This is so misleading. The main protest is not over the proposed changes to retirement/pay/etc. It is the revocation of collective bargaining rights. That is essentially the nuclear option and the teachers of Wisconsin are duty bound to use whatever leverage they can to prevent this injustice.

Hokkoda,
I agree with your statement of causative factors in Wisconsin.

But the Egyptians you are referring to are the "pure of thought", if you will, protesters out there purely for legitimate reasons, the people we support. The situation in Egypt is far too complex to state that it is some specific this or that. Granted Ryan did the same thing. But he was referring, I think, to the volume, passion, unruliness, the actions that get you camera time.

However there is another factor that does make the two hotbeds similar. They both have American union organizers and foes of our U.S. Republic involved in the underlying planning and orchestration. These protests are calculated to bring disruption to civil order and anger to the masses. Currently the flames are being fanned by instigators in other major American cities. They want, and have said as much, the people to think they have been as grossly wronged as have the Egyptians. As you meant, this is beyond ridiculous

While I think the unions will eventually fail in Wisconsin when they are turned off by the general level- headed public, I can forgive Ryan a loose comment about it.

I am always boggled why anyone would give public employees a collective bargaining agreement to begin with. That could be one of the most unethical benefits ever devised. Taxpayers pay their salaries, unions confiscate their money to lobby legislatures to increase their pay and benefits at the expense of the tax payer. Now that they are out of other people's money I can understand they may be upset. The fact is this is what the people of Wisconsin voted for.

The other item missed is this law gives employees the freedom to not be part of the union and not have their money confiscated to go to causes few of them agree with. I suspect this has more to do with the unions antics than anything else.

Let them have their little protest, eventually the senators will have to return to the work of the people and this will pass. I hope this encourages governors and legislatures around the country to take on these public employee unions and restore fiscal sanity to our country and states.

SmithersJones,

Duty bound? This phrase means a moral obligation to do something. Duty-bound to whom?

A union in a company can go on strike, and if they so choose they can put a private company out of business. They strike against management whose interests are to the shareholders, and so there is often an adversarial relationship between the workers and management.

In a government job, your manager and your union boss can be the same guy. There is no adversarial relationship; it's nothing more than a conspiracy against taxpayers.

I pay government workers' salaries along with their union dues just so that they can use those dues to elect politicians that will do their bidding against me. And if I oppose them, why they shut down my kids' school until the politicians they elect (or the politicians they threaten) give them the money they want. And you think the Wisconsin situation is misleading because it's focused on pensions and benefits, rather than the collective bargaining? Well by all means, let's turn the focus to the collective bargaining.

Exactly!
This is why you need to privatize as much as possible. Those getting paid from tax dollars lose or never understand the concept of there being no free lunch. And when you take away their lunch....