JUST SAYIN’-We hear all the time about how our country has gone to the dogs. It is socialist! It is communist! All our rights are being taken away. The decision-making that affects us is being subsumed by a Washington that leaves us out of the process! OMG!
Despite all such assertions, we still have, will always have the Constitution (which people on the Right often quote). Thus, if laws are being enacted that we don’t like, we can push to change the laws and the next time around exercise our franchise to replace those lawmakers who do not reflect our political ideologies (might I remind everyone that President Obama was re-elected by millions of votes and House members are up for a “vote of confidence” after just 2 years in office).
According to the aggrieved, we apparently don’t need government. We don’t need the security provided by our military? We can always rely on volunteer militias. Oops! That’s from another era. What about the FDA? We should be able to eat uninspected foods (forget salmonella and e coli). We should be able to take untested drugs. Remember thalidomide?
I never hear people complain about firefighters or police officers. Can’t we take care of our own homes when they are burning down, and on our own apprehend thieves and then try, convict, and jail them? Those with other protestations never say, We can take care of our own potholes (Mayor Garcetti ran on potholes) and broken sidewalks and roads in disrepair. We don’t need public funding for education or affordable health care or Social Security assistance when we grow old or become disabled along the way. Injured on the job? We certainly can do without State Disability and Workers’ Compensation.
Wait, we like all those programs! And don’t take my Medicare or Medicaid away from me either!
Never call me a socialist, but I am still against “big” government!!
I got to thinking over the last few days about all those “benefits” offered by our government at the local, state, and national levels. And then I pondered, if we had tougher laws in place and enforced them while requiring implementation of what we already have, maybe trucks would not spin out of control on the highway to kill unsuspecting victims.
How many times have you heard that people were ejected from vehicles upon impact because they were not wearing seat belts? Why weren’t all of the riders on the charter bus last week wearing them. In fact, several of the dead who had been ejected from the bus had not been wearing them. Where seat belts are available on any modes of transportation (unquestionably, belts should be required on all public conveyances), the driver should never begin a trip without requiring belting up.
I remember taking a charter bus not that long ago on a lobbying trip from Union Station in Los Angeles to Sacramento. The trip was long and everyone was excited, singing and dancing in the aisles, but I chose to be a little less animated and stay in my seat all nicely belted in. How boring, yet how relatively safe!
I also remember how very fatigued our driver was. I came to like him as we chatted away (he had shared with me the unfair working practices to which he and other drivers were subjected) but I also noticed that he was constantly drinking super-sized cans of Red Bull, trying to keep the excruciating pain of sleepiness from taking over. Despite the many beverages, his head would sag every so often (“Hey, Mr. Driver, how ya doing?”) and I prayed we would get home in one piece (which we did), but that is obviously not always the case.
Did you know that non-union drivers are often coerced into keeping double books? The public one that is in alignment with the law that mandates a certain amount of rest time (or turn-around time) between the first destination and the next trip. The secret one shows the actual hours on the road so that the driver gets the correct amount of pay.
If the law requires an 8- to 10-hour respite between trips, that does not equate to 8 to 10 hours of sleep. Keep in mind, the driver needs to obtain his or her lodging, eat, clean up, and then go to bed after which the driver has to get up, wash up, dress, and then pick up the passengers. Evidently, the law does not take into consideration the actual time that is left for sleep.
This situation, by the way, also pertains to airline pilots who have to grab sleep as they can, often sharing ridiculously cramped quarters to spare another expenditure from the paltry amount of money they are getting paid (we tend to think that pilots are highly paid, but generally they earn a living that places them in the poverty range--$16,000 a year is a typical starting salary, not the 6-figure income they ultimately made some decades ago). Yes, there were recent adjustments at the government level but not nearly enough to resolve this pressing crisis!
