As someone who has not had a pay raise since the year 2000, and who has been unemployed for over a year, I am not sympathetic to greedy union members who aren't happy with a 13% pay increase offered by the city of Boston. I cannot be expected to rally to the cause of the Boston police and firemen unionists who are holding the DNC festivities and public safety hostage in their contract dispute with Mayor Menino. I think the term is extortion.
Like the terrorists, the union leaders have adopted the policy of punishing innocent bystanders in order to make their case with the party they disagree with. They hope that the sensible population will exert pressure on the city to settle the contract dispute in their favor rather than risking the decision of the arbitration process.
On one sense this is not much different than the strategy of those cowardly and deadly attacks on civilians by insurgent militants in Iraq. I am not saying that the union leaders are killing innocent people, but their approach is markedly similar to that of bomb throwers everywhere. They feel that their cause trumps everyone else's rights and interests.
In the WSJ today, a cogent piece entitled "Courage Against Evil", written by the foreign minister of Australia, reminds us that "if we give in to terrorists once, what will be demanded in the future?"
History provides ample evidence that giving-in to unreasonable demands creates more demands. (Anyone who has parented a teenager knows this fact of human nature.)
A line must be drawn. Menino should be applauded for taking a stand. When the spotlight is turned on next week, it is the Police and Firemen who will suffer the blame for disgracing Boston if the DNC becomes a fiasco.
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