Christmas Day 2006 I was in Lexington, Kentucky listening to the news when WKYT announced the Kentucky Legislature tightened safety regulations in response to the 16miners’ deaths in Kentucky during that year.
Thinking afterward about what I had heard, I became aware of two issues:
1) The company contributed to 13 of 16 deaths by failure to comply with safety regulations, and
2) the Legislature responded by adjusting how reporting was done.
The Legislature did nothing whatsoever to further protect miner’s safety and prevent further deaths. That Legislature protected corporate owners by glossing over the issues involving real safety prevention. It represented a legislature that protected profits more than the people producing the profits. Politically, it was a Republican dominated legislature of elected officials that cared more about protecting the status quo of that special business interest rather than legislating for the common good.
This instance offers one classic example of the philosophical differences between Democratic and Republican philosophy of government. A democratic philosophy of government would have utilized government to provide safer working conditions for the miners, whereas the Republican insists on smaller government (fewer regulations), believing free market justifies whatever brings profit.
On this Election Day of 2010, we are fighting a frightening political war in Washington. Two deeply entrenched political institutions fight each other. The turf battle is so intense that everybody is bent on “winning the vote.” Philosophically, everyone says the end justifies the means, which amounts to the survival of the fittest, win at any cost.
Meantime, like the 06-KY Legislature, well-heeled corporate interests protect their financial interests at all costs. If you don’t believe it, examine the Texas oil & energy giants opposing cleaning up California public air pollution.
People have been stirred up about emotional issues but a highly-emotional non-thinking public has lost track of who is keeping the home fires burning.
No one is really protecting the rights of the people expected to do the voting. From Warner’s World, we are
walkingwithwarner.blogspot
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