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Safety ValvesJanuary 14, 2006 Safety valves. You know the principle: when the pressure builds up, you can open the valve, release a little steam, and keep the whole thing from blowing up. Maybe it's personal: rather than start screaming at the boss, your partner, your parents, your kid, you go for a brisk walk or a long bike ride; maybe you toss back a few too many -- drinks, pills, your choice. Workplaces have them too: coffee breaks, vacations, grievance procedures. Political systems need safety valves; the systems that lack them are the ones that tend to blow up. For my money the most brilliant feature of the U.S. system, the thing that's enabled it to last this long, is its safety valves. The ballot box. Freedom of speech and the right to peaceably assemble. The Supreme Court. The system can change, can adapt to changes beyond its control, before too many people become so alienated and desperate that blowing the whole thing up looks like the only meaningful alternative. Safety valves can become clogged, their mechanisms rusty. Smart elites that want to remain in power are well advised to attend to the safety valves and keep them in good working order. The elite currently in charge of the U.S. of A. seems hell-bent on doing the opposite: not only is it not maintaining the safety valves, it's actively screwing them up. For most of us most of the time, it's enough to believe that the valves are working -- that if disaster strikes, we'll be able to get help. If we're lucky, we'll never know whether the safety valves work or not. A couple million people in Louisiana and Mississippi weren't that lucky, and many, many more millions got to see what happens when the safety valves don't work. This morning I read in the online Washington Post about some of the misery that's been created by this administration's "reform" of Medicare drug policy. (Fair is fair: the Great American Rubber Stamp, referred to as Congress in the U.S. Constitution, deserves plenty of credit for this latest fiasco.) Blessings upon the pharmacists who have tried to do well by their fellow human beings, and upon the states who've already realized that the current situation is unconscionable. How long will it take the rest of us to realize that "government" is more than an abstract whipping-boy for everything we don't like? Government comes in an array of flavors, and some of them taste pretty good. A dearth of government may even be hazardous to our collective health. While typing the above I repeatedly typed "value" instead of "valve." I corrected each instance (I think) but as I've said on many occasions "Typos are Coyote's footprints in your manuscript." I think Coyote's got a point. If you've got an extra minute, go back to the beginning and read it again, substituting "value" each time you see "valve."
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