Hey there, FRiend! We're FReepers and mostly on the same side on the big issues. Yes, we're probably never going to come to terms when it comes to unions but I do sincerely thank you for engaging in a good dialog.
Maybe where we differ is our age and locale. I grew up in a time and an area where unions had a stranglehold on a whole region. Ask anyone from the mid-Atlantic about the countless jobs lost due to unions putting once-profitable companies out of business. At one time, America was the world's leading steel producer. That entire industry vanished due to unions.
The gauntlet was down, and Lemuel Boulware issued a response. He saw a great gulf between the political ambitions of union officials and the economic interests of their members. This was a crucial contest, with “our free market and our free persons” at stake.
But before battle could be joined, “every citizen had to go back to school on economics individually … to learn from simple text books … to study until we understand” our democracy and our free market system. In his call to arms, Boulware was describing what became the education of Ronald Reagan. -- The GE Years: What Made Reagan Reagan