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Mine safety and the Democrats
Please God, please please please don't let the Democrats blame President Bush for the senseless and tragic explosion that killed 12 West Virginia coal miners this week. Sure, the Bush administration is packed with cronies, but even if the person heading up the obscure federal office that overseas mining safety was Laura's library science study partner, this is not Katrina. Besides, there's a better way to gain politically from this tragedy without looking like ghouls.
Forget croneyism for now. Sago is all about how government is a force for good in people's lives. Publius at Legal Fiction nails it:The Sago story, like Katrina, is one of those rare stories that forces you to step back and reflect on the fundamentals - or "first principles" - of your political and moral values. We tend to lose sight of these first principles in the everyday give-and-take about this-or-that issue. But beneath all the gotcha and the plotting and the partisan bickering, there are values and assumptions that form the very foundation of our political thought. Even if we don't think about them much, these fundamental assumptions are what make us "liberal" or "conservative" in the first place.
I have a conservative friend who has made a bundle selling plastics to the automotive industry. Predictably, he sees nothing good about government, and has voted Republican his whole life. But where would his lucrative sales gig be without government? Who built the roads that make mass production of automobiles possible? Who insures bank deposits, so people can save up enough money to buy a car? Who maintains the ports to receive imported oil, and educates the automotive engineers that build the cars? Without effective government and free market democracy, my friend might be a clever shepherd, or a successful brigand. But he most definitely wouldn't be living in the cushy suburbs of Detroit, and enjoying weekends at his Lake Michigan beach house.
And one of my first principles is that government is a force for good. Government makes our lives better and more secure. I don't believe in abstract Marxist reorderings of society, but I do believe that the American people are better off because of the actions of the federal government. That's why I vote the way I vote, and that's why I write the way I write. Clinton's anti-government rhetoric was politically effective and all that, but if you really want a create a progressive majority over the long-term, you need to rehabilitate government in the minds of Americans. We need to stop running from this simple truth, and instead embrace it.
If the Democrats need to score points off a tragedy, this is the way to do it. Emphasize the positive. We only look ridiculous when we start blaming Bush for every disaster, man-made or otherwise. "The Sago mine disaster highlights the need for continued federal oversite of worker safety" will play better than "Bush is killing us all."
Republicans have been scoring their own points off 9/11 for four years, and they've gotten away with it because their message is actionable - to prevent another terrorist attack, America needs to fight back. Forget that we attacked the wrong country, and handed bin Laden a gift in the process, the point remains. The Bushies spun a positive message out of a tragic event. The Sago mining disaster offers Democrats the same opportunity, without making us look like tone deaf opportunists in the process.
In the past ten years, 376 miners have died in mining accidents in the US. While every death is tragic, the number is small when you consider the number of mines, and number of men and women employed in that dangerous work.
If you think it's something of a miracle that there aren't more deaths, don't thank Bush. Thank government.
That's a message Americans can get behind.
6.1.06 01:40