Polite Kid

Travelers going ahead with plans despite vice president's gaffe, swine flu concerns
Pigs can�t fly yet, but the swine flu is still a reason to stay out of the sky.
At least, that is, if you ask Vice President Joe Biden. And most Southwest Floridians aren�t. Nor are their travel agents. Or their airlines. Or the rest of the federal government.
"I would tell members of my family � and I have � that I wouldn�t go anywhere in confined places now," Biden said on NBC�s "Today" show Thursday morning.
Only problem is, Biden�s advice is not in line with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official message, which is for citizens to only avoid non-essential travel to Mexico. Pundits quickly tacked the comment up as another off-the-cuff remark, which Biden has a reputation for, but travel industry officials were decidedly more upset, with one saying the comment bordered on "fear mongering."
"To suggest that people not fly at this stage of things is a broad brush stroke," said Tim Smith, a spokesman for American Airlines.''
I suppose a spokesman for American Airlines just couldn't have a bias, could he? Or a conflict of interest?
Either way, though, a possible Biden gaffe wasn�t going to keep Shari Munger of Sarasota from visiting Chicago on Thursday out of Southwest Florida International Airport. Munger, who said she was in her early 40s, said she felt the whole swine flu thing was being blown out of proportion.
"Not at all worried," Munger said. "I think the media has a tendency to exaggerate things."
But there are people taking precautions, feeling, like Biden, that confined spaces result in pandemics.
"It�s not just going to Mexico, if you�re in a confined aircraft and one person sneezes, it goes all the way through the aircraft," Biden said, adding that other transportation options may be worth a look.''
Just for perspective, let's see what information is out there on air travel and contagious illness. There's this:
Airborne illness and air travel simply go hand in hand, and anyone that travels often will tell you so. The problem with air travel is that you are talking about thousands and over the course of a year, millions of people who travel in the same aircrafts. Simply put, there are germs everywhere in an aircraft and it doesn�t matter how well the crews clean them, these germs cannot be removed because they are not just on things, they are in the air.
Every year millions of people come down with the flu or common colds after traveling on an aircraft. Though a good number of these people may not correlate the two, the likelihood that they picked up their cold or flu bug on the aircraft is very high. The problem with airplanes is that many people get on and off them all the time. Some of these people may be sick, some may just be recovering, and some may be sick and not even realize it.
[...] Obviously, when you are talking about an aircraft you are talking about a small place where the air is just recycled over and over again, allowing the germs the perfect environment to meet up with bodies that are just waiting to get sick! Air travel is one of the easiest ways to get sick, and for many, there is no way around it!
An obvious way to avoid the airborne illnesses on board an aircraft is just to stay away from them! Though, for many this isn�t really an option, as they have to travel for business or personal reasons. So, the best thing you can do is avoid air travel when you are recovering from an illness or any time you feel as though your immune system may not be at its best. Any time your immune system has already been compromised, you are even more likely to contract an airborne illness.
[...]
In addition to fighting off the airborne illnesses, you might want to think about everything you touch on board the aircraft. If there are germs and bacteria in the air, you can bet all the surfaces are contaminated as well.
And this:
Airplane Air makes People Sick
Former flight attendant now health activist, Diana Fairechild, has formed a nonprofit foundation to educate people about airplane air. She mentions a number of added hazards that may be present, resulting from things like hydraulic fluid gases.
Here�s what she says:
"The problem is apparently complex. A number of environmental factors in the aircraft cabin are being blamed, including low oxygen in recycled air, low humidity that puts a strain on the respiratory tract, and pesticide residues from systematic sprayings. Now a new problem is at the forefront of potential causes. Toxic chemical vapors originate from hydraulic spills�and the resulting cabin fumes are now being directly linked to incidents of flight attendant illnesses."
And further:
Could a pleasant and enjoyable flight be the cause of a serious infection? Can airplanes be transporters of diseases? As you settle down in your seat, is a deadly infection already lurking amidst the carpeted and cushioned interior of the plane? Airplanes �Ticket to Infection?
[...]
Little did such thoughts enter our mind until the bird flu, SARS, hit our planet this millennium. In fact, air travel and communicable diseases have a hand in glove association; especially air borne infections.
A major cause attributed to the spread of infections within flights is the recycled cabin air. Till the 70�s, 100% fresh air was pumped into the cabin of airplanes every 3 minutes. But, anticipated increase in fuel costs during the late 70�s prompted research into methods of cutting down on fuel consumption and thereby, the cost. It was found that circulating fresh air within the cabin of an aircraft used up more fuel; so, since the 80�s, its percentage was cut in half. The reduced fresh air coupled with re-circulated stale air creates an environment conducive for many a health problem ranging from headaches, dizziness and nausea to various infections.
A study by Boeing and Pall Cabin Filters Brochure in 1999 showed that a cough produces 100,000 particles that can be dispersed over 20 rows in the cabin!
When infected passengers cough, sneeze or talk, droplets are released. It is in these droplets that the bacteria or viruses nestle until they gain entry into another victim. The unsuspecting, otherwise healthy passenger inhales the circulating recycled air that contains some of these droplets. Thus, the infection spreads among vulnerable passengers.
According to the Boeing Flight Manual, recycled air within an aircraft usually consists of 50% fresh and 50% stale air. Under such conditions, airborne germs are free to float around and the notorious ones include-

Common Cold

Tuberculosis

Influenza (flu)

