WORKING THE REFS. When people began pointing out that the disastrous NFL replacement refs are only out there disgracing the game because the owners locked out the union, it was just a matter of time before the great conservative thinkers of the 21st Century came out swinging in defense of right-to-work stadia. Take it away, Donald Douglas:

Plus, I guess it's no surprise, but the despicable progressives are trying to score political points on this, and over unions too... 

For some reason I don't think there's an accurate comparison between the NFL officials' union and, say, public sector teachers unions. But then again, folks like Steve Benen and the Think Progress anti-Semites probably back public teacher sexual predators over abused children and their parents. Because that's what's happened to the public unions these days.

Forget about being out of bullets and throwing the gun; this is like throwing the gum and then throwing the wrapper.

Some of the brethren can't even say the word "union," and instead displace their rage upon their traditional fantasy hate-objects. The Conservative Review:

The NFL has gone over the top with Breast Cancer Awareness (pink ref shirts, anyone?), Hispanic Heritage Month (announcers yelling GOAL for a touchdown…I wish I was kidding), female announcers everywhere and male announcers rapidly disappearing, announcers explaining after every hard hit why it’s still legal to (occasionally) hit someone hard in professional football, and now this.

It's not the end result of rapacious capitalism -- it's bitches and Messicans! Rush Limbaugh can't say the u-word, either; per the Daily Caller: "Doesn’t Obama, and the left in general, don’t they promote the advancement of the incompetent based on the fact that they’re incompetent? Screw standards in testing. We don’t need to go find the best..."

The Lonely Conservative at least engages the issue in the best rightwing victim-blaming tradition:

I just wonder why the mob isn’t mad at the regular refs who refuse to agree to a deal and come back to work... 

Unions ruin everything, now they’ve ruined football.

I kind of hope the lockout continues a while, so these patriots can have ample time to share their theories of workers' rights with the nation.

UPDATE. In comments, Chuckling:

One would hope the NFL referee lockout helps wake more people to the realization that plutocracy is ugly and getting uglier. The issue isn't about money. The retirement contributions in question aren't even pocket change for the billionaire NFL owners. No, they don't feel their employees deserve a good retirement. They don't feel their workers efforts are worth even a smidgen of their enormous net worth. They want it all not because it buys them anything extra, but in order to punish the lesser folk for their failings. It's a bizarro meritocratic thing for people that don't have a lot of merit.

Stunts like this do tempt me to think that sometimes they go after a union just to demoralize everyone else. That certainly seemed to be the case with the teachers, who went from being admired public servants to commies pariahs PDQ. Maybe if they win this one, they'll lock out the NFL players and replace them with bouncers and dock workers. Yes, I see the silver lining, but it'll be less funny when the boss demands that your bare-knuckle-box for your right to a job. The race to the bottom enlists us all whether we have numbers on our shirts or not.