While reading TownHall.com this morning, I ran across an interesting article by Michael Barone on the subject of public sector unions, such as SEIU. I usually like reading the comments from the readers, and those from this column were no exception. One comment was from a teacher in California who is forced to belong to her teacher’s union. Her reply:

“No where in your article do you explain why public-sector unions grow so much faster than private-sector unions. I have unwillingly belonged to public school unions all of my life. If I refuse to join, tough. The dues are highjacked from my salary and my name is added to the list. The only rationale I receive is that I must pay because I am the "beneficiary" of union negotiations (which are not worth squat). To add insult to injury, my extorted union money inevitably goes to support Democratic candidates. I protested this, too, but was told they once endorsed an uncontested Republican in one race.
Not hard to increase the union rolls when choice is not involved. We could use a little pro-choice in this area.

Imagine that you work for a company in the retail food business and you have friends who also work in the same business, but for other employers.  When talking with your friend you find that you all have the same grievances with your employers, and you also find that others in the same business have like problems with their employers. Together you organize with others in your work field and form a collective, a group to speak on your behalf with your employers to come to some satisfactory solution to your collective problems and you call it a union, or a united group of retail food workers.

You bring your collective concerns to the table with the group of employers that represent you, and between the group representing the management of those companies and the union representing the workers, some sort of agreement can usually be made to alleviate the problems that exist, whether they are wage problems or working conditions.

Other retailers are soon faced with their workers organizing and bargaining with them on the same level. Soon those in the clothing retail business, sporting goods retailers, hardware chain stores, and others find themselves dealing with unions from both sides of the table: employers and employees.

 In Romans 1:25, the apostle Paul talks about how men have turned from God and tried to take on those powers that are His alone:

”Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever” (KJV)

     It troubles me that among my Texas brothers and sisters that I talk to on the subject of secession, that many of them believe that the secession issue was settled by the war of northern aggression. They falsely believe that the Constitution prohibits a state from exercising their right to leave the union, and that Abraham Lincoln was within his right to prohibit some states from claiming their independence from the United States. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Let’s look at that great document that is no longer being used by Washington DC:

This is a column by Chuck Baldwin that is worth reading. It is reprinted with his permission.

Food For Thought From The Chuckwagon

Praise For Lee And Jackson

By Chuck Baldwin January 6, 2010

January is often referred to as "Generals Month" since no less than four famous Confederate Generals claimed January as their birth month: James Longstreet (Jan. 8, 1821), Robert E. Lee (Jan. 19, 1807), Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson (Jan. 21, 1824), and George Pickett (Jan. 28, 1825). Two of these men, Lee and Jackson, are particularly noteworthy.

I thought I would share with you a letter I wrote to Chuck Norris. I don't know if he will read it or if he will even recieve it, as I sent it to his email address at WorldNetDaily. It was in response to an article he wrote today (Jan 4, 2010). Anyway, this is what I wrote to him:

Chuck,

All across America, people are gathering to call for throwing out those now in congress and replacing them with what they think will be conservatives.

I’ve read all this stuff before. They are saying that if we elect conservative Republicans to replace all of those now in congress, that all will be wonderful. We tried that and it didn’t work; remember 1994-2002?

In my last column, I referred to the failed presidencies in my lifetime, and I have to offer an apology to the Eisenhower administration for including it in that list.

When in 1960, JFK won the election and was to be sworn in as our newest president, I recall one liberal comedian, I think it was Mort Sahl, (yes there were liberal celebrities then too) commenting that the new popular toy for Christmas in 1960 was the Eisenhower doll. He said that you wind it up and for eight years it did nothing. We all laughed since most agreed that Ike didn’t do much during his eight years as president, at least by the standards we had become accustomed to.

What were Ike’s accomplishments? 

I recently observed, not celebrated, my seventy-second birthday, and it gave me pause to reflect what I had observed prior to that day. I have lived through most of FDR’s administration, all of Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, the short span of JFK, all of LBJ, Nixon, the non elected Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bush the first, Bill Clinton, Bush the second, and now, The One himself, the messiah.

One thing that has been consistent throughout all of those administrations is that the federal, rather central, government is a train wreck that is on its way to happen, and we, all of us, are passengers on that fated train. Like passengers on a train headed too fast for a curve in the track, we can  (at least most of us can) see the impending danger in front of us, and most have a strong suspicion that we will not survive the coming wreck. We are also afraid to jump off of the doomed train for fear that we will be hurt when we make our exit. There may be rough ground outside and we may suffer pain and injury. It seems we would all rather take our chances with a train that we know will most likely take us to our end. Such is the human condition.