Measles

Mumps

Chicken pox

Risk of tuberculosis - Kenyon T.A. et al (1996) proved that tuberculosis could be transmitted to passengers through the air conditioning. A study on 'the transmission of infections diseases during commercial air travel� reported in March 2005 in 'The Lancet�, adds further proof to this finding. Researchers found that healthy passengers sitting within two rows of a contagious passenger for a flight, longer than eight hours, were at risk of contacting the disease.
SARS Infection - An outbreak of SARS on board a flight from Hong Kong to Beijing showed that passengers seated as far back as seven rows from the infected individual were affected.''
The article also mentions other conditions like skin infections, malaria, and even gastrointestinal illnesses being spread via air travel.
Interestingly, here is what the CDC has to say on air travel health hazards, from its own website:
In-Flight Transmission of Communicable Diseases
Concern has been increasing about the possible spread of communicable diseases during air travel. In certain circumstances when an infectious person or someone who is suspected of being infectious has traveled by air, public health authorities require passenger information for contact tracing and follow up. This information is collected from the passengers or the airlines and handled in a confidential manner. Information is available regarding in-flight transmission of a few diseases, including tuberculosis, Neisseria meningitidis, measles, influenza, SARS, and the common cold.
Tuberculosis
Only one investigation has documented transmission of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (TB) from a symptomatic passenger to six other passengers who were seated in the same section of a commercial aircraft during a long flight (>8 hours) (4). These six passengers were identified by conversion to a positive tuberculin skin test (TST); none had evidence of active tuberculosis. Driver et al. (5) investigated the potential for TB transmission by a symptomatic airline crew member over a 6-month period (5). They found that evidence of infection (i.e., TST positivity) among other crew members increased markedly during the period when the index case was most infectious and was associated with having worked >12 hours with the index case. Evidence suggested the potential that TB had been transmitted to passengers who had flown when the index case was most infectious.
[...]
People known to have infectious TB should travel by private transportation, rather than a commercial carrier, if travel is required.
[...]
Influenza
Influenza is highly contagious, particularly among people in enclosed, poorly ventilated spaces. Transmission of influenza is thought to be primarily due to large droplets and has been documented aboard an aircraft, with most risk being associated with proximity to the source. (See Chapter 4 and http://www.cdc.gov/flu for more information.) The 1979 airplane-associated outbreak of influenza in Alaska, during which 72% of passengers became ill with influenza-like illness, does not reflect what generally happens on commercial flights. In this situation, the airplane experienced engine failure prior to takeoff and remained on the ground with the ventilation system turned off. The cabin doors remained closed, and many passengers remained on board for hours (10). In terms of understanding seasonal influenza transmission dynamics on a commercial airline, a potentially more useful influenza outbreak investigation associated with an aircraft is the 1999 outbreak reported in Australia, during which most of the infected passengers were seated within three rows of the index case, and all the people seated in the same row were infected (11).
Since 1997, a new strain of avian influenza virus (H5N1) has been shown to cause infection in humans, primarily associated with direct contact with birds and with no sustained human-to-human spread to date. Because influenza viruses are very adept at changing, there is concern that this strain could eventually to spread among humans and thus would impact air travel. See http://wwwn.cdc.gov/travel for more general information and up-to-date, specific guidelines for travelers and the airline industry.''
There is more at the website. Please note that the article I excerpted above was posted in June 2007, and not updated since then. Care to bet whether the CDC will have to update this page to make it conform to the current 'nothing to worry about' blather from the administration?
This travel forum contains some posts going back to April 22, warning of respiratory illness in South and Central Mexico.
I notice a number of posts appear to have been deleted since then. Why? For fear of hurting the travel industry? If the posts I linked to about the illness are no longer there when you click the link, they will have been removed by the website.
Has everybody forgotten this story from 2007 in which an American lawyer who had drug-resistant TB was quarantined after he defied doctor's orders and took a plane flight?
It is the first time since 1963, that the CDC has issued an order for a patient to be quarantined. Usually, such decisions are left to the states, but this case involved international and interstate travel, so the federal government stepped in.
The CDC is concerned about passengers seated in rows near the infected man on a May 13, Atlanta to Paris, Air France 385 flight and another Czech Air 0104 from Prague to Canada on May 23.
[...]
There have only been a few cases of people acquiring highly infectious diseases on long flights. Dr. Henry Masur, president of the Infectious Disease Society says exposure � even at close proximity � doesn't usually result in infection.
[...]
This man was advised not to travel and did. Why?
You're dealing with human behavior. We know that, dating back to the earliest of times, there are people who, for selfish reasons, for unclear purposes, will in fact do whatever they please. In this case, this is where public health has to battle the issue of individual rights and privacy with that of the greater health good. This was a collision that was bound to happen sometime and will happen more often in the future.
Shouldn't there be more stringent rules preventing them from doing whatever they please?
This individual had been compliant with public health action. It was only with the advent of his wedding in Europe that he decided that he wasn't going to be. There was actually an order issued before he left the United States, but [public health officials] were unable to serve it on him. This just points out that you have to have extreme measures for the very, very small number of people who just won't be compliant.''
Which brings me to another point: our derelict and irresponsible officials, so worried about the political and economic consequences of this flu outbreak, have repeated, despite what Biden said, they do not advise anyone to avoid air travel or public places --- except "those who are sick.''
But as the last paragraph in the quote above tells us, human behavior can be perverse; people can and do defy common sense and common courtesy and will go out in public, callously exposing others to whatever illness they have. The idea that all people who are infected, or who might be infected, will segregate themselves out of concern for the rest of us is foolish. The case of the TB-infected lawyer willfully exposing others to his drug-resistant malady on two long flights illustrate that fact. If we cannot trust a highly-educated and supposedly conscientious professional man to obey the rules and avoid exposing others, how can we expect that of people at large, perhaps people who are not capable of understanding the seriousness of the disease or the means of contagion?
And here's another story from a year ago, of a woman who caught TB from a fellow passenger on a New Delhi-Chicago flight.
So for anyone to chastise Biden, of whom I am no admirer, by the way, for a 'gaffe' about the risks of air travel or mass transit, is absurd, and it shows how people are so easily dissuaded from common-sense knowledge that was taken for granted not long ago.
Biden's statement, far from being a 'gaffe', was just politically incorrect, and now, in the effort to defend the administration's official story, officials are making him out to be a fool, and the FReepers are ridiculing Biden. But nevertheless, there are risks involved in taking mass transit, especially airplane flights, even though those in the travel industry or anyone with vested interests are now trying to downplay or deny that.
I find it creepy how easily people can be persuaded one way or the other, based on what their political authorities are saying.
And I find it sinister how people in high positions apparently have wanton disregard for the safety of the citizens of this country, choosing politics and economic interests above the life and well-being of their own countrymen.
I realize that some of the perpetual cynics on the right have an interest in denying that there is anything to this flu outbreak, but surely it's better to be safe than sorry. It is not a choice between denying that there is any danger at all and panicking. There is a sensible middle ground here; being vigilant and prepared is better than a knee-jerk denial of whatever the other side is saying.
Even if this outbreak proves to be nothing serious, and just another type of flu, the flu is no joke. I've been noticing for at least the last decade or so that there are much nastier and harder-to-shake kinds of respiratory viruses going around every year. To me, even if this thing is just 'ordinary' flu, it's well worth it to avoid it if at all possible, and it's irresponsible to laugh this thing off, especially this early in the game.
That being said, those in positions of authority seem to be contradicting themselves; I hear some people saying that the authorities are trying to cause panic, such as by raising the outbreak to pandemic level, while at the same time, these pathetic officials are telling us there is no need to close any borders or to quarantine anyone or even to avoid public gatherings and mass transit. The fact that they are now contradicting themselves, as the CDC is doing, based on their information from 2007, makes little sense. I don't see them creating panic; they seem just as equally committed to fostering a cavalier or passive attitude about this. What is going on? Are they trying to merely confuse people by repeating contradictory and conflicting messages?
All they are doing, as far as I am concerned, is discrediting themselves and showing themselves to have no real concern for us, the people they are supposedly sworn to serve.
By the way, see Tanstaafl's take on this here.

