Tuesday, August 28, 2007
The problem with government is us
From the RoundTable blog
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Robert F. Roth
Roth is a retired plastic surgeon living in Wirtz.
It takes a village to raise a child. It takes a tragedy to raise a people to do what needs to be done. The sudden awesome collapse of the Minneapolis Interstate 35W bridge is a good illustration of a tragedy. But what will be the response of our citizenry?
Let's start with political punditry, both sides of the partisan fault. "Yes," they all say, "we need to repair and renew our national infrastructure." This will take lots of caring wisdom, commitment, bipartisan cooperation and cash.
In the road to blocking the desired destination are two conservative dicta: "The government is the problem," and "we've got to starve the beast." Yes, both contain half-truths. But the tragedy-compass is pointing in a different direction.
That is where "caring wisdom" should be the GPS rather than political posturing. Why the posturing? It is mindless ideology for conservatives, paralyzing fear for progressives (read "liberals").
Actually, there is fear on both sides of the fault. Fear of what? You got it: Voters. That means you and me. No one likes taxes, especially the top 1 percent of our income earners. The time has come to realize that seeing the problem as purely government and the need to starve that beast are self-destructive.
We, the voters, are the problem.
We are starving ourselves by electing leadership who overlook the catastrophic effect on our lives and society by ideology and fear -- at the top. The coming, oh so slowly, election of 2008 will be a continental divide on many issues, among them our infrastructure. Look for candidates, on both sides of the divide who candidly, consistently reverse gear on ideology and those who have courage to lead us. Let's not turn our backs on any candidate who dares utter the "T" word.
Here's a quick fix that will cost hardly any money. The risk factor: A crucial contributor to the collapse of the I-35W bridge was the bumper-to-bumper traffic at the time of the collapse. This put the maximum weight stress on its spans, weakened over 40 years by acid rain, a product of pollution, a product of global warming, a product of leadership failure, a product of mindless ideology and paralyzing fear.
The quick fix? A simple traffic regulation that requires a minimum of two car lengths between vehicles whenever traffic is standing or moving 25 mph or less across a bridge. Simple math: It would make for at least a 50 percent reduction in stress at any given time on any given span.
