Liberals encourage public sector employees to mistrust government while they encourage the rest of us to embrace government control.

Liberal leaders teach that the reason unions are necessary is that employers, being self-interested, have an incentive to keep employee pay and benefits at a minimum in order to maximize profits.  That is to say, management can't be trusted to deal fairly with workers because the interests of management are contrary to the interests of workers.

Liberals also believe that government employees should be unionized.

Contrast this with the simultaneous liberal belief that the government is the guardian of the rights of the common man, and that citizens can trust the government to be the ultimate fair arbiter that will protect the working man from the deficiencies of capitalism and individualism.  The current liberal belief is that we can trust government to protect us by ensuring that laws, regulations, health care delivery, tax policy, fees, education, and so on are fair.  It is difficult to recall an expansion of government power that liberals have been against.

But if government is the protector of the working man, and since public sector workers are employees of the government, then there should be no reason for public sector workers to want or need a union, because the government can be trusted to be fair.

If the liberal premise about the fairness of government were true, then the only workers who don't need union representation are public sector employees.

From these facts it is clear that liberal leaders must not really believe that government has the public worker's best interests at heart.  If public sector employees can't trust the government to be fair in terms of wages and benefits, then why do liberals advocate that we the people trust the government to control more and more of our lives?  They want us to turn over health care, education, regulation, and many of our liberties to the government that they themselves do not trust.

What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

It's too bad that liberals think so little of our critical thinking skills that they make flawed arguments such as this one, and it is unfortunate that so few intellectual pundits are calling attention to them.  Just as we depend on our doctors to use their knowledge to advise us on medical issues, society depends on its philosophers and intellects to use their knowledge to point out flawed arguments; we should seek out the objectivists among them and listen to them.     

But as an advocate of capitalism, objectivism, and constitutionally limited republics, and in light of current trends, I can see one group of government employees whose unionization would benefit us all; if only the Senate and House of Representatives were to unionize and go out on strike.

Chris W. Bell is a freelance writer.  He can be reached at chriswb2008@yahoo.com