Jack is 6 1/2, and Frances Anne just turned 4. I will not burden you with tiresome anecdotes about how funny, quick and special they are. Just take my word for it: They are.
Like all grandparents, I want them to grow up safe and healthy, which got me to thinking about a few of the things we collectively, as communities and as a country, do to make that possible.
The air they breathe and the water they drink are cleaner, safer and healthier because of federal laws than they were when their grandparents grew up. The cars they ride in, because of government regulations and public law, which mandates seat belts and child safety seats, are a lot less dangerous.
They will get an excellent education at superior public schools in a county where 45 percent of the residents are African-American, Latino or Asian. The schools are integrated because their federal government ended racial segregation and guaranteed civil rights, including the right of all to public accommodations, to vote and to buy property.
Jack and Frances Anne have fun playing on the public playground. They expand their imaginations at the public library. Someday they will visit the national parks and swim on a national seashore. They are fascinated by the Internet, the original version of which was designed in the 1960s (no, not by Al Gore) at the Department of Defense.
If either child falls sick and the family doctor prescribes a medicine, we know — because of the Food and Drug Administration — that the prescribed drug will be safe. Thanks to the Family and Medical Leave law, a parent, if necessary, can take time off to nurse a sick child/
When they come to visit us, we know — because of the labels required by law — the exact nutritional value and calorie count of the food we feed them.
We also know, because of legal requirements, that the food we buy for them at the market is safe and has been federally inspected.
Because public law insists, we know that the buildings and the workplace conditions where their parents earn a living are neither unsafe nor unhealthy — and that any creative product either of them authors will be protected by public law, copyright and the courts. We are confident that in the workplace they and their co-workers, because of federal law, will never endure discrimination based on gender, religion, national origin or disability.
Any airplane the family flies in will have to first meet federally imposed safety standards and will be guided from its takeoff through its flight and to its landing by professional air traffic controllers who are federal employees. Relying upon more than 140 million weather readings from satellites, ships, aircraft, land sources and balloons, the National Weather Bureau is able to alert us to sudden storms or worse.
Our public safety is maintained by local police, prosecutors and court system, as well as by state and federal officers. Our national safety is protected by the men and women of the United States armed forces.
The preceding is just a terribly abbreviated sampling of what government at all levels does every day to help make the lives of our children and grandchildren, of all of us, healthier, happier, safer and more prosperous. Everyone seems to know firsthand the shortcomings of government — the too frequent indifference, even incompetence or arrogance — but, especially at this special time of the year, we would do well to remember, even to appreciate, what government does do for those whom we love.
To find out more about Mark Shields and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM
COPYRIGHT 2010 MARK SHIELDS
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6 Comments | Post Comment
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Pardon me for being cheeky, but what is wrong with discriminating people on the basis of religion? Or gender? Or national origin? Would you hire a Scientologist, and allow him to inflict his trained techniques of emotional abuse on people he does not like? Would you keep a woman on the payroll who already took maternity leave a while ago and soon plans to have another baby and take another leave? Would you hire a Liberian man in a workplace with many women, when you know that rape and cannibalism is typical in Liberia and where most 14 year old boys have engaged in rape?
A government of good intentions can sometimes be worse than a government of bad intentions, especially in the simple examples given above, where the specific situation matters more than some mere generality, (like never discriminating people on any grounds ever). Giving credit where credit is due is okay, but people criticise because they may have far more to lose from not criticising than they have from not giving credit where it is due.
I can't speak for everybody, but I'd say that there is ultimately one main problem of government - it is driven by ideology. Ideology is substitute religion, and the usage of repeated doctrines over common sense and understanding of human social life. Governments are forced to resort to ideology, because it is easy, and because it avoids the complicated analysis expected on a very large scale for millions of complicated human beings. What better example of the trappings of ideology than the government's genuine and earnest interest in safety of you and I? Obviously we are going to live forever, else we wouldn't be so worried about our car brakes not working or not knowing the exact composition of our food!
