3 ms·

Teachers unions spent $20 million on the 2012 election alone, no doubt funding candidates who were friendly to their pensions. I can go down the line and list o

Teachers unions spent $20 million on the 2012 election alone, no doubt funding candidates who were friendly to their pensions. I can go down the line and list off several more trade unions and their political spending. http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=l1300 http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=l1300 Why is there seemingly not a peep about this from those who oppose the private prison complex?

DanBC 11y ago
Be fair: teachers unions often get talked in very negative terms on HN.
SwellJoe 11y ago
I'm curious: Do you believe teachers asking for more funding is ethically comparable to prisons demanding more prisoners?
- stvswn 11y ago
  I think it hinges on whether the private prison industry is lobbying for more funding per prisoner or tougher laws that result in more prisoners (or longer sentences). If they argue for safer prisons, better rehabilitation programs, more security for guards -- the public should be skeptical but open. If they want to just lock more people up and then bill the government -- that would be somehow like teachers' unions lobbying for less birth control to influence the birth rate and therefore create more demand for teaching jobs. It seems perverse. In other words, we need prisons just like we need schools, even if people like schools more we shouldn't vilify corrections officers just because they work in an industry we don't care to interact with. It's all about their conduct, which has been terrible. Teachers unions are also self-serving, but they at least pretend to have the child's interest at heart.
- zo1 11y ago
  Perhaps he's more pointing out the hypocrisy of attaching a scale/range of ethical values to something he determines to be an unethical act entirely, regardless of the ethical value of the reasons behind it.
maldusiecle 11y ago
Most people have more ethical qualms about profiting off of incarceration than about possibly paying too much money to people who educate our children. This is not surprising.
pasquinelli 11y ago
because people who oppose the private prison complex don't oppose public schools.

DanBC 11y ago

Be fair: teachers unions often get talked in very negative terms on HN.

SwellJoe 11y ago

I'm curious: Do you believe teachers asking for more funding is ethically comparable to prisons demanding more prisoners?

stvswn 11y ago
I think it hinges on whether the private prison industry is lobbying for more funding per prisoner or tougher laws that result in more prisoners (or longer sentences). If they argue for safer prisons, better rehabilitation programs, more security for guards -- the public should be skeptical but open. If they want to just lock more people up and then bill the government -- that would be somehow like teachers' unions lobbying for less birth control to influence the birth rate and therefore create more demand for teaching jobs. It seems perverse. In other words, we need prisons just like we need schools, even if people like schools more we shouldn't vilify corrections officers just because they work in an industry we don't care to interact with. It's all about their conduct, which has been terrible. Teachers unions are also self-serving, but they at least pretend to have the child's interest at heart.
zo1 11y ago
Perhaps he's more pointing out the hypocrisy of attaching a scale/range of ethical values to something he determines to be an unethical act entirely, regardless of the ethical value of the reasons behind it.

maldusiecle 11y ago

Most people have more ethical qualms about profiting off of incarceration than about possibly paying too much money to people who educate our children. This is not surprising.

pasquinelli 11y ago

because people who oppose the private prison complex don't oppose public schools.