Those who ratified the Thirteenth Amendment expressed no interest in annulling Congress’s authority to “raise and support armies,” recently invoked to win the War to preserve the Union. Draftees retain the social status of free men, even if constrained to pay a temporary tax in labor.

No, Anonymous Nicholas, I mean exactly what I stated. Many jurisdictions prohibit all strikes by public employees, under laws such as the “Taylor Law” in New York. “The Taylor Law is a New York State statute which authorizes a governor-appointed State Public Employment Relations Board to resolve contract disputes for public employees while curtailing their right to strike. The law provides for mediation and binding arbitration to give voice to unions, while work stoppages are made punishable with fines and jail time. ”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Law

So yes it is a crime for police to strike in NYC and they can be fined or go to jail for doing it. If necessary, the Governor would call out the National Guard to preserve order.

If police struck because politicians refused to do anything about a gun problem, that wouldn’t be “deciding national policy”, that would be “engaging in the civic discussion about national policy”. Surely you wouldn’t deny the good men and women in blue of their free speech, so you also can’t possibly mean that they should be disallowed from voicing that opinion.

I thought this was a hangout for conservatives. You guys aren’t sounding very conservative about this issue. Conservatives don’t turn people into slaves by forcing them to work, nor do they tell people they don’t have the right to express political opinions. Leave that nonsense to the pinkos.

It should not be a surprise to the police that law-abiding citizens can own weapons. Gun control only succeeds in disarming law-abiding citizens. Unfortunately criminals don’t seem to have a problem obtaining weapons even in places that have strict gun control laws.

Bloomberg should stick to banning Big Gulps. Then he will only be seen as a fool. When he encourages the police to strike illegally he is advocating criminal behavior.

I am sorry that the last 75+ years (at least) of labor law in the U.S., as well as the last 100+ years of actual labor relations, have been lost on you.

A strike is the same as quitting and then offering to come back when the situation is fixed. Would you rather live in a world where all the police in the country just decide to quit and NOT offer to come back when you fix the problem?

For the record, I don’t support increased gun control, and I don’t really follow the logic of Bloomberg’s statement. I think he’s just advocating for his position at an opportune time, which is fair politics, and I think the conservative response has been hypocritical bluster and nonsense — unfair politics. The appropriate conservative response is “we disagree with Bloomberg that America wants or needs more gun control, and we are proud to count as citizen gun owners many of America’s fine police officers, who can decide for themselves when and why to strike.”

(I may be anonymous to your readers, but you have my real email address, so I’m not anonymous to you. You can easily write to me or look me up.)