Labels: Corporate Media, Government, Health Care, Political Correctness, Propaganda, Public Health

In recent threads here, the subject of social class has come up, and of the relative merits of our political system. Most Americans of course believe that ''democracy'' or more correctly, our representative Republic, is the best possible political system. Along with that belief, many Americans also believe that there should be no class distinctions or hierarchies; everybody is as 'good as' the next man, and thus it it good that everyone has a vote and (theoretically) an equal voice in government.
These subjects turn up in a letter written in 1857 by British historian and statesman Thomas Babington Macaulay. The letter was written to American writer H.S. Randall who had written Life of Thomas Jefferson, and sent a copy to Macaulay.
Macaulay responded with a lengthy letter spelling out his doubts about the future of 'democracy' in America, and about the perils of democracy in any country. He specifically referred to the then-recent establishment of democracy in France, pointing out that the result was a looming crisis in France, which appeared to be leading to ''general spoliation, a national bankruptcy, a new partition of the soil, a maximum of prices, a ruinous load of taxation on the rich for the purpose of supporting the poor in idleness.'' But, happily, he says, the danger was averted -- though at the cost of a loss of liberty. It was a choice, he says between civilization and liberty. Macaulay said that the result of such a situation would be the same in Britain, and in the United States.
America, he says, has remained immune from such disturbances because of the smaller population and lower population density. When the United States became more populous, this country too would not be exempt from disturbances in economic hard times, with greater numbers of unemployed and discontented people at the lower end of the economic ladder. Such people would be fodder for demagogues stoking class envy, and promising an equitable redistribution of wealth. The presence of a ruling class would be a protection against such situations, because when the have-nots have sufficient political power, they will vote for their own immediate self-interest and not for the good of the people as a whole.
Macaulay says:
"I seriously apprehend that you will, in some such season of adversity as I have described, do things which will prevent prosperity from returning; that you will act like people who should in a year of scarcity, devour all the seed corn, and thus make the next year a year, not of scarcity, but of absolute famine. There will be, I fear, spoliation. The spoliation will increase the distress. The distress will produce fresh spoliation. There is nothing to stop you. Your Constitution is all sail and no anchor. As I said before, when a society has entered on this downward progress, either civilisation of liberty must perish. Either some Caesar or Napoleon will seize the reins of government with a strong hand; or your republic will be fearfully plundered and laid waste by barbarians in the twentieth century as the Roman Empire was in the fifth; -- with this difference, that the Huns and Vandals will have been engendered within your own country by your own institutions."
Some sixteen years later, James A. Garfield offered a response to Macaulay's words in a speech called ''The Future of the Republic." Of course Garfield took some exception to Macaulay's rather grim predictions, and to his arguments. He first chides Macaulay for his focus on social class, and being a good American, boasts that we in America recognize no such thing as social class:
"Our society resembles rather the waves of the ocean, whose every drop may move freely among its fellows, and may rise toward the light until it flashes on the crest of the highest wave."
Garfield then moves on to note that Macaulay did not take into account one factor, which Garfield calls ''the great counterbalancing force" -- universal education. Granted, back in 1873 when Garfield's remarks were written, education in this country had not been subverted, gutted, and rendered an absolute detriment as it has been since. In Garfield's day, this country had attained very high levels of literacy, and the immigrants who had begun pouring in from all over Europe were taught English, and Americanized.
In retrospect we can see that too much faith has been placed in our educational system, or universal literacy. If that is our only protection from the social crises that Macaulay warned of, then we are leaning on a very slender reed.
But here, Garfield unexpectedly offers warnings of his own:
"And here is a real peril, -- the danger that we shall rely upon the more extent of the suffrage as a national safeguard. We cannot safely, even for a moment, lose sight of the quality of the suffrage, which is more important than its quantity.
We are apt to be deluded into false security by political catch-words, devised to flatter rather than instruct. We have happily escaped the dogma of the divine right of kings. Let us not fall into the equally pernicious error that multitude is divine because it is a multitude.''
In mentioning the Latin maxim, ''Vox populi, vox Dei", the voice of the people is the voice of God, he says
''It is only when the people speak truth and justice that their voice can be called "the voice of God." Our faith in the democratic principle rests upon the belief that intelligent men will see that their highest political good is in liberty, regulated by just and equal laws; and that, in the distribution of political power, it is safe to follow the maxim, 'Each for all, and all for each." We confront the dangers of suffrage by the blessings of universal education.
[...]
Hence, as popular suffrage is the broadest base, so, when coupled with intelligence and virtue, it becomes the strongest, the most enduring base on which we build the superstructure of government..."
We are now living in a time when Macaulay's warnings are being validated, and when reading Garfield's words, we can see where this country went wrong in extending the suffrage, while at the same time corrupting our educational system and our media.
The colossal mistake of undermining national cohesion and identity by opening our borders to ever more disparate peoples was yet one more nail in the coffin of our republic.
I will give Macaulay the last word here by quoting from one of his essays:
''Our rulers will best promote the improvement of the nation by strictly confining themselves to their own legitimate duties, by leaving capital to find its most lucrative course, commodities their fair price, industry and intelligence their natural reward, idleness and folly their natural punishment, by maintaining peace, by defending property, by diminishing the price of law, and by observing strict economy in every department of the state. Let the Government do this: the People will assuredly do the rest.''

Labels: American History, Constitution, Democracy, Government

Over at the Forum, Glenn W. asks some very good questions, and in hopes of getting some responses from blog readers, I asked Glenn's permission to post this here. There are some very good issues raised and I hope by posting it here to share with you all, it might generate some thoughtful responses:
I have been told that the seeds of the American revolution were sown in the many taverns scattered throughout the thirteen colonies. Men would meet in these taverns and discuss politics and over time began to formulate ideas as to how we could break away from England. I have been encouraged by what I have seen on the internet because I believe that the blogosphere has become the tavern of the 21st century. For the first time in my lifetime men (and woman) can actually meet and discuss important issues of the day without it being filtered by large news organizations. The potential impact is huge.
I can see many issues being discussed as to how to protect our freedoms and our posterity from the very real dangers we are facing in this day and age. Meeting in the "VA tavern" to discuss these issues is the start of finding a solution. So, here we are and the modern version of parliament (aka the imperial congress) just tried to pass the modern version of the Stamp Act (the illegal immigrant amnesty bill). Since those jokers aren't as bright as there press releases would like us to believe, they will keep trying to pass that abomination. This caused alarms to go off for a lot of people who usually don't follow politics and possibly galvanized a real resistance to the insanity.
This is the time to decide on a strategy as to how we should react when the next abomination occurs. Or, maybe there does not need to be only one strategy. I identify with people such as Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry who would now be branded as "bomb throwers." I am sure there were many patriots who were more measured in their approach but as strong in their resolve as Adams and Henry. I do believe that attacks from many directions could be very effective. What should those approaches be? What do I need to do to hold up my end of the bargain? I believe that the political situation will get worse before it gets better. I have never been active in political campaigning but I am willing to hand out tracts and make calls for candidates I believe in but is that enough? If the situation deteriorates to the point where I won't take any more, what should my actions be? Would I be willing to push matters to the point that the founders did with the Boston tea party? What should our Boston tea party be?
This is a bit of a tangent but I will throw it in as well. Going forward we will need a set of common principles that we can agree on. I have seen some of the attempts to come up with a conservative manifesto where there are broad principles that we can all agree to. I am afraid that we have become too fractured and may not be able to come to a consensus. What if we once again used the founders as our inspiration and agreed to restoring a government where we could all live in freedom while having moderately different world views, something like:
1) Once again set boundaries on the federal government so they fulfill their obligations of defending the U.S. from invasion and regulating interstate commerce.
2) Restore the states to being the watchdog over the federal government.
3) Restore the liberties inherent in our constitutional republic where certain rights cannot be violated by any government body. This guards against a tyranny of the majority which the founders feared.
Under this concept of states rights (I may not be using this term precisely but I hope you get my point) I can live in a state where rugged individualism is honored and you can choose to live in a state with a more paternalistic approach to government. You stay out of my business and I'll stay out of yours.
I am sure that most of you are way ahead of me on this one and I am interested in what your thoughts are. Can we come up with an approach that we can all live with, and fight for, that avoids some of the stumbling blocks we seem to keep running into?
The time is coming soon where the crisis will be here. How are we going to react to and exploit the next crisis? Will we be willing to sneak out in the middle of the night to dump a ship load of tea into Boston harbor? I hope so.

