Fire them all

The Wisconsin governor is doing a staunch job of standing firm, but it’s time to go on the offensive and fire every teacher who called in sick on Thursday and Friday:

State and Madison teachers union leaders are urging their members to report to the Capitol Friday and Saturday for continued protests against Gov. Scott Walker’s collective bargaining proposal. “We need you to come again (today). We need to hear you on Saturday,” Mary Bell, Wisconsin Education Association Council president, said at a rally Thursday, when teachers from around the state joined Madison teachers whose absences closed schools for a second day.

I’d actually like to see Walker go one step further, decertify the teachers union and fire every public school teacher who belongs to it. That would border on epic and would instantly make him a national hero in the image of Reagan. One of the defining lessons of the Thatcher and Reagan eras is that the people love a politician who crushes unions. Pawlenty should be hoping for the spread of the teacher sickouts to Minnesota thus giving him the chance to improve his national profile by breaking the public employee union there… although this would presumably be difficult as I am reliably informed that he is no longer governor there.

Unions are the evil, stupid, parasitic cousin of government. They possess most of the negative attributes with none of the positive ones.