Where do they get the nerve?

At left are Minnesota government employees (according to the caption in the Star-Tribune, which gets credit for the photo) and I guess that maybe unionized government employees inhabit a different world than I do.

I can't imagine having the nerve to go out in public and demand that government stick its hand in someone else's pocket so that I could have the money.

Full disclosure: I spent about six of my 30-odd working years on government payrolls, serving as a staffer in the Minnesota Legislature, United States Senate and Office of the Governor of Minnesota. But I considered each of those positions to be a privilege, and an opportunity to serve. The idea that the taxpayers owed me a living - or the notion of picketing to make them pay more - would have been unfathomable to me. I worked for the taxpayers, not the other way around.

My successor in the governor's office was a bit of an airhead - her previous career involved reading the news on TV - who got caught by the Star-Tribune forcing staffers in the governor's office to watch her kids during the work day. When she was called out on it she huffed, "These people work for me." Someone had to remind her that, no, those people worked for the taxpayers of Minnesota, who weren't paying them to be her babysitter. Her attitude would have fit perfectly with these stooges on the capitol steps.