Labels: American Society, Conservatism, Conservative Principles, Government, Patriotism, StateS Rights

''Where the people possess no authority, their rights obtain no respect.''
The above words were written by George Bancroft, who was a historian, diplomat, and a New England transcendentalist. He was also called 'the father of American History.'
My previous post had to do with the question of whether the 'average' citizen is capable of the demands of participating in the political process of our republic. It may be that because our population has been so dumbed-down and distracted, 'the people possess no authority', in Bancroft's terminology, although he intended another meaning by his words.
Bancroft, like others in his intellectual and social circles, had what I would consider an inordinately high opinion of human perfectibility. I wonder if he were able to time travel, as we discussed the other day, and visit 21st century America, if he would have such a high opinion?
Over at the Nolan Chart, EJ Moosa notes that debate is a lost art in our society.
What are we afraid of? Why are our debates so short? Why are we afraid to debate others on topics of importance? Why do freedom seekers seem to want to stifle debate at the first chance they get? Our presidential debates are not really debates. They are question and answer sessions. The candidates do not go toe to toe, and debate the underlying principles of their beliefs. Those that watch the debates do not have the patience to listen to such a dialog. Either that or they are not really interested unless what they hear reinforced what they already believe. This does not accomplish much.
[...]
Our forefathers debated for weeks and months on issues. Yet here we are and we must be suffering from Attention Deficit Disorder. A five minute discussion and we have had enough.
Why are we afraid of debate? Is it because we must know what we believe to defend what we believe? That we must have absolute principles behind our statements?
We are told that we should not discuss religion, sex or politics with friends. Yet, are those three topics not the most significant in our lives?''
[Emphasis mine]
That last paragraph is something I've said many times over the course of my life -- or at least regarding religion and politics, although Moosa and I would probably find little political or philosophical common ground apart from support for Ron Paul. But we can agree that debate is a lost and dying art.
When it comes to our presidential 'debates', I've lamented here on this blog how they are not debates in any sense of the word, being scripted and staged, and containing few exchanges of any substance, much less formal arguments and rebuttals. But to 21st century, short-attention-span Americans, these 'debates' and what passes for discourse seem good enough.
We may think this is a trifling matter, but I don't believe that we can have any kind of real participatory government, or an informed electorate, without real debate. And in order to have that, we would need to undertake the monumental task of educating the public from the ground up. Our public schools are meant for indoctrination and socialization only, and seem to actively discourage critical, independent thought. And they do not teach young people logic and analytical thinking, or rhetoric. They seem to purposely turn out young people with little capacity for deep thought or any kind of disciplined use of the mind.
But there is something other than poor education and attention deficit disorder that plays into this phenomenon. It has to do with personality traits or social habits.
Americans somehow seem to confuse argument with personal quarreling. Some people do not perceive any difference between a spirited debate about ideas or events, and a barroom brawl, finding both equally unseemly. Some people are quite willing to enter into a spirited debate or discussion and yet they cannot keep it on a detached and objective level, but must turn it into a personal attack. We see this last phenomenon a lot on the Internet; I suspect many of the attackers and trolls on the Internet may be polite people in the real world, who feel their inhibitions loosened in the anonymous world of the Internet. So we have two extremes: people who shy away from all debate and disagreement, even when it is of a very civilized kind, and people who are eager to turn a polite debate into a slanging match and a donnybrook.
We need to be re-educated on how to have a civilized but frank discussion of ideas and issues. We seem to have lost the art of it, if we ever possessed it.
Albert Jay Nock quoted Goethe as saying that the test of civilization is conversation. In The Right Thing, Nock said:
American life has long been fair game for the observer.
[...] So much, in fact, has been written about the way we live, how we occupy ourselves, how we fill up our leisure, the things we do and leave undone, the things we are likely to do and likely to leave undone, that I for one would never ask for another word on such matters from anybody. As a good American, I try to keep up with what is written about us, but it has become rather a dull business and I probably miss some of it now and then, so I cannot say that no observer has ever made a serious study of our conversation. In all I have read, however, very little has been made of the significance of the things we choose to talk about and our ways of talking about them. Yet I am sure that Goethe's method would give a better measure of our civilization than any other, and that it would pay any observer to look into it. For my own part, ever since I stumbled on Goethe's observation --- now more than twenty years ago --- I have followed that method in many lands. I have studied conversation more closely than any other social phenomenon, picking up from it all the impressions and inferences I could, and I have always found that I got as good results as did those whose critical apparatus was more elaborate. At least, when I read what these critics say about such people as I know, especially my own, they seem to tell me little with which I was not already acquainted
[...]
[T]he most significant thing that I have noticed about conversation in America is that there is so little of it, and as time goes on there seems less and less of it in my hearing. I miss even so much of the free play of ideas as I used to encounter years ago. It would seem that my countrymen no longer have the ideas and imagination they formerly had, or that they care less for them, or that for some reason they are diffident about them and do not like to bring them out. When I first remarked this phenomenon I thought it might be an illusion of advancing age, since I have come to years when the past takes on an unnaturally attractive colour. But as time went on the fact became unmistakable and I began to take notice accordingly.''
Nock remarks that Americans don't like to explore a subject in depth, or to hear a range of opinions; there is a pressure to agree.
It is a mark of maturity to differentiate easily and naturally between personal or social opposition and intellectual opposition. Everyone has noticed how readily children transfer their dislike of an opinion to the person who holds it, and how quick they are to take umbrage at a person who speaks in an unfamiliar mode or even with an unfamiliar accent.''
Nock notes the pressure to conform to popular opinion. I think this is especially strong in our society.
Surely this tendency has to translate into bad news for the success of our political system. A democratic republic relies on an informed and civic-minded citizenry, and an open and fair and thoughtful discussion of important issues. Do we have either of these on any scale in America, or anywhere in the Western world these days?
Nock wrote that the extension of the franchise has been detrimental to the character of politics and to the type of person who enters public service:
...One must also remark with interest that in a republic every extension of the franchise has been accompanied by a deterioration in the character of politics and in the personnel of the public service; and this, too, is by hypothesis what one would look for. When England extended its franchise in the last century, Mr. Mill asked pathetically how it was possible to produce great men in a country where the test of a great mind was agreement with the opinions of small minds; and one can easily paraphrase this saying to suit the terms of our hypothesis.
