Barry Levinson
Here is part of his comment in response to a posting by David Curlee about the proposed changes to the Fullerton Firefighters Contract Agreement.
“With regard to Curlee’s gratuitous comments about pension contributions, let me just say that my first real job in life was as a firefighter for the U.S. Forest Service on the Angeles National Forest where I earned some money to help out with college expenses. The one think that I learned from that experience is that firefighters earn every penny they receive in salary and benefits. They work under the most adverse of conditions, and deal with more tragedy in a week than most of us see in a lifetime. Many of them die early from cancer and heart disease.”
The gratuitous comment relates to Curlee mentioning that one way to solve the problem of reducing the number of fire vehicles from 6 to 5 within Fullerton would be for the Firefighters themselves to pay more for their contributions for their extremely generous taxpayer funded pension. To a lefty like Dr. Shapiro, that statement must have been blasphemy.
Shapiro
But by following the advice in Rules for Radicals by Communist Saul Allinsky, Dr. Shapiro is accusing David Curlee of exactly what he himself has just done above. He makes a totally unsubstantiated and I believe basically factually incorrect statement to support the Fullerton firefighters. That sir is not only gratuitous it is false.
He states referring to firemen that “many of them die early from cancer and heart disease”. And Dr. many of them live to be 90 years old as well collecting 90% of their final pay plus health care for the next 40 years in retirement. In every group some die younger than the average and some die older than the average as you obviously know sir. He also stated that “They work under the most advert of conditions, and deal with more in a week than most of us see in a lifetime.” I guess Dr. Shapiro believes that firefighters who work a three day shift weekly and deal with a few if any dangerous fires in a typical year in Fullerton is hardly ‘the most adverse of working conditions”. It has been statistically proven that working at a 7-11 Convenience store is much more dangerous than being the typical firefighter, yet they make minimum wage, rather than the 6 figure salaries and the early rich retirements that all Fullerton firefighters receive from the taxpayers of Fullerton.
Nearly two-thirds of all homicides in the retail trade sector during the 2003–2008 period occurred in two types of retail establishments: food and beverage stores (41.4 percent) and gasoline stations (22.0 percent). The other third were distributed among 10 other types of retailers, including motor vehicle and parts dealers (8.4 percent), clothing and clothing accessories stores (6.8 percent), and general merchandise stores (4.9 percent).
Finally police unions have been lying to the public that police officers die earlier than the average man in America. False! In fact the last study showed that on average a police officer’s life expectancy is about the same as the average male in America.
No one is saying that a firefighter or a police job at times can be a dangerous profession. But greatly overstating that danger and lying about their average life expectancy and overstating how bad their work conditions are is simply muddying up the waters at best or lying at worst.
SHAME ON SHAPIRO
Shame on you Dr Shapiro, to throw out so much misinformation in a failed attempt to try to attack David Curlee’s legitimate concerns about our fire department.
ESTABLISHMENT SHAPIRO
But I am sure Saul Allinsky would be proud of you sir. I for one am not!
#1 by Ghost on March 19, 2018 - 11:04 am
Thanks, Kate— thee made my day!