anything that we say that might influence them. They are also fundamentally insecure in their own thinking, in that they are unwilling to engage people like me in debate. For my part, since I started my recent series of posts analyzing the way the far left thinks, not one of them has tried to challenge my assumptions about them. Ever since I tried looking at what these people actually believe, I feel a lot more confident about debating them. I feel a lot more confident that I can poke holes in their arguments. But they don't want me to poke holes in their arguments. There's nothing I can teach them and there's nothing worthwhile I have to contribute, and most importantly, they don't want me to challenge their illusions.

Ask yourselves: When's the last time you sat down with a dyed-in-the-wool leftist and just had a conversation with them? When's the last time one of them tried to initiate a conversation with you?

With this video, OPSEU is trying to fight an enemy that they don't understand, and that they don't want to understand.

Now let's talk about the video itself. In it, a taxicab passenger tries and fails to argue the point that he doesn't have to pay a fare if he doesn't want to. He thinks he can get the titular "free ride" and ends up getting hauled off to jail because of it. Then, union boss Warren "Smokey" Thomas shows up, giving the camera the side-eye and talking to his union members about their collective agreements and the sacrifices that have been made to establish them, and how as union members, they should not expect to enjoy the benefits of those collective agreements without paying union dues.

So, not only does this video not even attack Tim Hudak, it totally misses the point of the PC union proposal. We're trying to make sure that union members aren't bullied by their leadership into paying for causes they don't believe in. And how does OPSEU react to such a suggestion? They create a video that tries to bully their membership into paying for causes they don't believe in. If we hadn't had proof that union bosses intimidate their members before (which we did), we can now point to this video as proof.

If they understood that we had a problem with union bullying, then they wouldn't have created a video that deliberately took an aggressive tone against their own people who might have been considering voting PC. Or maybe they did understand and they deliberately chose to go down that path. They either imagined the PC proposal to be something other than what it was, or deliberately misrepresented it as something other than what it was. It's impossible to tell. Either way, they didn't consider our proposal before rejecting it outright.

Now think about how those on the left expect the government to listen to them and to change their ways. But why should the government listen to them? Why, for example, should Harper pay heed to people who so obviously despise him? What is the point? What is to be achieved? What is the benefit of entering into a dialogue with these people?

I am willing to take the time to think carefully about ideas people on the left have. They aren't willing to do the same. When I tell people about what I've discovered these past few months, they say, "Mr. J., there's no reason why you should associate yourself with these people or trouble yourself with their crazy ideas. They're nuts. Leave them alone." Well, yes. But what I am trying to do here is a proof of concept, and I plan to keep right on doing it.

Because those on the left are unwilling to think about my ideas the way I'm thinking about theirs, and because they associate me with their caricatures of what they imagine conservatives to be all about, we can be sure that they are to blame for the breakdown in communication. It is their basic unwillingness to be satisfied that is the problem. It is their fault. 

They do not understand that I, and conservatives like me who are willing to entertain their wacky notions, to actually think about them, before throwing them out, are the best deal they are going to get.

It's a better deal than they are willing to give us.