obviously not if you think that unionization should be denied a group of workers on the basis of their location in relation to the means of production, in this case in their role as armed agents of the state. now once you open up that theoretical loophole you open others because you're addressing the question of the relationship between the state and capital. once you posit, to some extent, what appears to me to be an assumption about the relative autonomy of the state, then you start opening up the possibility that there are other significant factors in accounting for class in terms of their relations to the means of production. you will recall that on marxism, someone used this very same argument, albeit about unproductive labor, in response to unionizing prostitutes. in that case, i was raising concerns about the theoretical soundness or at least what appeared to me to be a contradiction in your thinking as you've articulated it here before.
finally, as for responsibility i wasn't suggesting you didn't understand this. i was, however, suggesting that i think it's wrong to only ever speak about these issues in such abstract terms, i was asking that whoever planted this idea in your head might consider what it sounds like to someone to be told, as yoshie put, that they are inherently opposed to the "working class" by virtue of being cops. who knows why anyone chooses to go into the occupations they do, we do know, however, that people often go into these professions because they don't have a lot of choices, especially people who are security guards! most of the people who go into this line of work come from homes where their parents were typically manual and low level service workers. so flat statments presented this way, with no theoretical elaboration don't sit well with me and they sure as heck wont' sit well with someone who doesn't understnad what it means to talk about "class" in an abstract fashion such as you did. that was my point. sorry you took it differently, but i was trying to elaborate this becasue i think that people from such backgrounds are potentially more radical and capable of being radicalized than you want to acknowledge and i don't think that just because they go into this line of work they are beyond all hope, esp if there were good and decent unions [[and yoshie, why you think unions are about raising pay is beyond me!] i pesonally don't give a rat's ass about cops or unionizing them. but i have friends who are cops, sec guards, in the military etc and i think the query you presented to the list, had they read them with their neophyte left sympathetic eyes would have been outraged by the presumptions hidden therein
moreover, as i was perhaps too subtly suggesting, a disproportionate number of the people that go into these occupations are people of color. almost 1/4 of police are latino/black! 1/3 of guards are latino/black. and those stats are based on data nearly a decade old! almost 8% of the latino/black population are employed in those jobs and most likely at the very lowest rungs of such employment. and it seemed odd to me that you'd find yourself opposed to unionizing the very folks you frequently say we cannot ignore!
obviously we have limited resources and must put them to wise use, so i'm not going to spend my days campaigning for unions for sec guards nor am i going to try to radicalize our thinking aobut how to organize them. it was an abstract discussion, "what would you do if".
last word: i have far better things to do with my time. so i put this one on ice.
kelley