[img]139|left|||no_popup[/img] A broken Ramones CD was the straw that broke the camel's back. I was probably the last living fan of the U.S. Post Office. After all, my father worked there most of his life, and I had a soft spot in my heart for that bastard step-child of government agencies. Alas, that love lives no more.
Having a nostalgic moment over the holidays, I ordered a CD of the Ramones’ greatest hits. In what can only be a great moment of karma, the CD was shipped that day and arrived in my hands the next day – while I was still on the wayback machine. The bad news, the CD packaging, which was emblazoned with red letter warnings: “Do not machine,” was clearly tossed into one of the postal sorting machines. The CD was cracked in half when it arrived.
“The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.'” Who’d have ever thought I’d be invoking Ronald Reagan? I’m as liberal, as radical, as they come. I think a little or a lot of socialism is a good thing. But the longer I live, the more I distrust American governments, federal, state, and local.
Both Parties Are Guilty
My mother says the whole social safety net is falling apart – as planned – by some evil Republican conspiracy. I can only point out that we’ve had a bunch of Democrats in power, and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better. If the Republicans are wolves, then the Democrats are wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Take public schools as one example. If anyone had a choice, would she trust her children to schools that fail at teaching, all the while keeping the students penned up in what can only be described as a prison-like environment – accompanied by “lockdowns,” “searches,” and tall, tall fences. What about any of that inspires trust in the government? I used to automatically vote for any school ballot initiatives. In good conscience, I don’t anymore. I can’t imagine throwing more money at that situation.
Science is another no-win situation. It seems that every month the federal, and sometimes even state, government comes out with a health recommendation. We should eat this. Or take that pill. Or trust this newest medical device. After all, posters and billboards everywhere promise – various government entities have our best interests at heart. These are the folks who recommended margarine and lots of hydrogenated trans fat until they figured out it killed us. The number of medicines where the cure is worse than the disease, that were subsequently recalled or banned, are too numerous to list. We won’t even talk about the current spate of failing hip and knee replacements due to government-approved parts that were supposed to last a lifetime. It’s as if there is no government oversight. The latest stomach turner, the FDA’s sanction of human experimentation outside America’s borders. The situation doesn’t seem as if it could be any worse without all of that regulation and agency oversight.
How Government Milked This Incident
On one hand, they’re asleep at the wheel. Then there are the times that lately there seems to be a little too much government. I’m a big drinker of raw milk. That’s right, milk straight from the cow, no pasteurizing, no homogenizing, no sitting in tanks for a month before it reaches my house. Unlike most Americans, I’m not wowed by the pasteurization of milk, juice, eggs, nuts and everything in between. I support my local raw milk farmers and buy their products every week. A few months ago, unfortunately, a few California children came down with E.coli. Their families said these five children from four different counties who’d gotten sick over three months, had consumed raw milk. The California Dept. of Food and Agriculture sprang into action. They recalled milk and refused to allow the dairy to sell any fresh milk. Of course, none of the milk or cows tested positive for E.coli. But did that make a difference to CDFA? No. They swore they were protecting us. I’ll skip the wrangling in between. But the milk never tested positive, and the company lost upwards of half a million dollars. I would be all for this kind of oversight if it were evenhanded. Cantaloupes killed, not sickened, killed thirty people. Do we see the banning of cantaloupes? Nope. Did the CDC, FDA or FBI or whomever has the right to bear arms come to the farm, guns blazing? Nope. Jensen Farms voluntarily stopped selling cantaloupes after they tested positive for listeria. And Jensen Farms, after all that, got a warning letter. Now I’m not saying that in a vacuum that either government action was inappropriate. What I’m saying is, it looks a little heavy handedly tilted toward the small, local farmer. In either instance, I am not sure I could rely on the government for protection. When push comes to shove, a little spinach or cantaloupe could kill you and the heavy hand of government wouldn’t be there to save you. But they would surely send a warning letter.
This is just a tip of the iceberg of things that outrage me on a daily basis. There’s the police. In Los Angeles, they now have something called the BatCat, basically a large remote control vehicle that demolishes houses to get holed-up suspects out. If that’s not the very definition of overkill, I don’t know what is. In my hometown of New York City, we have a police force stopping thousands and thousands of innocent citizens, who are most coincidentally black and brown, compiling their names in a database. For what future use, who knows? Just the thought of an army of men and women with guns and my vital statistics is not heartwarming.
Then there’s our justice system, which lately seems to think it okay not only to enforce the death penalty, which is proven to be classist, racist, and plain unfair. And in 2011 actual innocence did not seem to be enough to save you from the electric chair.
Not to leave unmentioned our endless wars, warrantless searches, prison-like processing for air travel. The TSA workers do not inspire confidence.
Everyone’s got an answer to my dilemma. Vote for Democrats: They’ll give us good government. Vote for Republicans: They’ll give us small government. After watching forty years of deterioration at their hands, I’m not swayed. I'm off the political party train. Next stop: Libertarian.
Jessica Gadsden has been controversial since the day she discovered her inner soapbox. She excoriated the cheerleaders on the editorial page of her high school paper, transferred from a co-educational university to a women's college to protest the gender-biased curfew policy, published a newspaper in law school that raked the dean over the coals with (among other things) the headline, “Law School Supports Drug Use”—and that was before she got serious about speaking out. Progressive doesn't begin to define her political views. A reformed lawyer, she is a fulltime novelist who writes under a pseudonym, of course. A Brooklyn native, she divided her college years between Hampton University and Smith.
Ms. Gadsden’s essays appear every other Tuesday. She may be contacted at www.pennermag.com
