Teamster president Jimmy Hoffa vs me

I am a 25-year union member (Teamsters). Teamsters union president Jimmy Hoffa, Jr. is at the head of my union. I have long acknowledged that when it comes to politics, Hoffa does not speak for me!

Yesterday, in a Labor Day speech, he was was openly hostile to me and my First Amendment "freedom of speech, [my] right [to] peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Why? Because I am a small part of a grassroots movement that opposes runaway government which includes runaway compensation for public-sector union workers. He says that because I want the people to wrest control of the government from professional politicians and unions, I am anti-worker. Hoffa is wrong. He is hungry for the perpetuation of the power he and other union leaders have over, and through, big government.

I, on the other hand, support leaders like Captain Moroni who said,

I seek not for power, but to pull it down. I seek not for honor of the world, but for the glory of my God, and the freedom and welfare of my country. -- Book of Mormon, Alma 60:36

In contrast to Captain Moroni's moral strength, here's a sample of what Hoffa had to say yesterday:

We gotta keep an eye on the battle that we face, a war on workers, and you see it everywhere in the TEA Party. And, there's only one way to win that war, the one thing about working people is we like a good fight. And you know, what, they got a war, they got a war with us and there's only going to be one winner, it's going to be the workers up in Michigan and America. We're going to win that war....Let's take these son of bitches out [TEA Party] and give America back to an America where we [politically powerful unions] belong.

Hoffa seems to believe that the only people who count are union workers -- especially public-sector union workers. Public sector union workers have the unique ability to elect the politicians who will negotiate "against" the unions. Hence, the bloated compensation packages that public-sector workers enjoy and which are bankrupting local, state, and federal budgets.

Hoffa ignores that simple fact that most workers in this nation are non-union -- by choice. Most workers in this nation are private-sector workers, not the public-sector workers Hoffa was addressing. He ignores the simple fact that most workers are also taxpayers who are forced to support Hoffa's overpaid public-sector union workers. And we are tired of it. Hence the TEA Party movement. (By the way, TEA stands for Taxed Enough Already. Aren't you?)

Politics today is not a struggle between Republicans and Democrats or between Liberals and Conservatives. It is a struggle between good and evil. Hoffa's words are a sample of that struggle. His is one of a legion of demons railing against liberty, self-responsibility, and goodness.

Thanks to Hoffa's profane comments, I am on the edge of resigning from my union.