Allowing everything in reason for other contributing causes, there is at least a striking coincidence in the fact that the American public service, all over the land, became fully twofold more irresponsible, unscrupulous, and scandalously wasteful almost at the moment when the electorate was practically doubled by the extension of the suffrage to women.
[...] On its political side, the eighteenth-century doctrine of republicanism, on which the Declaration of Independence and the Federal Constitution are based, turns out to be utterly false and mischievous. This doctrine assumes that if the mass-men take control of politics, if sovereignty be lodged in "the people" and exercised directly by them, they will in time work out a true commonwealth, a political order established on principles of justice, as set forth in the Rights of Man. The ground of this assumption, obviously, is that the mass-man is human, and therefore capable of a degree of development competent for this purpose; and indeed, if this be true, the doctrine is probably sound enough, the only postulate being that of practically unlimited time.''
And now we return to the ideas of Alexander Hamilton, who was quoted in the blog excerpt I posted yesterday:
At the time our republic was established, Alexander Hamilton was one of many who were strongly against this doctrine [of republicanism]. He objected to the experiment of putting sovereignty in the hands of the mass-man, and he expressed himself about it in terms that are curiously anticipatory of the idea that we are discussing. "The people," he said, "are a great beast." Now, if the anthropologists should decide that Hamilton was right about this, if the mass-man be literally and actually not human, if he be essentially incapable of any such degree of development as our eighteenth-century political theory presupposes, then surely republicanism is about the worst system that could be devised, even for the mass-man himself; for, in practice, instead of promoting any such limited development as the mass-man, in common with the other more teachable and imitative forms of animal life, is capable of making, it seems bound to reflect the very lowest common denominator of the mass-man's intelligence and character, and its tendency must be continuously to depress that denominator ever farther.
Thus instead of improving and elevating the mass-man by means of political experience, republicanism serves merely to degrade him. This appears to be what we see taking place. The candidate for political favor is sedulously careful to approach the mass-man on a plane of intelligence and character which is never above that of the mass-man's ordinary self. It is a commonplace of republican politics that he not only does so, but must do so.
The issues and policies that he presents must be such only as are adjustable to a potential majority in a mass-electorate endowed with an unlimited franchise. Thus every republican campaign reminds one of nothing so much as the scene described by Plato, where a huge, sluggish, obscene monster is surrounded by people who are assiduously flattering it, pretending to understand its noises, and in every imaginable way courting its good-will. Hence, by a selective process almost automatic, the political organization of a republican society is bound to be in control of the mass-man who is gifted merely with a low type of sagacity somewhat in excess of his fellow-creatures; whereby he is able to exploit their lack of intelligence, their vagrant attention, their superficial spirit, their hot and cold fits, their superstitions, their tendency always to run to the short-time point of view�and worst of all, their occasional good impulses, their occasional good faith, their boundless credulity, their weak hopes and weaker fears.
All this is extremely bad for the mass-man. What it does in the long run is to snarl up his society in a terrific tangle, wherein he is utterly helpless. Not only the financial genius of Hamilton but also the transcendent philosophical genius of Hegel foresaw this consequence. Hegel said, at the outset of republicanism, that it would culminate in an unexampled catastrophe; for, when all comes to all, republicanism puts upon the mass-man a burden of responsibility which he is not only unable to bear, but wholly incapable even of comprehending. This view has been inconclusively debated ever since the end of the seventeenth century, and its satisfactory conclusion on a priori grounds now seems as remote as it was then. In our own history we find John Adams on one side of the question, saying that the political struggles of the mass-man, left to his own devices, could end only in "a change of impostors." On the other side we are confronted by the great name of Mr. Jefferson, who believed that the mass-man was indefinitely improvable, that he was capable of learning by political experience, and of learning fast enough to enable him to hold his society together in some sort of working order while he was learning more.''
Nock calls our attention to the stark contrast in opinion between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson in their views on the perfectibility of man. On the one hand, Hamilton's rather cynical (or is it realistic?) view, as opposed to Jefferson's more sanguine one. Also on the sanguine side was the assessment of George Bancroft, the transcendentalist historian I quoted at the beginning of this entry. Which view is the correct one?
In an 1835 speech, The People in Art, Government, and Religion, Bancroft said
...the best government rests on the people and not on the few, on persons and not on property, on the free development of public opinion and not on authority; because the munificent Author of our being has conferred the gifts of mind upon every member of the human race without distinction of outward circumstances. Whatever of other possessions may be engrossed, the mind asserts its own independence. Lands, estates, the produce of mines, the prolific abundance of the seas, may be usurped by a privileged class. Avarice, assuming the form of ambitious power, may grasp realm after realm, subdue continents, compass the earth in its schemes of aggrandizement, and sigh after worlds, but mind eludes the power of appropriation; it exists only in its own individuality; it is a property which can not be confiscated and can not be torn away. It laughs at chance; it bursts from imprisonment; it defies monopoly. A government of equal rights must, therefore, rest upon mind, not wealth, not brute force; some of the moral intelligence of the community should rule the State. Prescription can no more assume to be a valid plea for political injustice; society studies to eradicate established abuses and to bring social institutions and laws into harmony with moral right; not dismayed by the natural and necessary imperfections of all human effort, and not giving way to despair because every hope does not at once ripen into fruit.
[...]
The world can advance only through the culture of the moral and intellectual powers of the people. To accomplish this end by means of the people themselves is the highest purpose of government. If it be the duty of the individual to strive after a perfection like the perfection of God, how much more ought a nation to be the image of duty. The common mind is the true Parian marble fit to be wrought into the likeness to a God. The duty of America is to secure the culture and the happiness of the masses by their reliance on themselves.
[...]
It is the uniform tendency of the popular element to elevate and bless humanity. The exact measure of the progress of civilization is the degree in which the intelligence of the common mind has prevailed over wealth and brute force: in other words, the measure of the progress of civilization is the progress of the people.
[...]