When sleep-deprived drivers or pilots are at the helm of our buses and limousines, airplanes and ships, is it surprising that some drivers inadvertently guide their vehicles in a way that can cause cataclysmic accidents? Should it be a surprise when planes crash at the hands of pilots who make perhaps seemingly simple mistakes (due to the fatigue factor) that produce devastating consequences? Or cruise ships that run aground?
I am not placing responsibility on any one person regarding the recent charter bus accident when students from schools here in Los Angeles and other places were anticipating an exciting tour of the college campus they hoped to attend. I do think, however, that often the NTSB is too quick to place blame on the driver or pilot once accidents happen (when findings determine there are no obvious mechanical defects).
Certainly, we must demand accountability by the owners of the equipment to keep the vehicles in proper working order, but we must also insist that regulations to keep both drivers and passengers safe be put in place and adhered to (with severe, meaningful penalties when the rules are purposely disregarded).
Among those rules must be consideration for the human condition. It can’t all be about money—how to get to the destination quickly without expending too much “treasure” on a trip. Relief drivers and pilots must not be an option but a mandate. Turn-around time must be realistic. Lives are on the line, after all. The bean counters should be held responsible when consideration for the money saved supersedes human needs.
The government is often just as remiss as the operators, yet we can demand from our lawmakers that the government modify, expand, and/or create rules that can reduce the dangers. We cannot leave it up to the businesses to act on their own. Otherwise, we might still have 14-18 hour work days in America.
As repeated demands and demonstrations and lobbying against Walmart practices are being made, policies have begun to change. Employees are no longer being forced to work off the clock or not getting paid for overtime hours. The issues against Walmart have not all been remedied but if we did not have the force of government behind our demands, Walmart might justify paying its “associates” $4.50 an hour for 12-hour days.
Every rule and regulation that saves lives and improves the quality of life without being oppressive and exclusionary are well worth the “imposition” on each of us. The Right seems to support the Hobbesian way of thinking that people will give up their rights to government (often under the guise of family values and religious freedom) if said government will protect them and provide for their happiness (doesn’t the Right always scream about national defense and going to war and imposing Jesus in every governmental decision?). And yet they oppose government interference.
Democratic policy, on the other hand, generally supports aspects of Keynesian philosophy. That doctrine promotes a government which works to ameliorate unjust and unfair practices through economic involvement without permitting that same government (which the people have chosen) to dictate and impose unfair practices upon the electorate. And, notwithstanding the drawbacks, the Left continues to support government.
Regardless of which side we are on, we must ultimately come to the logical conclusion that no government, no elected official, no law is ever perfect and yet government is necessary. Our government was established (among other reasons) “to promote the general welfare” of our nation’s residents—and that includes rules and regulations that are intended to fulfill that promise.
We must adhere to the creed promulgated by our founding, though imperfect, foreparents centuries ago, enunciating a firmly-held “belief in equality of opportunity in American life, specifically in equal opportunity before the law.” We need good governance to fulfill that demand.
Yes, support of government could be considered a double-edged sword, but without government (whose goal is to protect “We, the people”), life would not be what we take for granted today. We must insist that our lawmakers pass bills that protect the values and morés of the majority (so long as those values are founded on social and economic justice).
Abraham Lincoln once declared: “You can please some of the people some of the time and all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time but you can never please all of the people all of the time.” Thus, we can push for the results we want, we can pursue happiness, but that state of mind is not guaranteed nor is every law going to be one we can fully support. But none of this can happen without good governance.
Government is an integral part of every society, including our own. And yet I always find it interesting that many on the Right speak against government at the same time that they fight so hard to be part of it and then vote against everything government can achieve on our behalf.
Just sayin’!
(Rosemary Jenkins is a Democratic activist and chair of the Northeast Valley Green Alliance. Jenkins has written Leticia in Her Wedding Dress and Other Poems, A Quick-and-Easy Reference to Correct Grammar and Composition and Vignettes for Understanding Literary and Related Concepts. She also writes for CityWatch.)
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 12 Issue 32
Pub: Apr 18, 2014
