End of the Year Pre-occupation

As I understand things and life, every law, rule, regulation, mandate, legislative mandate is a response to a problem, situation, circumstance, condition that must be corrected, changed or prevented. Thus we have the Ten Commandments given to the Hebrews after they has escaped from Egypt and before they could become a unified tribe or community in the wilderness.
The first three: no other gods, no graven images, no misuse of the Lord’s name, refer to the supremacy of God in the words and life of the people. But the remaining laws apply to maintaining community and personal behavior that keeps the peace and avoids the rending of the fabric of community. And these laws or commandments were probably the result of behavior and experiences that severely damaged the health and safety of the tribe. “You shall not steal,” would provide some trust and security that would protect possession and home. One would not always have to be awake in order to have some measure of confidence in the sanctity of one home.
And the remaining commandments were perhaps the result of the chaos that results from the absence of laws or rules.
From that pre-history beginning there have been laws, rules, bylaws, regulations. Problems, situations develop in complex communities that need to be addressed by issuing, passing, enacting law, rules and regulations. Every such proscription seeds to address a problem or potential threat to the fabric of community.
And every organization, club, society, task force, committee, fraternity, sorority and gathering has bylaws, Roberts’ Rules, on and on, ad vomitus.
Which brings us to our time and place with government regulations. The national transportation safety board is a consequence of the need for more attention to passengers and others in the field of transportation: rail, air, highway, afloat, etc. And, like history, each law, regulation is the reaction to a less than safe situation.
The same could apply to most areas of our complex and interdependent society. Regulations regarding food safety, safe drinking water, product safety, traffic laws, vehicle inspections, on and on and on, are intended to address problems of human and community safety.
Now we hear of, and have experienced, de-regulation. Consumer products protection, corporate behavior, the housing finance market, trucking industry, coal mining and other extractive industries safety, on and on runs the list of targets for de-regulation, for giving individuals, groups, businesses, professions and others, freedom to make money no matter what the cost to people and communities.
And, coupled with the lust for deregulation is the sad fact that corporations are and have been considered “persons” with all the liberties, freedoms and respect given to individuals by our US Constitution. Corporations are persons who have free speech, and all other freedoms guaranteed by our national laws and assumptions.
So, corporations can say what they want, buy what they want, control law making as they want, and profit as they want, because it is the American way. And any attempt to regulate, control, limit, prohibit, or otherwise inhibit what corporations want for profits and incomes for the very top executives, is strictly un-American. Regulation and deregulation are necessary ingredients to a complex and burgeoning material life in our time. And both are controlled and manipulated by corporations under the protection of their rights of the individual citizen which they are considered to be..

Richard E. Lake