It is alone by infusing great principles into the common mind that revolutions in human society are brought about. They never have been, they never can be effected by superior individual excellence. The age of the Antonines is the age of the greatest glory of the Roman Empire. Men distinguished by every accomplishment of culture and science for a century in succession possessed undisputed sway over more than one hundred millions of men, until, at last, in the person of Marcus Aurelius, philosophy herself seemed to mount the throne. And did she stay the downward tendencies of the Roman Empire? Did she infuse new elements of life into the decaying constitution? Did she commence one great beneficent reform? Not one permanent amelioration was effected. Philosophy was clothed with absolute power; and yet absolute power accomplished nothing for humanity. It could accomplish nothing. Had it been possible, Aurelius would have wrought a change. Society can be regenerated, the human race can be advanced, only by moral principles diffused through the multitude.
[...]
The irresistible tendency of the human race is therefore to advancement, for absolute power has never succeeded and can never succeed in suppressing a single truth. An idea once revealed may find its admission into every living breast and live there. Like God, it becomes immortal and omnipresent. The movement of the species is upward, irresistibly upward. The individual is often lost; providence never disowns the race. No principle once promulgated has ever been forgotten. No "timely tramp" of a despot�s foot ever trod out one idea. The world can not retrograde; the dark ages can not return. Dynasties perish, seeds are buried, nations have been victims to error, martyrs for right; humanity has always been on the advance, gaining maturity, universality, and power.
No truth can perish, no truth can pass away; the flame is undying, tho generations disappear. Wherever moral truth has struck into being, humanity claims and guards the greatest bequest. Each generation gathers together imperishable children of the past, and increases them by new sons of light alike radiant with immortality.''
[Emphasis mine]
There is a degree of truth, I think, in Bancroft's words, but I think his philosophical beliefs inclined him to think somewhat too highly of the perfectibility of the human being. History does not seem to bear out his belief that 'humanity has always been on the advance.' Too often, for the human race, it's one step forward and several steps back, just as I observed yesterday of certain individuals I've encountered. In a way, they typify the human race. Just as when we congratulate ourselves that humanity 'gets it', and we think we are on the way to solving the riddles of the human condition, we see a retrograde movement of the human race. We seem, as a species, to have to keep reinventing the wheel, where our moral and societal development is concerned.
Nock noted that the efforts of the political and social reformers hinged on the question of whether Man is perfectible, or even substantially improvable. If he is, then the pollyannas and the utopian reformers must keep on trying to perfect humanity. If he is not perfectible or even substantially capable of improving or 'evolving' then we had better scale back our hopes for do-gooding projects and government interventions. So this question is central to our politics.
But such questions are never considered, much less discussed by the reformers; we go blithely on assuming that we can continue our endless efforts to improve human nature, despite the observable lack of progress in that area.
Meanwhile, our public discussion is centered on the trivial and the superficial, our discourse deteriorates, and we are left with a feeling of dissatisfaction. In Nock's words,
The civilization of a country consists in the quality of life that is lived there, and this quality shows plainest in the things that people choose to talk about when they talk together, and in the way they choose to talk about them.
It can be taken for granted, I suppose, that man has certain fundamental instincts which must find some kind of collective expression in the society in which he lives. The first and fundamental one is the instinct of expansion, the instinct for continuous improvement in material well-being and economic security. Then there is the instinct of intellect and knowledge, the instinct of religion and morals, of beauty and poetry, of social life and manners. Man has always been more or less consciously working towards a state of society which should give collective expression to these instincts. If society does not give expression to them, he is dissatisfied and finds life irksome, because every unused or unanswered instinct becomes a source of uneasiness and keeps on nagging and festering within him until he does something about it.
Moreover, human society, to be permanently satisfactory, must not only express them all in due balance, proportion, and harmony. If too much stress be laid on any one, the harmony is interrupted, uneasiness and dissatisfaction arise, and, if the interruption persists. disintegration sets in. The fall of nations, the decay and disappearance of whole civilizations, can be finally interpreted in terms of the satisfaction of these instincts. Looking at the life of existing nations, one can put one's finger on those instincts which are being collectively overdone at the expense of the others. In one nation the instinct of expansion and the instinct of intellect and knowledge are relatively over-developed; in another, the instinct of beauty; in another, the instinct of manners; and so on. The term symphonic, which is so often sentimentally applied to the ideal life of society, is really descriptive; for the tendency of mankind from the beginning has been towards a functional blending and harmony among these instincts, precisely like that among the choirs of an orchestra. It would seem then that the quality of life in any society means the degree of development attained by this tendency. The more of these instincts that are satisfied, and the more delicate the harmony of their interplay, the higher and richer is the quality of life in that society; and it is the lower and poorer according as it satisfies fewer of these instincts and permits disharmony in their interplay.''
It would appear that we in America and probably in the West in general have developed the instinct for expansion almost to the exclusion of the other instincts, such as that for religion and morals, intellect and knowledge, and beauty.
And as ideas and ideals as well as emotions, that make us individuals, Nock observed that we are thus less individuated and more conformist. This, although he did not spell it out, would seem to make us inclined towards a mass society, which does not brook much dissension. There is a pressure toward consensus; peer pressure often shapes ideas and ideals and emotions, thus depleting our individuality in what should be the most individualized areas.
To bring this down to the mundane level of our present political campaign, we see the people stampeding, or being stampeded, towards candidates who seem to be the poorest of fits for the expressed wishes of the people: in an era in which many people mobilized to fight amnesty, we get three pro-amnesty candidates. In an era in which most people seem to be disillusioned with if not staunchly opposed to the Iraq War, we get three candidates who will pursue more war. How is this happening? Are the elections rigged? Or are people just being caught up in the bandwagon effect, and passively acquiescing in what is being presented to them as an inevitability, with which they had better get on board?
I think there is much of the latter, and it is no surprise in a society which thinks debate and argument is rude, a society in which people who differ from majority opinion are ridiculed as 'kooks' (Ron Paul and his supporters), that people are willing to be herded toward a comfortable consensus, in which everybody splits the difference though nobody really gets what they want.
I can't help but think that this is not what our forefathers had in mind when they conceived of our system.
How can we extricate ourselves from this situation? Or can we? Does the fault lie in our stars or in ourselves?
I think the very first thing that must happen, if there is any hope at all, is that we have to reinstate free speech, plain talk, and common sense. We have to re-learn, or learn for the first time in some cases, how to think logically and dispassionately, and we have to be able to debate and discuss and talk among ourselves in a civilized way about the urgent issues of our time. This is the absolute first step.
This would be the first step to 'possessing authority' and thus the first step toward obtaining respect for our rights as the people.
Forum comments here.

