Politics Plus

Lots of people, particularly on the Right, complain about the government sticking its nose into their business. I understand. Nobody likes being bossed around, especially by somebody or some institution against whom you can’t fight back. We all value our privacy, even if our lives are clean as a hound’s tooth.

We have government regulations for a reason. Hell – for LOTS of reasons. Because individuals and businesses alike cannot always be trusted to do what is moral and ethical. Because we need to protect our health, our environment, our lives, our children, our homes, our livelihoods.

In the 1800s, US dairy producers adulterated milk with not just water but also chalk, cow brains, even embalming fluid. Numerous children died from drinking this nasty mixture. In England, bakers stretched their bread dough with chalk, alum lime and powdered bones, which also made it whiter. Poor people bought cheap bread, and the alum interfered with digestion, thus lowering the nutritional value of other food. On The Victorian Web, Professor Anthony S. Wohl writes:

The list of poisonous additives reads like the stock list of some mad and malevolent chemist: strychnine, cocculus inculus (both are hallucinogens) and copperas in rum and beer; sulphate of copper in pickles, bottled fruit, wine, and preserves; lead chromate in mustard and snuff; sulphate of iron in tea and beer; ferric ferrocynanide, lime sulphate, and turmeric in chinese tea; copper carbonate, lead sulphate, bisulphate of mercury, and Venetian lead in sugar confectionery and chocolate; lead in wine and cider; all were extensively used and were accumulative in effect, resulting, over a long period, in chronic gastritis, and, indeed, often fatal food poisoning. Red lead gave Gloucester cheese its ‘healthy’ red hue, flour and arrowroot a rich thickness to cream, and tea leaves were ‘dried, dyed, and recycled again.’

As late as 1877 the Local Government Board found that approximately a quarter of the milk it examined contained excessive water, or chalk, and ten per cent of all the butter, over eight per cent of the bread, and 50 per cent of the gin had copper in them to heighten the color.

Can you imagine what sort of witch’s brews would be in our drink, food and medicine if we didn’t have regulations on what could be put in anything we ingest? If unhealthful crap is cheaper than real sustenance, and especially if it enhances flavor and/or color, in it goes.

Before the Clean Air Act, pollution was choking much of the United States. Ever seen before and after pictures of certain U.S. cities? China doesn’t have the kind of environmental regulation we have, and pollution is wrecking the country. Thousands of its rivers have disappeared, and most of the rest are severely contaminated. According to some estimates, up to 90% of China’s groundwater and half of its river water is unfit to drink; in fact, the water from 25% of Chinese rivers and more than half of that country’s groundwater is unsuitable even for agricultural or industrial uses. The USA would almost certainly be in a similar fix if not for the EPA and numerous environmental laws. Ever hear of a place called Flint, Michigan?

Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle exposed the exploitation of immigrant workers in industrial cities. Though the story was fictional, Sinclair based it on inconvenient truths. Sinclair’s muckraking revealed the shockingly unsanitary conditions in the meat packing industry. Inexpensive sausages could contain spoiled meat, rat droppings, poisoned bread, mold, borax, even ground-up rats.

Still wonder why we have regulations that control what goes into our food and medicines? Still wonder why we have any regulations at all?

Government regulations are what give us such blessings as a 40-hour work week, overtime pay, safety regulations that reduce the chances of workplace injuries, cleaner air and water, safer roads and bridges – you get the picture. People have a bad tendency to put their interests ahead of everything else, even if in the long run doing so will be to their detriment. Sadly, we can be remarkably short-sighted, putting momentary personal gain ahead of long-term well-being or even survival.

Yes, government can be a pain in the butt. Yes, some regulations go overboard or are entirely unnecessary. However, consider the alternative. If you like your air clean, the water coming from your tap potable, your sausage and bread free of dead rats and floor sweepings, your medicines unadulterated, and your place of work reasonably safe, please keep your grumbling to a minimum. It’s OK to raise a fuss when you have a legitimate beef, but don’t tar all regulations and statutes with the same brush.

Government is not best when it governs least. Government is best when it governs where it should govern, and does not govern where it should not govern.