[jerf]

You should be careful imputing views to others, then criticizing them, it's easy to miss nuances, then jump on the nuances you missed. For instance, here's a consistent view: "Unions can be forces for good but the government has gone too far in empowering them, creating a monster." I live in Michigan, a state that, no matter how much unions would love to deny it, has been badly damaged by them.

I'm a libertarian, and I support the existence of unions... but I also support the existence of Right to Work laws. A union should have to work to justify itself to its members, not be empowered by law to collect funds from individuals who do not wish to be in the union. Unions should be shielded from punitive violence by their employers... which I wouldn't even see fit to mention except that history says it needs to be mentioned... but if the employer can "just" hire replacements then the simple truth is that the union is negotiating itself right out of its market, and it needs to be forced to face up to that, not hide behind the government.

Unions are part of the free market, and should remain part of the free market. They should come and go as companies do, and the very fact that so many are The Union for their industry and that the same unions are nearly-permanent fixtures of the landscape is significant evidence that they are themselves artificially-created government monopolies, and I view them with the same suspicion I would any other government-created monopoly.