Labels: Democracy, Elections, Founding Fathers, Government, Politics, Presidential Debates, Societal Decay

The massive amnesty push is under way again. They've regrouped after last year's setback and are gearing up.
First, we have this story:
Senator Clinton Aligns With Bush on Immigration
by Russell Berman
As Senator Clinton prepares to face off with many of her Democratic rivals today, she aligned herself directly with President Bush on the issue of immigration, using a campaign stop in South Florida to highlight a rare point of agreement with an administration that she criticizes at every turn.
Speaking to about 300 community leaders in an area with a large immigrant population, Mrs. Clinton staked out a centrist position on the hot-button topic, saying she supported a "pathway to legalization" for the nation's 11 million to 12 million estimated undocumented immigrants, but only if they waited in line and paid fines. She described her stance as "basically" what the president has proposed.
"I think, on this issue, the president is right," Mrs. Clinton said.
[...] Mrs. Clinton did not mention the fence issue yesterday. She has said she supports a wall "in certain areas," but she made clear that tougher enforcement of current immigration laws was a top priority. While she scoffed at the suggestion of deporting all illegal immigrants, she had strong words for those who break the law. "The ones who are criminals, let's deport them. If they're criminals, let's move them back to where they came from," Mrs. Clinton said, drawing applause from the crowd.''
And this one:
Senate illegals bill near complete
Senators and lobbyists are putting the final touches on a comprehensive immigration-reform bill that includes an easier citizenship path for illegal aliens and weaker enforcement provisions than were in the highly criticized legislation that the Senate approved last year.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat who ardently supports citizenship rights for illegals, will introduce the bill as early as next week, according to Senate sources knowledgeable about the negotiations. If the Senate Judiciary Committee can make quick work of the bill, it could be ready for floor action in April.
Mr. Kennedy drafted this year's bill with help from Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, and outside lobbyists. Mr. McCain and the outside groups share Mr. Kennedy's support for increased immigration and leniency for illegals already in the country.
Among the most active participants have been the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition (EWIC) and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Both groups support giving current illegals a path to citizenship and increasing the flow of foreign workers into the country.''
And on Lou Dobbs Tonight, this report:
LISA SYLVESTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Senator Ted Kennedy and his staff have been quiet on the details of their new immigration proposal. It's by invitation only.
Even moderate Republicans like Senator Arlen Specter have not been offered a seat at the table. But the Chamber of Commerce and other special interests are having a hand in offering the legislation.
One Republican Hill staffer complained, "The Chamber has seen more than the senators when it comes to the actual writing on paper."
ROY BECK, NUMBERSUSA: Senator Kennedy has been inviting the stakeholders of this bill to come in. So that's the Chamber of Commerce. And it's the National Council of La Raza, and it's the immigration attorneys. Basically, the stakeholders are people who make money or gain power off of it. But how about the American people?
SYLVESTER: Kennedy's new bill will be introduced as early as next week. It may closely parallel legislation he offered last year with Senator John McCain. That was more generous to illegal aliens than anything that passed the House or Senate.
Under the previous proposal, all illegal aliens would be allowed to stay in the United States. After six years, they could pay a $1,000 fine and apply for a green card. A new guest worker program would be established, and most companies would not be required to check work eligibility of future workers.
If the new immigration plan reflects the old, it could put off swing lawmakers.
REP. BRIAN BILBRAY (R), CALIFORNIA: You're seeing Republican senators who had supported the concept before backing away off on this, because they went home in December and actually got an earful form their constituents. And you're seeing a lot of members of the Senate that had supported Kennedy before are not going to buy off on this now.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
Here, Mexico's ambassador says that his country is planning on launching its own lobbying campaign to pass a 'guestworker plan' or amnesty. So now we have foreign governments, big business, National Council of La Raza, and other profiteers, namely immigration attorneys, all arrayed against the American people.
Hillary Clinton, it's worth noting, declares herself to be in agreement with President Bush on the border issue; she too favors amnesty, although she may say the obligatory things about 'deporting the criminals' -- they all say this, and then in the next breath, declare the need for a 'path to legalization' or 'regularizing the otherwise law-abiding' and so on. Talk is dirt cheap. It's all duplicity. Amnesty is amnesty, and if Hillary or any of the rest of the pack of politicians really meant to deport the criminals, they would deport all illegals. But of course they don't mean it; the tough talk is meant to gull the easily-deceived party faithful.
So Hillary Clinton and George W. Bush are on the same page, as regards the border issue. That should (but won't) give pause to the party loyalists on both sides. As much as the Democrats hate President Bush, the Republicans despise Hillary Clinton, and yet it does not seem to trouble many of them that these two are now officially soulmates on the border question. How much more of an illustration do we need that the two parties are Tweedledee and Tweedledum, as has often been said? The Republicans may be marginally better than the Democrats on some issues, but in general they both toe the line, where borders and sovereignty are concerned.
The respectable Republicans, the country-club and Main Street types, who are slavishly PC in most instances, are proud of looking down on Tom Tancredo, with his unseemly 'nativism'. But they know, deep down, that the GOP needs to have at least a Tancredo or two, someone to buck the system and stand up for those inconvenient conservative principles, because it gives the Party cover. When some of us disgruntled voters threaten to jump ship, then they will cite the existence of Tancredo as proof that 'the Republicans are the only patriotic party' or some such pat phrases. But one swallow doth not a spring make. The GOP will have to rediscover some conservative principles (which I am not convinced they can or will do) in order to retain the loyalties of many fed-up conservatives. They cannot maintain their base by pointing at the Democrats and saying 'see how much worse they are?' The lesser of two evils is still evil.
And last, the open borders brigades are planning more protest marches, like those of last spring, that shocked many previously unaware citizens into activism. To this I say, 'bring it.' It may well galvanize those who haven't yet been provoked into awareness. The illegals and their allies may be overplaying their hand, at this point, and I say that's a good thing.

