Bad Eggs, an Egg-cellent Opportunity to Reform Regulatory Process

Half a billion eggs recalled resulting from the salmonella outbreak traced back to two Iowa egg farms; or lets be accurate egg-corporations. Now that’s a colossal Humpty-dumpty event.

And what helped bring about this potential epidemic of disease-ridden eggs, two huge home-grown entities. First and primary are the egg-producers, mega-farm companies that operates expansive egg mills with the sole purpose producing the most eggs at the lowest cost to generate the largest profits. Almost the very definition of the capitalistic enterprise model we all learn about in school; and egg-actly what we expect in America. What then went wrong with this successful approach to market-place production?

The failure that took place here is the same one that has taken place throughout the our nation and throughout the world whenever an enterprise owner(s) put their profit motive before any and all other considerations. In this case, the egg factories viewed that making their profit was more essential than the health and safety of the American consumer. Did they do it consciously and deliberately with full intention to spread a serious and potentially deadly disease across the country? No, they did not intend to purposely infect their product. However, they did overtly make decisions and impose operational procedures and conditions that promote the potential for such consequences.

How can we know this, that they knew they were taking risks with the public health? Well if you are issued environmental law violations and food safety violations, then you cannot claim that you were unaware of the potential risk your product represents. If you define operating procedures that increase the opportunity for conditions that either inadequately treat the containment of such disease outbreaks or that fail to monitor and detect the occurrence of the disease in your production facilities then you made overt decisions for which you are responsible. If you fail to take corrective actions in response to citations of operating procedures or environmental conditions then you are making a definitive decision to allow the risk and even to promote the risk.

Besides being held accountable for their on-going violations, these egg-producers are subject to and vulnerable to the lawsuits that harmed and endangered citizens could make against them. We will have to wait and see if and how this path may play out. But it will probably not be a swift journey, and there may well be some legal protection that has been enacted by the wise and informed leadership of our political legislative bodies.

But there is another set of players in this debacle, there is the governmental agency or agencies and their legislative creators that have failed to provide an adequate authority to perform the explicit function of protecting the public’s food supply. In the case of the legislatures, they have not endowed the agencies with an effective means and authority to penalize violators. In the case of the agencies, they have failed to employ the power that they do have to the best of their ability, and they have failed to adequately present information to their controllers (U.S. Congress or state equivalents) to the effect of the threats represented by the current circumstances in the system.

What will we see as a result of this egg-asperating situation? The House and Senate committees will hold hearing and may even propose some regulatory reforms that they will tout as the ultimate solution that will insure the safety of the American food supply. They may even find a way to pass the regulation despite the partisan bickering and obstructionism. Of course if they do find a way to pass the legislation, it will be weakened by caveats and constraints carefully crafted into the clauses and context to which the code will apply. Not to mention the attachment of ear-marks and amendments that will be unrelated to and either unsupportive of or detrimental to the egg-plicit purpose of the bill.

What won’t happen is Congress will not recognize nor seize the opportunity to actually create a efficient and effective approach to changing the nature of the regulatory approach to bring about a safe food supply for America. They will not see the way to reduce the cost of government bureaucracy to achieve these goals and at the same time incent the private corporations engaged in food production to compete for safety in their products not as a regulatory budget but as a profit seeking motivation under their own control.

In the end, the America people will be left with an unhatched opportunity for improving the safety of their food, and with the rotten egg of ‘business as usual’ government.

A Timely Proposal: Let’s Have A National Referendum to Kick Them All Out

Let’s give the American public the opportunity of a life-time. Let’s give them a national referendum on whether or not to completely dismiss (fire) every Senator and Representative currently holding a seat in the Senate and the House. No exceptions. We could even be gracious and require that the referendum only passes if more than 60% of voters support the referendum. [And that’s 60% of the votes cast, not one of those duplicitous procedures to preclude action so loved by our self-serving political parties that requires 60% of all registered voters to decide the issue.]

This referendum would allow the public to affirm whether the American people truly are fed up with the Washington ‘politics as usual’ shenanigans that have produced the deplorable economic, social, educational, national security, ecological, health care, and national debt situation for the country. It would provide the ‘mother of all wake-up calls’ to the political establishment, or it would signal that Americans are satisfied with their approaches to confronting the issues of the day. [Side note: If passed there would have to be a special election held to replace everyone, and the referendum would have to include precluding these just ousted individuals from running in the follow-up special election, or voters might be foolish enough to put them back in place.]

