James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal takes a courageous stand in addressing the unrealistic policy of opposing public worker unions for schoolteachers and sanitation workers while upholding all union bargaining rights for firefighters and police. Taranto points out that the police and firefighters in Wisconsin have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with their non-first-responder brethren in the battle between fiscally responsible Republicans and their union-bought Democrat counterparts, even though these same police and firefighters are exempt from the changes pushed through by the Republicans.

Exempt? Well then why the hell are they just as rabidly opposing the limitations being imposed on their lower-risk union brethren? As Taranto explains, any reduction in the status of public service union employees, is threatening to the police and firefighters because it brings up the very obvious question: Why them? Why should they, of all public employees, enjoy privileged status?

And that brings to my mind a question I have long held about cops and firemen, Just what precisely is it they do in their jobs that makes them any more deserving of special pay and special status than our serving military, especially the troops who serve in combat arms organizations and who face far greater risk of bodily injury or death than police and firefighters?

I'll tell you the difference with one word: unions.

Think about it, unions have so corrupted the concept of public service that police and firefighters enjoy better wages, far better working conditions and much more lucrative retirements than our boldest and bravest American citizens who volunteer to go out into the world and lay their very lives on the line so that all of us, including all those cops and firemen can enjoy the freedoms we have.

To my way of thinking, Congress should enact legislation to ensure that no cop or fireman has pay, benefits or retirement that exceeds the same for their military equivalent. Certainly I appreciate the role police and firefighters play in providing the security that makes my life comfortable. But is it the right thing to do to show our young warriors serving 24/7 out there at the tip of that very sharp and deadly spear that we value them less than people working usually comfortable, but occasionally hazardous shift work? What's the obvious difference here?

Yep, you're starting to get the picture: public service unions.

America's priorities need re-ordering and the first step in doing that is getting rid of public service unions, every last one of them, police and firefighters included. No public servant is worth more to America than a front-line warrior and the only way to ensure this is to eliminate the one factor responsible for this abominable discrepancy: public service unions.