Bureau of “Public Safety Law” Injury Prevention to the Rescue

“Public safety” as pushed by the legislature is to prevent some type of injury to the public and individuals.  Thousands of laws are passed supposedly to improve public safety.  Another aspect has occurred to me, we might benefit more by a Bureau of “Public Safety Law” Injury Prevention.

 

Perhaps we could discuss the great harm caused through financial and mental distress that occurred to some of our local business people by the OSHA in the last year or so.  While no injury occurred to persons or property from supposed dangers to persons or property by violating some OSHA regulations, an injury nevertheless occurred to the local businesses and owners.  In one case I am familiar with, a window was being repaired by a worker elevated on a forklift with no safety restraint, no surrounding safety guards or bars, and further there was no safety meeting with a supervisor to plan the repair of this little pane of glass.

Of course there was no discussion about the financial injury caused by the insistence of having a safety meeting with supervisor and machine operator and worker in a two person company.  All of which would have turned a $75 dollar job into a $250 plus job.  All of this would cause an additional injury to the customer by having to pay the added expense.  Perhaps if the true cost was known in advance the customer would have elected to do the job himself costing the glazier the injury of lost business and the community the injury of a loss of the economic activity.  Perhaps the nonprofessional customer would have been more susceptible to physical injury due to his lack of expertise in glazing repair.

Or what about the physical harm caused to a public who is prevented from providing their own personal protection by carrying a weapon of their choice.  Somehow government deems it too expensive to provide personal police protection for all the individuals as they go about their daily activities, but then turn around a say that you cannot protect yourself unless, for example, you use a nail file, or try to vomit on an offender (advice to women being raped from the ISP website at one time) among other ignorant suggestions.  You cannot have a cop with you all the time, yet the public will be injured by being arrested and charged by police and the prosecutor if we carry a truly equalizing weapon.

I am sure that the stories are endless of the injuries caused by so called government safety programs.  While I think the intent is good, what happens is that the bureaucracy loses common sense in its mindless attention to the letter of the law while ignoring the spirit of the law.  You cannot expect a bureaucrat charged with enforcement to ignore the letter.  His job depends on finding issues that justify his paycheck and his pension.  How many businesses leave a little flaw somewhere, like a dirty sink, just so the inspector will have something to write up.  Yep, it happens.

Our Founders instituted a method to solve issues of negligent behavior, that is called a justice system.  The Good Book makes it clear that the one who is responsible for the injury covers the cost (Exodus 21).  If there is a repeat negligent injury the penalty goes up substantially.  We have recourse to settle for an injury to our person or property by another person.  If the government injures via its Public Safety Agencies, just try and collect against an agency with an unlimited budget for legal fees.  Now you’re talking serious injury.  For that injury we need the new Bureau of “Public Safety Law” Injury Prevention.  Just in case a legislator is reading this please don’t take the suggestion of this new bureau seriously.  One more bureau really won’t help.  I am just trying to make a point.

Thanks for the comments, keep them coming.  If you would like to correspond with me on this contact me at: editorial@pike912.org or leave a message at 217-285-2134, or follow my blog at: pike912.blogspot.com.

Is Public Saftey Important?

I enjoy getting comments on my writing.  Two people called for clarification on my letter last week; they followed the theme, “Is any public safety important?”  My comments could have been taken to mean no attention to public safety is necessary.  That isn’t what I meant.  So let’s take this apart a little more.

What did the Pilgrims move to America for?  Was it for: better streets, better neighborhoods, safer environment, better working condition laws, improved sewer system, better police protection, etc?   No, they moved to no streets, an unsafe neighborhood, maybe environmentally safer if you don’t count wild Indians and wild animals, worse working conditions, no sewer system, no police protection.  So what did the Pilgrims value above public safety?  The answer is Liberty.

They moved to a distinctly risky environment, with no public (governmental) amenities or services.  They moved from an area of increased public safety and tyranny, but minimal Liberty, to an area of substantially greater risk for something we call Liberty.  The Pilgrims cherished Liberty above all of the previously stated government ‘services.’ 

Our Founders did not fight a war for independence for the purpose of gaining increased public safety; they fought a bloody war for increased Liberty.  What we find as we delegate more and more importance to a host of bureaus to increase public safety and security is that each one removes one more piece of Liberty.  So where does it end?

This week in the news we find a school in Florida is contemplating putting in cameras to see if students throw away their veggies in the school lunch program.  At what point will the powers that be decide to penalize adults if they eat too much of the wrong food, like say pizza, and not enough broccoli?  With the advent of Obamacare the government now has a vested interest in seeing what you eat, how much you eat and whether or not we are in full compliance with the recommended daily hygiene list. 

Thomas Jefferson said it best, “that government governs best that governs least.”  So what government services are absolutely essential?  Do I want to do without peace officers?  Well no, not really.  What about OSHA?  All I can say is Liberty has an element of risk.  Do I need government inspections to see if my business is clean enough for its intended purpose?  No, the public will determine that.  The People will vote with their dollars by taking them elsewhere, if my business doesn’t suit them.  If your eating establishment is filthy, don’t count on me eating there. 