It has to be an all-or-none vote, because Americans have demonstrated over and over that they don’t like any other politician but they are happy with their own current Senator or Representative. It seems a small sacrifice to lose your own favorite son/daughter; but hard times call for hard choices. And I am sure that your political favorite would understand the value of their sacrifice in this just cause.

Imagine the staggering reaction that this would bring to all levels of government. If we could do it for the nation, we might also choose to do it at the state level. Politicians might actually start thinking about how to serve the public rather than the special interest groups. A double benefit to the voters is that this not only will scare the hell out of the politicians, but it will demonstrate to the special interest groups that they are vulnerable to the voice of the people too. What good will their huge contributions do for them, they can’t buy influence since the choice is to remove the objects they intend to influence.

So get out there and start asking your elected representatives to put this referendum on the ballot. What have they got to lose, if they think they have been doing a good job. And if they haven’t then aren’t they going to lose anyway? Ooop! No they won’t because you will vote them back in.

Well, it’s still a good idea.

Americans Don’t Give-Up The Fight and Don’t Give-In To Fear, Why Would We Succumb To Hatred?

We take pride in America in our American Spirit, our Yankee ingenuity, and our can-do attitude. Americans rejoice in our commitment to freedom and its defense throughout the world. We acknowledge that “There is nothing to fear, but fear itself.” This is the country of immigrants, where you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps and attain anything; the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Why then do Americans seem to lose the perspective these beliefs should give us on issues involving the Islamic religion? I suppose it could be that political leaders and operatives are always willing to latch onto any issue or message that provides them with the opportunity to get money. Just as we honor the Americans who have given their lives for our country, we generally despise our politicians who generally trade in lies, deceit, graft, and fraud; and we cultishly vote for which ever politician is running under the banner of the political party that we are devotedly aligned with regardless of their consistent and unrelenting failure to serve the public interest.

The conclusion from this philosophical dissonance between our allegiance to freedom and our disregard for supporting the rights that are defined by that freedom is that far to many Americans are willing to trade-in their principles, to abandon their responsibilities and run with the mob rather than stand up and be counted in defense of America. A defense of America by demanding that our laws are applied equally to everyone; that our liberty is preserved for all citizens; and that the rights of the minority are not sacrificed to the interests of the majority with disregard for justice.

Are we really willing to accept politicians who mislead us, who cultivate hate as a means of garnering political power, and who demean the very principles of America in which we take so much pride?

When A Separate Church And State Both Advocate A Common Principle

During this morning’s church service I had a serendipitous insight into a commonality of principle between a teaching of my faith and one of the tenets of our democracy. On the faith side, the homily emphasized the principle that discipline is a salient aspect of life. This insight relates to how that discipline carries not only to my faith but equally to my political philosophy.

Discipline is a normal part of growing up; and then if successfully acquired becomes a life-long lifestyle requirement if we are to endeavor to live righteously (or democratically in a narrower context). The discipline that God brings into one’s life is intended to provide instruction to guide and to strengthen the mind and the body to be able to endure and even flourish in our lives. If we are not taught the principles that we should live by, learn and understand them, and then be held responsible to adhere to those principles even when they are difficult, unpleasant or unpopular then we will suffer the consequences from our lack of discipline. It must cause us to expect that we will not be rewarded with the benefits and blessings that following those very principles provide. Many of us understand later in life that the discipline that our parents imposed upon us in our youth was beneficial to us; some I am sure never come to that realization. But we grew stronger and more prepared to deal with life because of that discipline.

Many people who believe in God also believe that He places trials and burdens into our lives that are also intended to strengthen us. It is often cited that “God does not place any burden on us that we cannot carry”. The take-away from this is that you cannot know what is righteous and gain the rewards that come from it unless you actually lead a righteous life. And that requires the discipline to follow what you believe in; including the fundamental principles that Americans have regarding our democratic system.

