First let me state that the scope of this argument is limited to the types of regulations discussed in this piece. Using off the wall examples such as a single bad reg isn't proof that ALL regs are bad. Stating your BELIEF that regulation is tyranny doesn't count either, because I really don't give a shit what your BELIEF is when everyone else is trying to deal with facts and issues honestly. The fact that you may be a spoiled rotten child who believes himself above all social standards should be discussed in your circle-jerk forums, not here. Now, we can get down to it.
Regulations are often extremely GOOD for business. The lack of regulations, and the unwillingness to punish those who refuse to follow those regulations is often very BAD for business. So far I've provided no proof for my assertion. Some may be already saying "Hell, that's just yer thinkun." Well here's the rational that human societies have abided by at least since the begining of the written word:
Some people will do anything to get rich. They don't care who gets killed, gets sick, or loses wealth in their scam just so they can get rich. In a normal society those people are a minority. (I BELIEVE that in our current economy those people are actually rewarded vs those who act in a resposible manner.) Communities usually wait until some such bastard gets caught killing, maiming, or stealing before they enact regulations defining decent behavior. Moses' Ten Commandments didn't mention adultery except that Absalom had gotten caught in Esther's tent while daddy was away building a pyramid, and Obadiah was caught with his winkie somewhere near the proximity of Miriam's tickle spot while her husband was out fighting the Moabites or something. Otherwise we would have only nine commandments. My point is that in the begining society as a whole feels some regulation is necessary due to misbehavior before it occurs to someone to write it.
Even in ancient days people needed regulation. The Code of Hammurabi has some pretty damned harsh penalties for people caught adulterating beer, food, and wine! Why? Because some dishonest bastard realized he could mix a little chalk with the flour and produce a standard weight loaf of bread for less than his competitor. Booze has always been watered down or adulterated to enhance profit, as any person who watches old Western movies can tell you. All this though happened in an age where you knew the person who baked your bread, brewed up the beer, or smushed the grapes to make the wine. Today though your taquitos might as well come from Alpha Centauri as far as you know, making regulations even more important. In the "good ole days" if you caught the local butcher, baker, or candlestick maker cheating you got a few buddies together and stomped the living crap out of him, adding a hint of threat to most people's belief that we'll usually do the correct thing when offered a choice.
Most of today's regulations, of the type I am refering to that assure the wholesomeness of our food-air-water, are the same as the regulations we have always practiced. In every known society before the industrial age tanners had to work outside of town because they used animal piss and other smelly stuff to do their jobs. Communities actually went to war with one another if the upstream people befouled the water beyond a commonly accepted level, unless regulations/common sense prevailed over greed or stupidity. Today though people are powerless to act in our own direct interests against those who would circumvent common decency to gain an advantage squarely at the expense of others. We can't drive 500 miles to smack the Corporate exec/ "enterpeneur" who ignored the most basic cleanliness standards last year and killed dozens plus hospitalized thousands just to gain an advantage over his competitors. And here we get to the heart of the matter:
Such an egg monstrosity occurred last year when a very prominent Teabagger refused to follow INDUSTRY WRITTEN standards for cleanliness (Forgive me for not having his name handy, but at the moment I am a bit indispossed by semi-blindness.Hours of research is currently out of the question.) This lunatic is one of many screeching that the loosey-goosey government regulations are tyrannizinating him and are unconstitutionalizing his private property rights. His real agenda is much different.
All the egg producers were asked by the government to come up with a common sense set of standards to make sure that the eggs they sold were all clean and disease free as reasonably possible, AND THEY GOT TO DECIDE WHAT WAS REASONABLE! Since most eggs are produced by monstrous agribusinesses these rules were set up for the benefit of ALL concerned. First the millions of laying hens at an egg factory had to be segregated into smaller units so that any disease did not spread throughout the whole herd of cacklers. Businesses would benefit in case of an outreak by merely needing to destroy a small % of the hens instead of the entire inventory. Next, employees were not to move from one unit to another to avoid spreading any diseases that had yet to be discovered, unless they scrubbed down. Finally, the food that fell out of the troughs into the below and the chickenshit such mega factories produced had to be washed away to keep down the number of unavoidable flies and rodents who would certainly appear. Fewer flies and rats=fewer chances of disease. Industry liked these standards because all would know that ALL the eggs on the market - theirs and their competitors - would be much less likely to be killer eggs. Consumers benefited because eggs could be produced with a degree of safety acceptable to business, and generally conforming to the expectations of those who wanna eat eggs without dying. Also the in between customers who bought ALL the eggs before they reached the consumer could have some faith they would not be sued because their frozen juevos rancheros jubilee pot pies wouldn't sicken people and cause all that messy litigation. We might quibble over the level of regulation, but most would agree it worked decently if everyone followed the simple and self-policing rules.
Along comes a typical Teabagger "entrepeneur" who worships at the alter of profit. This Prophet of Profit howls constantly about gumment regoolashuns. He funds lots of self-appointed Uh-mur-uh-kun majoritizingators to go out and screech and cry about tyranny and Don't Tread on Me and mass propaganda e-mails and such because he HATES anyone having the power to tell him what to do. You see he is a SUPERIOR person, 'cause Ayn Rand tells him so, and he's the heir of the Foundin' Fathers cause he sez so, and he's purteckting yer libuteeze cause God told him to. Well, that's what the SOB sez. Wanna know what he really is?
Maybe it costs the typical egg megaranch 35 cents to sell a dozen eggs to Krogers, or Winn-Dixie, or Piggly-Wiggly. 2 cents of that might be the cost of following the voluntary standards that INDUSTRY came up with (oh, I forgot refrigerator trucks, etc). Just like damned near every rotten teabagger I've ever met, this bastard masked his true motives with what he sees as altruistic and grand behavior. He allowed people to pass uncleaned from one hen house to another because he was protecting his property rights. He allowed an insane buildup of flies, maggots, and mice to live in his facilities because that's what the Founding Fathers intended! He shipped out eggs he KNEW were contaminated with Salmonella because the defense of liberty demanded it! The disease was allowed to incubate and grow during shipping because to properly refrigerate his product was certainly unconstitutional. OR! Just maybe someone was looking for a 2 cent a dozen advantage on his competitors. Just maybe his hatred of anyone telling him what to do, including his fellow egg producers, overrode any sense of humanity that might have existed in him. And now, instead of a mob of us outside his mansion with a noose handy and a nearby tree picked out, this miscreant should thank his lucky stars for what today passes for "regulation." The public never learned his name because the system is set up to protect HIM and not us. Instead of swinging from a sturdy limb for murder, the bastard is revelling in his anonymnity, holding a few small citations for violating regulations, gets a few nasty stares at competitors who lost business when everyone became afraid of ALL eggs for awhile, and is still making tons of $$$ to spend on campaign contributions, blitz ads vilifying "socialist" candidates, funding a few dozen propagandists to spread viral e-mails against sharia law and them damned Mescuns crossings the borders illegally (hundreds of which he is happy to employ and then intimidate with "Immie" if they get to damned uppity), and living it it up as a "superior" person should!
But back to my theme. Regulations, when properly written and enforced, benefit us all. We've seen egg, spinach, beef, tomato, and plenty of other industry wide scares precisely because minimum standards were not enforced. I believe one scare halved the market for spinach and it took two years to recover. The demand to end even the most loose standards written for the benefit of industry and by industry is certainly the call of the scoundrel. Caveat Emptor...
