Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!lsuc!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!whuxl!whuxlm!akgua!gatech!ut-sally!pyramid!voder!kontron!cramer From: cramer@kontron.UUCP Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Reply to Sevener on Property Rights Message-ID: <528@kontron.UUCP> Date: Fri, 21-Feb-86 12:41:51 EST Article-I.D.: kontron.528 Posted: Fri Feb 21 12:41:51 1986 Date-Received: Sun, 23-Feb-86 04:01:48 EST References: <1691@bbncca.ARPA> <536@whuts.UUCP> <1636@ihlpg.UUCP> <540@whuts.UUCP> <1641@ihlpg.UUCP> <550@whuts.UUCP> Organization: Kontron Electronics, Irvine, CA Lines: 86 > > > Just as the governmental authorities in the > > > past used their authority to shoot and kill strikers. Just as ........ > > > [Many more irrelevencies omitted] > > -------- > > Gee Tim, once you get going, you can't stop, even if you stray from > > what we were talking about. You are an inveterate polemicist. > > Bill Tanenbaum - AT&T Bell Labs - Naperville IL ihnp4!ihlpg!tan > > It is hardly irrelevant when talking about the denial of current civil > rights and the threat this may pose in the future to point out that > such things have happened in the past. Most Americans are never > taught the history of the labor struggle in this country. How > company towns controlled every aspect of people's lives and made a profit > on every aspect of their lives. For example, one company town paid their > workers with scrip that could *only* be used in company stores. > How workers were shot and killed in > the defense of the rights of private property. How workers were fired > and worse for distributing pro-union literature on private property. That's what _I_ was taught in school. What they didn't teach us (and I had to find out by my own reading) was that labor unions weren't just victims -- there were times that they *started* the violence by dynamiting the barracks of non-union labor brought in to replace union laborers. I'm sure Tim has all sorts of excuses for labor unions killing people (after all, Tim believes in PEACE), but the fact remains: labor disputes had plenty of violence on both sides, and I wouldn't get too much of a "holier-than-thou" tone about it. Remember: a labor union is more properly termed "labor monopoly". A group of laborers attempt to restrict supply of a commodity (labor) in order to drive up the price of the commodity (wages). It is not surprising that labor unions in a free market have a hard (perhaps impossible) time monopolizing the labor supply, for the same reason that companies in a free market have a hard (perhaps impossible) time monopolizing a market. It is also not surprising that labor unions resorted to violence and intimidation, much like some of the robber barons of the last century did. What IS unacceptable is to claim that only businesses used violence to achieve their ends. What IS unacceptable is to ignore how widespread union violence is today to intimidate employers into giving in (sabotage, tampering with Hormel meat products, hiring sharpshooters to blow out utility company transformers) and to coerce workers into joining a union or supporting a strike. Tim, go ahead and deny it happens. (Hitler's Big Lie technique is firmly in use by socialists and unionists today.) It happens every single day in this country. The U.S. Supreme Court found the use of sharpshooters to destroy transformers "a legitimate collective bargaining technique" in 1973. My father was a union man and knew well what would happen if he were to cross a picket line. The lies that labor unions don't engage in large scale violence TODAY don't hold anymore. > During the Palmer Raids unionists and socialists were rounded up > and arrested for "subversion". Many were placed in prisons for years. > During the McCarthy era many people were fired and blacklisted > for simply *knowing* somebody who was a Communist or leftist. > Again, getting off the track. The issue of malls and free speech is quite irrelevant to the abuses of civil liberties during the Palmer Raids and McCarthy viciousness. > The replacement of public town squares with privately owned malls > poses the same challenge again: which will be respected, people's > basic civil rights of freedom of speech or the rights of private > property? Give me your home address: we are going to set up a libertarian information table in your bedroom between midnight and dawn. If we acknowledge your right to control YOUR private property, then we have to acknowledge the right of other people to control THEIR private property. Or is that much inconsistency difficult for you to understand? > I believe in the end that this country *will* follow its deep > democratic traditions and protect people's rights to freedom of > speech over private property's rights of repression. Just as > we finally did in respecting workers' rights to distribute literature > on private property and workers rights to strike. > But it will not happen without effort. And it is part of the > ongoing struggle to increase democracy as was done during the union > movement and the civil rights movement. THAT is why history is relevant. > > tim sevener whuxn!orb History is relevant. You aren't.