Public sector unions don't do the long term planning and management of the institutions, the politicians and appointed cabinet members, commissioners etc do.And they're put in power by the elected officials. (So Red states get conservative managers and Blue states get more liberal ones. In theory at least)

Let's just look at a few examples of states that went for Trump and Hillary in 2016 along with their ranking in regards to union strength and education.

(https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED537563.pdf) I'll say Tiers 1-3 are strong and Tiers 4,5 are weak.


Massachusetts ranked as the No. 1 state for public schools, taking the lead in both quality and safety. New Jersey, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont and Virginia followed behind. Some of the worst ranked states for public schools included New Mexico, Louisiana, Alaska and Arizona, along with District of Columbia.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/reneemo.../#7de016538972

Best ranked schools:
MA Hillary strong teacher's union
NJ Hillary strong teacher's union
NH Hillary strong teacher's union
CT Hillary strong teacher's union
VT Hillary strong teacher's union
VA Hillary weak teacher's union

Worst ranked schools :
NM Hillary weak teacher's union
LA Trump weak teacher's union
AK Trump weak teacher's union
AZ Trump weak teacher's union

Students in the United States performed above the OECD average in reading (505 score points) and science (502), and below the OECD average in mathematics (478). Their scores were similar to those of students in Australia, Germany, New Zealand, Sweden and the United Kingdom in at least two of these three subjects. The trend lines of United States’ mean performance in reading since 2000, mathematics since 2003 and science since 2006 are stable, with no significant improvement or decline. Nevertheless, in reading, the share of 15-year-old students who scored at Level 5 or 6 (top performers)increased by almost 4 percentage points – a statistically significant increase – between 2009 and 2018, to 13.5%.


•As in many countries, socio-economically advantaged students in the United States outperformed disadvantaged students in reading, mathematics and science. In reading, the performance gap between socio-economically advantaged and disadvantaged students was 99 score points (OECD average: 89 score points). Some 27% of advantaged students in the United States, but only 4% of disadvantaged students (OECD averages: 17% and 3%, respectively), were top performers in reading, meaning that they attained one of the two highest proficiency levels. However, 10% of disadvantaged students in the United States were able to score amongst the top quarter of students in their country in reading.

https://www.oecd.org/pisa/publicatio...018_CN_USA.pdf



Also, teachers in the US don't actually suck by any objective measure.

Also the post office doesn't suck.

They're saddled with a congressional mandate to prefund current employee health benefits costs. A law passed in 2006 because the post office was doing well and Republicans don't like that.

When you think of the irrational hate conservatives have for government (their fellow citizens) and labor (also their fellow citizens) it makes you consider the possibility that conservatism should be classified as a mental disorder. It really is a soul sickness.

I can't believe there have been zero comments (or complaints) in response to the missive I posted in reply # 9 of this thread.

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...63&postcount=9

I worked over two hours creating that masterpiece!

I still use the mail regularly. It's not that uncommon to run into a mailbox that is literally stuffed full ime. Maybe there are some that are empty somewhere or something--but it seems kinda like we need more.

Tl;dr

No it was good just nothing to add. I do wish we had a thumbs up / like functionality here.

Seemed reasonable to me.

It does make sense not to indict a sitting president of obvious political reasons.
I don't really trust Biden not to interfere they all seem to want a get out of jail free card if they need it so they don't go after the last guy. But maybe NY State will and Biden really won't be able to stop it.

Should be an interesting year, 2021.

Yeah pretty clear he would have been fired and jailed multiple times in the last 4 years if he was doing any job other than POTUS.

Wow, I guess that changes everything and Trump didn't say he'll **** with the post office to impede mail voting

this post office thing is great in that it exposes people as total rubes who will believe anything as long as trump tells them to. yeah guys sell off the USPS, this is a total principled stand you had before dear leader told you that this part of the government was bad. couldn't be more obvious and yet we got chuckleheads falling over themselves on the internet to fawn over president business deals fake draining the swamp.

Do you have any takes on "conservatism" that aren't just unremittingly stupid?

You might want to look into Liberalism is a Mental Disorder by Michael Savage, a NYT bestseller in 2005.

And I DO NOT believe that liberalism is a mental disorder. Just trying to be "fair and balanced" (to coin a phrase).

Yeah, you got the joke. lol

I can only form an opinion based on what people who claim to be conservatives tell me.

I'm not going to argue that people don't have stupid outlooks on life.

I will certainly concede that there are some conservatives about whom your strawman is correct.

If you would like, we could engage this topic in the "Conservatives: What are your principles" thread.

I apologize for referring to your take on conservatism as "unremittingly stupid."

But your takes on conservatism are generally only accurate with respect to followers of Ayn Rand (of The Virtue of Selfishness fame).

CLAIM: President Donald Trump is trying to rig the 2020 election by removing mailboxes so people can’t vote by mail. VERDICT: FALSE. The removal — and replacement — of mailboxes is a constant part of U.S. Postal Service operations.
Dems Will Lose Their Minds When They Find Out 14,000 Mailboxes Were Removed Under Obama
https://www.westernjournal.com/dems-...removed-obama/

A pair of USPS inspector general reports provide details regarding the removal of thousands of mailboxes in the U.S., and during Obama’s second term people complained that too many mailboxes were taken away.
he same report revealed that in a 17-month period during Obama’s second term, hundreds of mailboxes were removed without following the appropriate process, as “322 out-of-service boxes were permanently removed from the street without Eastern Area approval or public notification to customers.”
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pos...s-of-mailboxes

At the same time, that report and another from September 2017 show that there are good reasons for eliminating mailboxes, such as underuse, and that even more mailboxes should have been removed over the years, which would have saved the government hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. The five-year total of 12,000 removed mailboxes jumped to 14,000 in the 2017 report.

LOL, np.

I actually had in mind the dictionary definition that comes up when you google conservatism :

commitment to traditional values and ideas with opposition to change or innovation.
"proponents of theological conservatism"


I do think conservatives tend to value traditional values and ideas more than people. Progressives tend to value people more. It's not that conservatives all actively hate people (although many do seem to), it's just that the welfare of human beings isn't at the top of their to do list. Preserving order is.

“The photo in question is of a vendor we have done business with for several years. They are a contractor that repairs or destroys old collection boxes. They now make new collection boxes also. Photos such as this appear every couple of years,” the Postal Service said in a statement.
https://thehill.com/homenews/adminis...ck-of-discards
Images of the stacked mailboxes can be seen back in August 2019 from the Street View image on Google Maps, according to the outlet.
The USA Today fact-checking team ultimately rated the claim that the image depicts voter suppression as false, ruling that while the picture was taken in Wisconsin but there is “no proof of anything nefarious.”

On Instagram, images of the viral tweet are being flagged for including partly false information.

for what ?? and give actual proof of whatever you claim ..not fake madeup accusations

when did PRESIDENT TRUMP say he might change the election day ??
he didnt .
he suggested it could be changed ..he didnt not say he would change it
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Thursday suggested that the 2020 presidential election should be postponed, claiming it could be ripe for fraud. heres his tweet on it also https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/...ction-n1235300
biden was the person who claimed that trump would change the day
Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive 2020 Democratic presidential nominee, warned in April that Trump would try to postpone the election by coming up "with some rationale why it can't be held" on the scheduled day.
biden is the spouting nonsense and causing the problem
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/202...ction-n1235300

do you actually realize that "mail in votes and absentee votes" are different things .maybe you should research the differences on them ??

Mail service here still very weird/totally out of character.

CLAIM: Your rebuttal has absolutely nothing to do with what you quoted.

Oh, please do explain the difference.