Comment: #1
Posted by: Prateek Sanjay
Fri Dec 17, 2010 8:36 AM
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Keep flogging that dead horse, man. Liberals don't know when to abandon ship, even when its already under water and falling into the Abyss...
Over-regulation, which is exactly what Liberals love, has bankrupt every major nation thus far, and is on the fast track to bankrupting ours. When you over regulate, you get nothing done, and the government controls every aspect of production and business through massive bureaucracies. Why do you think employers are so timid to hire right now? Because they a )have massive tax burdens, b) are afraid to run afoul of the many thousands of regulations, and c) they are unsure if more and more restrictive regulations are going to come about due to the massive liberal bias pervading the presidency (thankfully congress has been balanced out in this last election, then will be further swayed away from Liberals in the next). Endorsing more and more government control is, basically, admitting that YOU do not have what it takes to make good decisions and you want someone else to make them for you. Sorry, that doesn't fly with me, so don't advocate the government controlling my life because you can't do so yourself.
Just keep sinking, my friend, whilst the rest of us sane individuals keep moving back to reason and balance. We'll ship you off to Iran or Venezuela where you'll see REAL government regulation and what it does to a country. Then come back and tell us that we should have more and more government control.
Comment: #2
Posted by: Charles
Fri Dec 17, 2010 9:55 AM
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An excellent education at superior public schools??? Are we smoking medical happy juice now or what.
Comment: #3
Posted by: Masako
Sat Dec 18, 2010 9:26 AM
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Shields scores again with straightforward stuff that we know, understand and feel. If only the politicans who support most of these government actions weren't so garbled. They can take lessons from plain spoken Mark Shields--who gets the FDR and Truman legacies.
David Cohen
Washington, DC
Comment: #4
Posted by: David Cohen
Sat Dec 18, 2010 5:43 PM
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Great schools is that why we are ranked 25 th. among industrial countries ,in math and science!! Also the Food and Drug Administration just pulled a drug off the market, that would have helped woman who have final stage breast cancer even though it is approved in Europe. Where are your grandchildren going to get jobs when they grow up? The government is regulating and taxing jobs out of this country!!
Comment: #5
Posted by: Sharyn Auman
Sun Dec 19, 2010 11:18 AM
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Sir; ... I just want to commend you on your brave support of communism... No body likes it, but we could not get anywhere in this country without driving on roads we afford together and manage to share... Not one in one hundred could afford good medicine in this land were it not for all of us buying bad medicine... Together we can accomplish much, and only our political division prevents us from affording much more... Never mind idiots like charles... That fool does not understand that inequality of wealth has been the destruction of every nation, and that wealth in the hands of a few who would not be taxed has bankrupted many countries, and led to revolution which the wealthy could not defend against -because they paid no taxes.... The most regulated societies the world has ever known were primitive democracies that were socialistic because the common welath can only be defended by those who hold it in common...And we all live because they survived... We all came out of them at some point... Once Rome or Attica became the property of a few, they were indefensible, and that is where we are headed...Poliitical equality rides on economic equality, and government must regulate to maintain a fraction of justice, but it must also tax those with the money if we will not decline and fall... The government exists in part to privide justice, and if it will not limit the excesses of the rich and the wannabee rich, we will be a nation in name only... It should be remembered that in the 19th century, it was not the rich and the propertied who made nationalism the issue it became in the 20th... The outlook of the rich has either been parochial or international, but only class conscious, interested in preserving the privilages of class... Our capitalists don't care one bit for nationalism... They don't care where they send their capital so long as they can keep the door open for their imports.. They don't care if we all have to live on food stamps in card board boxes so long as they can sell us something we cannot live without.. If you are worried about your nation; concern yourself with the import of slave labor, or the export of capital to buy slave labor in foreign lands... If your rights mean nothing here, it is certain they will mean nothing more anywhere else... Thanks... Sweeney
Comment: #6
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Mon Dec 20, 2010 10:19 PM
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