a dichotomy

So, I was reading a facebook post of a conservative friend of mine, who was "informing" everyone about a bus-drivers strike in Tempe and Pheonix, AZ. Seems the drivers "make between $12 and 22.50 per hour, have a 401k program, five weeks paid vacation, 11 paid holidays and the ability to accrue 60 sick days a year as well as five consecutive years of wage increases". Here were some of the comments from his less liberal friends:

- "Man! I don't have any of that!"

- "[R]ight now they make between 12-22. They were offered a 1% raise per year for the next 5 years plus all the other perks.... Unions need to go"

- "RIDICULOUS!! Give me a break. Unions definately need to go. I don't get any of that either....However, I did choose to be self-employed."

Okay, let's ignore that a measly 1% doesnt even cover the normal increase in any year's rise in the cost of living. How about we move on to the fact that these are the same conservatives who talk about the "envy" and "jealousy" of liberals whenever there is a complaint about the high pay of CEOs or Wall Street pirates. How is it okay to begrudge some poor bastard who drives a bus (presumably because he belongs to a union), but it's not okay to complain about a well-connected company executive making 100s of times the pay of a typical worker?

Generally, I leave his posts alone, because I'm polite that way. It's Facebook, not Blogger, after all. At the same time, this kind of hypocrisy really gets on my tits. One wonders what'd happen if CEOs formed a union? Besides, I suspect that if I commented on his post, using the last line of the above paragraph, he'd simply deny that he'd ever said anything like that, and I simply dont care enough about him or what he thinks to go to the effort of digging up the proof that he has.