Tag Archives: regulation

Leading from Behind

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…and continuing the Obama administration meme of letting the “international community” dictate our foreign policy—and now our domestic policy, also.

A quarantine against travel from the Ebola-infected nations of western Africa to the United States, ideally as part of an international effort but plainly not dependent on it, is critical to mitigating the risk to the United States of the Ebola epidemic spreading to here. I’ve answered the CDC chief’s objections to a travel ban here and here. Others more knowledgeable than me also are calling for such a travel ban.

Here, though, is what Obama’s State Department—medical experts all—claim in all seriousness:

“We are not imposing any sort of ban,” a State Department official told FoxNews.com. “We need to allow for this to be a global response and make sure that there is proper care and training throughout the region.

Because, it’s not perfect, therefore mustn’t do it at all. Because, safety in numbers, especially if those numbers give cover for avoiding responsibility for error. Because, it might show initiative. Because, leading from the front is arrogant.

The most likely global response from this foolishness is an Ebola pandemic.

It just isn’t the Democrat way to accept responsibility and the personal risk that entails.

It just isn’t the Democrat way to be out front, with or without the “international community.”

It just isn’t the Democrat way actually to lead.

Another Excessive

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…and a community responds.

An employee of a Mom and Pop hardware store in Cape Coral, FL, placed a half-dozen American flags where they could be seen on the hardware store’s property; the flags were to honor the man’s six relatives who were veterans of the United States military.

Foul. It turns out that the location was on city property—the right of way to the hardware store—and Cape Coral has an ordinance against planting signs and banners, including the American flag, on the city’s rights of way. The city ordered the man to move the flags.

Fortunately, the man refused.

Response. The community promptly planted another 200 or more American flags on the city’s right of way, along a six block stretch that includes the man’s hardware store. The city decided not to enforce its ordinance this time.

This is an entirely appropriate initial response to excessive government…regulation. An entirely appropriate follow-up to this would have the city modify its ordinance to decriminalize the display of the American flag in the public square.

Excessive

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The Dearborn Heights District 7 Board of Education chose a less severe punishment for the honor student who was initially expelled after a pocketknife was found in her purse at a football game.

On Monday, after two hours of deliberation, the board voted 6-0 to allow [the high school senior] to take online classes. She then will be able to graduate with her class in 2015.

A lesser punishment than originally imposed? She still was punished, severely. Because zero tolerance. Because, the Board of Education persons claim, state law.

State law or bureaucratic timidity, it makes no difference. This young woman, who maintained her status as an honor student while working two jobs (how many of our young people have the initiative to do that? How many of our young people in the broader 16-25 demographic can find any job?), was thrown out of school—her path to a better life—because she had a knife (all 3¼” of it) given her by her grandfather for protection, since she bicycles to and from those jobs.

She forgot it was in the bottom of her purse, else she would have honored the state’s law of no knives in school longer than 3″. Think of an earlier time, when personal responsibility mattered more than responsiveness to government. An American general in WWII was messaged an order to stop a movement on Sicily that was a deviation from the battle plan. He decided the message was garbled in transmission and asked for a retransmittal. He continued his movement, meanwhile, which contributed critically to capturing the island far ahead of the plan’s original schedule and with far fewer overall casualties.

The Dearborn Heights Vice Principal Cheryl Howard, who was conducting random bag searches and discovered the knife, could have said, “That knife looks real close to exceeding the allowed size limit. Get it home and be more careful.” But no. Because zero tolerance. Because personal responsibility is so 20th Century.

Think, also, of the larger implication of this. This toy knife was given to this young woman by a well-meaning grandfather so she could protect herself as she bicycled to and from her jobs. Or in any other situation in any other location.

What the Michigan law is saying, what the Dearborn Heights District 7 Board of Education is saying, is that we’re not supposed to protect ourselves. Government will do that for us. Authority figures placed over us will do that for us. When the bad man comes…. But no, we’re to leave it to our survivors to seek justice for us since our Betters are to be responsible for our safety—which means only for the safety of our survivors. Which, to unroll this one more step, means no safety for them, either, since the police are only minutes away from them, too.

Another Reason for Smaller Government

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Even with lives at stake—lives in the middle of a budding pandemic—Big Government bureaucracies are more interested in protecting turf and responsibility ducking than they are in their fundamental task of protecting American citizens’ safety from foreign problems.

Worse, one of the bureaucracies involved in this cynical ego-based Federal road block has nothing to do with the medical questions involved. First, the experts, at least by training and experience, if not by smooth performance:

The hazardous waste protocols in place for hospitals require staff to place any potentially infected substances—whether it is medical equipment or protective gear—into special hazardous waste containers. That waste then is supposed to be turned over to licensed hazardous waste companies, where it is incinerated or chemically sterilized, according to the CDC.

However, because that other Big Government agency thinks it must have something to say about handling hazardous medical waste, we get this [emphasis added]:

Due to specific Ebola-related regulations issued by the US Department of Transportation (DOT), which governs what medical waste companies can and cannot transport, the usual waste haulers or medical waste disposal companies are prohibited from accepting Ebola-contaminated waste until it has been properly packaged in accordance with DOT guidelines.

And so we get this problem, delineated by [Dr Jeffrey, National Global and Public Health Committee Chairman for Infectious Diseases Society of America] Duchin:

The medical waste companies are refusing to come and pick up the waste because of the DOT regulations, which the CDC does not agree with.

Never mind that the sole experts in the matter, the CDC, has said the Ebola waste ready for safe handling by medical waste companies.

Just to add to this ego-ridden fiasco, we also have this, demonstrating that it’s not only the Federal government that’s gotten too big, too turf-ridden, with too many egos embedded:

[A] Louisiana waste disposal facility, Chemical Waste Management Inc-Lake Charles, says it will not accept the ashes generated when Duncan’s belongings were incinerated, at least not until state officials agree that it would pose no threat to the public.

And this nonsense: The Louisiana Attorney General, Buddy Caldwell, has sued in state court to block the transportation of the waste to the Calcasieu Parish facility (the waste disposal facility in question), and a Louisiana state judge has agreed and blocked the shipment. Because these guys—a state government lawyer and the state government’s judge—know better.

These are yet others reason for shrinking government.

The Left and “Free” Speech

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On the matter of Common Core,

Employees of at least one school have been directed not to express opinions in public or by texts, email, social media or traditional media, according to notes taken at a faculty meeting last week that were obtained by The Town Talk.

[Rapides Superintendent Nason “Tony”] Authement said there is not a district policy about social media.

“We are not communicating any procedures, policies or expectations about posting on social networks,” he said.

Of course. Instead,

Local teachers who agreed to speak to The Town Talk anonymously said these directives normally are given orally rather than in writing. The notes came from a faculty meeting after teacher Cher Wilson spoke to a TV news outlet about what she called a “dishonest” grading system.

One teacher said she was “written up” by school administration for writing a comment from her personal Facebook account on a negative post about the Common Core State Standards. The comment was against the standards.

She said she was shocked when asked to remove her comment, which she did, and then was written up.

“We are not to voice our opinions in any public forum,” she said. “We are to be neutral or in favor of…. This is a hot national debate. Why can’t I comment?

And

She said teachers have been told not to talk to the press without going through the chain of command, which begins with the principal and ends with the superintendent.

Plainly, the plebes are free to speak only what has been approved by their Betters for them to speak.