A few weeks ago my son was badly injured in a horse accident.  He was transported to the hospital for emergency treatment and examination.  His pain was so great that morphine was administered for the pain.  However inadvertently the amount of morphine he was given was well in excess of what should have been given.  He became violently sick and was sick for several days from the overdose.  Now I don’t say that we should “outlaw” morphine, I would recommend that the overdose be corrected to an amount that is beneficial without harming the patient.  Another example is Warfarin or “rat poison,” administered in judicious amounts it can be beneficial.

The same is true for what I have called “Governmenticin.”  A judicious level can be good, too much and you have an overdose.  I say that we currently have an overdose in our country of Governmenticin.  That overdose is producing a very sick economy and a culture of people who have become dependent or addicted to Governmenticin and are very ill economically and/or socially because of it.

Thanks for the comments, keep them coming.  If you would like to correspond with me on this contact me at: editorial@pike912.org or leave a message at 217-285-2134, or follow my blog at: pike912.blogspot.com.

Judges are human too...

Judges are human too, subject to prejudice, mistakes and flaws of the human condition.  Well taking it a step further, have you ever wondered if the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) could get it wrong?  Well wonder no more.  The case known as the Dred Scott decision has been studied for years by both the law school types and by those of us who have a nonprofessional vested interest in preserving Liberty.  It is called the learning process.  You fall down, you get back up.  You make a mistake, you fix it.

SCOTUS issued a ruling in 1857 that forever changed the course of human history.  The Court ruled that states that outlawed slavery could not forbid slaveowners from bringing slaves into their states, the so called Free States, and holding them as slaves there. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney wrote that blacks were,

“beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”

One has to wonder at what point the Feds feel that, in their so called superior wisdom (more like educated idiots), they can rule over the People and expect to win long term.  Their hope obviously, would appear to be that they can keep their legislative agenda alive long enough the People will get hooked and fully dependent on “Free Health Care.” 

I received a comment the other day online from someone who stated, “All I know is “it” (Obamatax) will benefit me.  My comment was, “the Signers (of the Declaration of Independence) pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred Honor, to help us escape the tyranny of King George.  Can we do less?  Or will we go for short term benefit of a “free” trip to the doctor.

Our men and women who serve aren’t out there to preserve your “free” trip to the doctor; they are out there to preserve your ability to choose.  I have stated previously that a free man has choices; a slave has no choice but to do that which the “massa” bids.  Will the military become the tool to enforce the “massa’s” bidding?  The very essence of Liberty must include the ability to make a choice, even if it is a destructive choice to you personally.  It has very little to do with safety and security.  If you want to sample safety and security at its finest and most intense, try jail.

I resort once again to the eloquence of one of the Founder’s, Patrick Henry, when he said, “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.”

If you would like to correspond with me on this contact me at:  editorial@pike912.org or leave a message at 217-285-2134, or follow my blog at: pike912.blogspot.com.

Benevolence or Malevolence

Dan A. Mefford, D.C.

As I write this piece I know not the outcome of the election or whether the People of Pike have decided in favor of including a small part of the Bill of Rights in our County legal code. It is my firm prayer the People decided in favor of individual Liberty, Freedom, and Self-reliance as opposed to dependency on government. It is also my sincere prayer that those in authority will recognize, regardless of passage of Constitutional Carry at the local level, that the Right exists, not because we passed it or didn’t pass it, but because we are endowed by our Creator at birth with certain unalienable rights, and among these is the right to keep and bear arms, no matter what the Chicago Machine and their henchmen say.

We need to teach our children the true number one function of government, which is, “to secure these rights.”-- the rights to Life, Liberty, and Property among so many others. It is so easy for a well meaning government to get into the “necessity” of protecting us from every supposed “evil” or “danger” that comes along that it loses track of its true function, which is, to secure our rights. That includes the right to make wrong choices - choices of eating the Politically Incorrect foods, using too much salt, gambling, ingesting politically incorrect things after achieving adulthood.

Choices are, in my opinion, the very essence of Liberty. How many choices did the Massa give a slave? The very essence of slavery is the requirement to ask permission in the exercise of any fundamental right. Did any slave you ever heard of have a right, at least according the Massa, to travel, to speak, to READ, to publish, petition for redress of grievances, to free assembly, to keep and bear armament in defense of himself or his family?

I may get some of my fellow Christians mad at me, but the truth is that our Lord and Savior allows his children to make wrong choices. He also allows the consequences of those choices to be visited on the ones who made the wrong choices at times. Unfortunately, their families and friends may suffer along with them as well. There is no way that government can make all things equal! Life just ‘ain’t’ fair that way. If you pass so many rules to try to even it all out then you are back to a tyrannical government and that just ‘ain’t’ fair either. Remember, it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.

Dear Government, I thank you for thinking of my safety etc. but for now, treat me with benign neglect. I promise not to intentionally harm my neighbor; in fact I might even try to do something good for him once in a while, if he doesn’t mind. Regards, Dan A. Mefford, D.C.

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