Labels: Amnesty, Gop, Government, Illegal Immigration, Open Borders

Today's Lou Dobbs segment on unsafe products, particularly foods, from China, was disturbing, even for those who have no illusions about the standards for food and other products in Third World countries.
The United States is increasingly relying on other nations for its food supply, including communist China. China's food and agricultural injury has an absolutely appalling track record for safety and quality. But that hasn't inspired any American oversight or concern.
In fact, as Kitty Pilgrim reports, that track record could have a devastating impact on Americans.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The United States is importing tons of food and food additives from China. Imports of Chinese food and agricultural products have soared 400 percent in the last 15 years. Nobody knows how much of it is safe.
MICHAEL DOYLE, CENTER FOR FOOD SAFETY: In China, a lot of small farmers that use lots of antibiotics and pesticides that in some instances are not approved for use in the United States. So there's lots of possibilities where things can go wrong.
PILGRIM: The Chinese themselves suffer from contaminated food and water. The U.N. estimates 300 million Chinese every year suffer food poisoning.
Sometimes, it's substandard sanitation, such as the 100 restaurant goers hospitalized after eating bad snails. Sometimes deliberate fraud. A Chinese company was caught making lard from sewage. Farmers were caught adding cancer-causing dye to duck feed to enhance the eggs.
Pollution from industrial production or toxic accidents find their way into the water and subsequently into the food chain in China. Some of that food may be shipped to the United States. Almost all of it, untested and uninspected.
MICHAEL TAYLOR, FORMER FDA OFFICIAL: No amount of inspection is going to be sufficient if we don't have confidence in the conditions under which food is proud, wherever it's produced in the world.
PILGRIM: A look at the FDA violation code lists sanitary citations on imports from China. One entry reads, "A cosmetic product may have been prepared or packed under unsanitary conditions whereby it may have been contaminated with filth."
A food import reads, "The article consists, in whole or in part, of a filthy, putrid or decomposed substance, unfit for food."
Or another, "The article appears to contain hepatitis A virus."
PILGRIM: A congressional hearing this week on the pet food poisoning revealed U.S. importers often don't test the products they import from China. And 99 percent of them go unscreened by the U.S. government and authorities until a consumer gets sick. No one is aware of the problem, Lou.
DOBBS: I just have to stay astonishing. The idea that the federal government continues to -- as our food imports now are rising to just about a little over 20 percent of our total food supply.
The FDA doing almost nothing -- I think 1 percent would be almost nothing -- to inspect the safety of what people are consuming in this country. And there's a great -- you know, hullabaloo about pet food as there should be. But the idea no one is examining this issue. PILGRIM: You know, to read down the list of what they caught is almost scarier, because 99 percent of it wasn't inspected. So you wonder what they didn't catch.
DOBBS: Exactly. And I'm certainly glad -- it's very reassuring after you point that out, Kitty. Thanks very much. Kitty Pilgrim.
Somebody in Washington, wake up, please!
I was really taken aback by this part of Kitty Pilgrim's report:
A look at the FDA violation code lists sanitary citations on imports from China. One entry reads, "A cosmetic product may have been prepared or packed under unsanitary conditions whereby it may have been contaminated with filth."
A food import reads, "The article consists, in whole or in part, of a filthy, putrid or decomposed substance, unfit for food."
Or another, "The article appears to contain hepatitis A virus."
And lard made from sewage? That surpassed anything I might have imagined about the low trustworthiness of products made in China. Beyond disgusting. And to think most of the stuff we import from them goes uninspected.
One hardly knows where to begin: Lou Dobbs concluded his remarks on this segment by pleading for 'somebody in Washington' to 'wake up!' But are they asleep in Washington? Are they so massively clueless and inept and useless that they really are not aware of these things? If so, then they have no business governing anyone or 'representing' us. If, however, they are aware of how things are done in China, and of the general prevalence of squalid Third World standards and lack of oversight, and yet they still avidly push importing more and more from China, then they are more than derelict; the obvious conclusion would be that they do not care about American citizens, about our health and our safety.
I suppose that is not exactly a novel conclusion; the same situation prevails with our insane open borders policy, with its allowing of tens of millions of unknown people entering our country freely, with essentially the full blessing and encouragement of 'our' government. Our government occasionally stages a token raid or two here and there; it seems to be simply a way to deflect criticism or to fool the easily satisfied into believing that they are 'cracking down' on the invasion. But it's a transparent effort; as long as our president keeps praising the invaders and pushing his amnesty in the face of the American people's opposition to it, it seems evident that our government is representing somebody other than the American majority. And given the demonstrable danger of letting unknown millions from hostile Third World countries enter freely, it seems that our lives and safety are counted cheap; a good and honest government would protect its citizens from invasion, per the Constitution. But it seems that our government is so determined to push the borderless world, the flat earth, and to remove all barriers to free trade and movement of peoples, and those ideological goals trump all else, even the lives of citizens. Our lives and safety are apparently something they are willing to risk in pursuit of their goals.
So what is there for us to do, apart from joining Lou Dobbs in his plaintive call for someone in Washington to 'wake up'? I am rapidly losing faith in letter-writing or calls to my representatives in Congress; more often than not, one gets a snarky aide, and it's not certain that these people actually pass the messages on. Knowing the leftist leanings of my elected 'representatives' and the kinds of condescending canned e-mails I usually get back does not inspire confidence.
What then can we do? It seems vain to try to get people to stop buying the cheapo Chinese merchandise; many people, especially Republicans, worship at the Wal-Mart altar; their fierce defense of Wally World is bizarre. I haven't quite figured out why so many Republicans react to criticism of Wal-Mart as they would react to an attack on the character of their mother. The nearest I can come to an explanation is that: cheap consumer products are the highest good in life to some people, and maybe more importantly, the 'liberals' hate Wal-Mart, so by gosh, Republicans are determined to love Wal-Mart and defend it with their last breath.
(And by the way: what do we make of this strange Wal-Mart story?)
But no doubt the Wal-Martians are one of the reasons why we have this huge trade deficit with China.
I admit to having bought at Wal-Mart in the past, but often the things I bought were of shoddy, inferior quality, and the few bucks I saved did not balance out having to replace the items when they failed or fell apart, a few months later. Buying at Wal-Mart is being penny-wise and pound-foolish. And it also enriches our Chinese foes and weakens us in relation to them, as the trade deficit grows and grows.
Still to each his own; buy cheap junk if you must, and if you don't care about the larger issues at stake. But on the question of food safety, and of other products like cosmetics which are applied to the human body, there should be no disagreement about the need for assurance that these products are safe and sanitary. We need to know that the food products are not laden with some kind of toxin like the melamine in the wheat gluten, or that they are not otherwise unfit for human consumption. But how can we expect such a reassurance? China recently thwarted the entrance of our FDA inspectors into their country to inspect the sources of the contamination. Our government is engaged in some kind of bizarre pretense that China is a friendly nation, and that they are our coequals. Ridiculous; just because they are a populous nation with a large military does not mean that they are trustworthy, or that the standards of hygiene are anywhere near what we have achieved here in the U.S. All this open trade and immigration from Third World countries is done at our risk. We are opening the doors to Third World standards, which will inevitably mean the spread of disease and contamination. Openness to other such nations, whether via trade or immigration, can only benefit them and not us; it can only drag us downward, but probably not raise them upward. Openness to such nations is a risk to us, not a benefit. It may be a benefit to the corporate globalists who profit from all this, but it is no bargain for common citizens.
Now there are questions that the melamine which caused many pet deaths may have entered the human food chain
via being fed to farm animals destined for the table. It was inevitable, really; that was my first thought when the discovery of the toxins in pet food was reported. But I am not seeing much coverage of this issue, and little discussion of it. Why? Are people not aware, or are we too practiced at hiding our heads in the sand? So many people prefer to plug their ears and close their eyes rather than deal with unpleasant realities, especially if those realities call for some kind of action, or even for taking a difficult stand.
I am not sure what we can do about this, except to be very vigilant about the products we buy, especially foods and cosmetics. Reading labels is a first step, but one has to be able to trust that the labels are correct and truthful; I honestly don't trust corrupt Third World countries to provide full disclosure on the labels, and it appears that they are not even required to do so, as American companies are. And again, even if the information on the packaging lists the ingredients, for example, 'wheat gluten,' this does not tell us where the wheat gluten originated. The pet foods recalled were made in Canada. Most of us would make an assumption that products from a First World nation like Canada would adhere to standards comparable to our own, but it appears we cannot even be sure that Canadian products are not made using ingredients from an unsafe country. So how can we be really sure? We can pick locally-produced food as much as possible, and some of us can grow our own produce in gardens. We can use fewer canned and processed foods, which is no doubt a good idea in general. But at some point, we have to take a blind leap of faith about the source of what we eat; we might be able to reduce our risks somewhat, but not eliminate them.
Now it's true that life is risk; there is no way we can live one day in this world without taking risks of some sort. To assume that we can make life risk-free is childish, and it's what liberals believe, with their penchant for nannystate-ism, with laws against trans-fats and so on. But still, our foolhardy government is seemingly tempting fate with many of these reckless policies like untrammeled trade with suspect countries, and with our borders unguarded, and our actively soliciting immigrants from disease-ridden areas of the world.
We can't eliminate all risks, but resigning ourselves to unnecessary risks is playing Russian roulette, with the bullet provided courtesy of our government and its foolish policies.

Labels: Food Safety, Free Trade, Globalism, Government