Is everyone at USAPA on vacation?
Not an update in several weeks from some of the domiciles. Whats going on? Didnt some domiciles have meetings? Where are the updates?
america wests pilots idea of an update. The following is a america west pilot update in November.
Below is an exerpt from a November 9th update by the america west pilots leaders.
" is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure.†James Madison, Federalist Papers #51.
President Madisons words echo a concern which has deep roots in a branch of philosophy known as political philosophy- the study of balancing justice with political order. With the prodding of early Greek philosophers, the people of Athens experimented with a new form of political order at the turn of the fifth century, B.C. This new order was quite different from previous political orders where power was concentrated in a monarch or a dictator, with successors being chosen by blood, decree, or civil war. This new political order granted the people a supreme political power through an electoral system. Today this system is known as a democracy, and in the fifth century B.C. it worked for about two decades until its structural weaknesses became apparent. A tension had developed between two parties: the rich and the poor. Though the leadership was elected by the populace, it did not take long for that leadership to focus on what was best for them, which at that time became the enforcement of debts as many Athenians fell behind in their obligations. At that time, it was common for people to secure loans using themselves as collateral. When the elected leadership refused to alter debtor laws, Athens boiled to the brink of a civil war.
Fortunately, a mediator named Solon was appointed and he was able to mediate many changes in both the laws and the organization of the government. Solon's greatest contribution was figuring out the inherent weakness that would occur in a democracy if there were not any checks against the ruling class. He discovered that without these checks, democracy was just another way of selecting a new set of tyrants. He therefore instituted a number of reforms which tempered the situation for about a decade. However, the checks he created were not quite powerful enough, and it was not long before tyranny again emerged. Despite this failure of democracy in fifth century Athens, the world gained an understanding of distributive justice “ the idea that people of all classes must be treated fairly and according to their individual merit. Without distributive justice, there would be tension and unrest. Whats more, we learned from the Athens experiment that it was a fallacy to assume that one particular class could be trusted to determine what is best for all classes. The reason is simple, because it points to what the vast majority of philosophers accept as the essence of man - the primacy of his self-interest. The temptation for the elected class in Greece to preserve their self interest was no different than any of the ruling classes since.
In the United States, the Founding Fathers clearly understood this and therefore set up a Constitutional Democracy, which may also be called a liberal democracy. The essence of our liberal democracy is that our civil liberties exist independent of the electoral process. We have our civil liberties in America not because we go to the voting booth every two years, but because our Constitution limits the power of those who are elected. The system balances power between three branches, but more importantly, it prevents a simple majority from using its power to completely dominate a minority. Without these safeguards, it would be easy to see how our democracy could devolve into a tyranny just assuredly as ancient Greece did in the fifth century. For example, consider the situation where a majority of the electorate “ which in reality is women “ decided to elect leaders who ran on the platform of removing the right to vote from men. If we were to abide strictly by the wishes of the majority, then men could say a goodbye to having any voice in government if it were not for the protections written into our Constitution. Our Founding Fathers were aware of the possibility where 51% of the vote could produce 100% of the decisions. There is actually a term for this phenomenon, and its called the tyranny of the majority. Sound government cannot exist without a system to distribute fairness and equity among all classes. James Madison surely understood this:
What bitter anguish would not the people of Athens have often escaped if their government had contained so provident a safeguard against the tyranny of their own passions? Popular liberty might then have escaped the indelible reproach of decreeing to the same citizens the hemlock on one day and statues on the next." Federalist Paper #63.
Hemlock on one day, statues on the next. That sounds similar to USAPA self-serving positions on everything from seniority, to their concept of how a union should operate. First, there is their commitment to Date-of-Hire seniority. They speak out of both sides of their mouth depending on what is most convenient to their self-appointed leaders. They insist on forcing date-of-hire on the West, yet refuse to acknowledge date-of-hire to the Empire and Trump Shuttle pilots. They argue in one venue that date of hire is a creature of contract and is therefore negotiable, yet then refuse to negotiate a change in their own seniority list simply out of self-interest (and rank hypocrisy).
Second, the leaders of USAPA feel they can defy what every ontological philosopher has known since Socrates; that is, USAPA somehow thinks that they alone can distribute fairness and equity. Although there are arguably exceptions to this fact about the human condition “ Jesus Christ, Ghandi, and Mother Teresa “ the problem for the USAPA leadership is that their own actions and words obliterate that possibility. ""
Yea, keep sending your money to these boys west pilots, they are obviously using your donations for agricultural purposes.
Should you continue to write checks to this group while you are getting furloughed and demoted? A lot of talk, not a lot of walk. Ok Spartans, I warned you.
You have heard the expression, "beware of Greeks bearing gifts." With these impostor Greeks the expressions should be, "beware of Greeks burdening you with legal bills."