The same disciplinary perspective is demanded of a people that are dedicated to being free. The democratic nature of our nation is dependent upon our ability to follow the principles that define our freedom. This includes the principle that we are a nation of laws and not of men. It may be difficult to accept that principle when you see someone or a group doing something that you disagree with, and it may require you to accept the rights of those individuals to choose to act as they have despite your views. And while this may be especially hard where there are emotional, religious or political issues at the point of contention between groups that you don’t approve of or accept into your own view of being American; it is explicitly in these circumstances that your need for discipline is the greatest. It may only be through discipline that we can retain and preserve our freedom. We must as surely have the discipline to hold fast to the principles that we are a nation of laws and that we must uphold the freedom of each and every citizen to their rights guaranteed by those laws.

Thus both the principles of my faith and of my country demand that I have the discipline to live in accordance with those principles. If I do not have the strength or the wisdom to follow those principles than I cannot hope to gain the advantages that they offer. If we do not do what is right according to our laws then how can we expect justice for ourselves? It does not matter if that right is based upon my faith or my politics. To expect a democracy to protect your freedom, it must be a democracy that protects everyone’s freedom in exactly the same way. If our desire to be a free nation is a righteous principle to live by and to live for, then we have to exercise the discipline of insuring that that same freedom is given to all citizens and is protected by our laws and our efforts.

Another American Freedom – Freedom From Hatred

American ideals sprout from our fundamental principles of being a fee people. And spurred by these principles, our founding fathers strove to establish a system of government that would serve and protect our freedoms in perpetuity. The ideals and the freedoms that Americans hold to today are embedded throughout the historic records of our nation. America presents its absolute right to freedom in our Declaration of Independence. We structured the form of our governing bodies to focus their powers to the service of the people and limited their power over the people in our Constitution. We extended the supremacy of the people over the government through the adoption of our Bill of Rights to expressly state particular freedoms upon which the government is forbidden to tread. And in accordance with these seminal seeds of a free nation, the United States has established the American societal contract of a free and democratic people who are bound together by their mutual interest in being a nation that follows our ‘rule of law’ in pursuit of those freedoms and principles.

We hear about any number of our freedoms everyday from ever increasing sources: the news media offering coverage of people exercising or espousing their freedoms, political parties jockeying for public opinion, campaign ads alerting us about the eminent threat to our freedoms, decisions from courts (Supreme or otherwise) that cite said freedoms, and even in the artistic medias where we seek our amusements of the day. If you have not heard about freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to bear arms, or freedom of religion recently then you have not been paying attention.

What then do we make of the current ‘ground-zero’ mosque issue and the torrent of opinions, positions, charges, and rants regarding the mosque in the context of our American ideals? We could say that this is nothing more than a healthy debate on the issue. But ‘healthy’, really! is what you see and hear an open, rational and intelligent discussion of the question? Does your heart swell with pride when you hear the reasons offered for someone’s side of the debate, is your American spirit lifted by the moral virtue being presented, and is your sense of justice and equality satisfied by the way the debate is conducted?

Oh, by the way; what do you think the actual question surrounding the ground-zero mosque is? It is not whether they have the right to build the mosque, or community center or both. There are any number of legal rights guaranteed by our laws that make it clear that building the mosque is perfectly legal. The question is not whether they should build the mosque. Presumably they have already determined that this is a course of action that they believe is appropriate and advisable for whatever reasons they have considered. Their right to choose is no less endowed then another’s right to choose to state that they are against it. But not liking their decision in no way diminishes nor restricts their right to choose to do it. So again what is the question?

I think the question is whether in America we collectively hold that like Rockwell’s Freedom from Fear and Freedom from Want that there is a right to a Freedom from Hatred. Do we believe that under our democracy that hatred is a valid reason for our citizens, even if it were to be a majority of our citizens, to restrict the rights and freedoms of other citizens? Is this what the founders of our country fought a revolution for; is it what America fought two World Wars, the Korean conflict, the Vietnam war, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraqi, and a plethora of other conflicts around the globe for? Did Americans die so that even any single one of our freedoms could be limited for some but not all? You all know the answers to these questions. There is not even a question of what our American ideals are in this matter.

Americans always have and always will have to struggle with the difficulty and troubling demands placed upon a free people who strive to fulfill the blessings that freedom bestows upon us and our posterity. I do not expect or require others to do what I would do, but I do expect and require them to allow me to choose as freely as any other free citizen has a right to choose. I expect that in America I have a right to my liberties not being overshadowed by hate; that I have right to a Freedom from Hatred.