DEATH IS EASY by Russell Madden

FREEDOM,  As If It Mattered by Russell Madden

The Guardian Project by Russell Madden

RaNdoM by Russell Madden

 

In a reflection of admirable entrepreneurial action, blackout t-shirts are selling briskly in the Big Apple. The version I saw on television sported a New York City skyline inked in black with the years 1965, 1977, and 2003 written below. Apparently, some who endured this latest in-your-face blip want to commemorate the occasion. Perhaps the relatively benign nature of this interruption in their daily routines brought a rush of relief to New Yorkers glad that they were not staring into the blank eyes of a 9-11-01 doppelganger.

The mental and emotional changes wrought in the psyches of these big-city denizens by the destruction of the World Trade Center may help explain the party atmosphere that spread through the streets and neighborhoods of New York City. Impromptu gatherings clustered around sources of light, providing echoes of distant ancestors hunkered about sputtering campfires defying dangers lurking in the night. People sang and talked and met new friends, rejoicing in companionship with strangers as they shed the mental shields so endemic in crowded urban environments.

Businesses gave away or sold at cost perishable food. Pizza bakers labored in the flickering glow of their ovens as they worked to assuage the hunger of the wandering masses. That ancient symbol of fellowship -- alcohol -- passed among people weary from the heat and stress of a long afternoon and evening. Prohibitions against drinking in public -- silly even in normal circumstances -- were set aside in the face of tipped beer bottles and uncorked wine.

In the absence of electricity and police manpower, traffic lights gave way to unasked volunteers directing traffic, both wheeled and afoot. Spontaneous order emerged from chaos without the omniscient eye of the State micromanaging the affairs of ordinary folks. Stranded commuters hitched rides home...and often succeeded in their quests for transportation. Trucks carried scores of workers clinging to their sides like barnacles on a ship. Buses bulged with unaccustomed riders, lumbering and belching their ways through the snarled streets.

Bit by bit, ferries thinned the massive crowds flowing like lemmings towards the water separating Manhattan from the mainland. Darkened subways disgorged their passengers, many of those modern castaways helped towards the light by individuals younger or stronger or calmer. Pedestrians yielded to emergency vehicles.

People survived.

Admirable, yes. In the face of frustration and inconvenience, in the reality of disruption and twittering fear, average people remained calm and did what had to be done. Police and firefighters did their jobs, the jobs they should do: protect and serve those whose taxes pay their wages. No S.W.A.T. teams were required. No national guard troops. No military brigades. A lesson that hopefully will extend beyond this specific event.

Once terrorists -- excuse me: terrorism, in State-Speak -- once terrorism was (apparently) ruled out as an initiating cause of this blackout, the vermin of the political class crawled forth from their fetid burrows. Such pointy-nosed rats as the wife of the former adulterer-in-chief lifted their snouts into the breeze of opportunism and proclaimed that "deregulation!" was at fault. Other snakes and insects (with all due apologies to the run-of-the-mill, natural pests), other noxious creatures took up the cry and demanded that the State create and enforce national standards lest our nation suffer similar or worse crises in the future. To allow the despicable power company officials to rely upon their own best judgment, to race unchecked after that ultimate evil, profit, would be the height of irresponsibility. Only the wise and powerful Oz, er, government bureaucrat possessed the intelligence, the benevolence, the skills and daring to defend the American public from the ravages of the greedy and callous capitalists providing us our electricity...

Imagine for a moment an editorial cartoon. Two panels. In the first, we see a man from the waist up. In fine cartoon tradition, written across his chest are the words "Electricity Production Industry." (This example is easily generalizable; simply substitute the whipping-boy-of-the-moment [for example, the "Airline Industry"] and the same point will be made.) Falling from his spreading arms are the severed remnants of a rope that is labeled "Regulations." A triumphant smile grows on the liberated man's face.

In the next panel, we have a wide shot showing the man's entire body. As he tries to stand, he is brought up short by iron chains wrapped securely about this legs. The chains are further locked down to a massive ring buried in the ground. The man's grin changes to one of consternation bordering on horror. Beneath this panel, we see the following caption: "A Politician's Idea of Deregulation."

The power industry is no more "deregulated" than are the airlines faced with government-owned airports, State-mandated and -controlled security measures, antismoking rules, passenger mandates, and the thousand-and-one other laws and regulations dictating how they can operate their businesses. But to the statists and the collectivists, any small loosening of the chains is equivalent to total freedom. Then, when the hobbled man is unable to run a four-minute mile, "deregulation" is deemed the culprit, and the industry must be reined in like a recalcitrant stallion on the verge of escape.

To hear mayors and senators and governors speak of the "public" power grid as though it belongs to and is a right of us all -- of that metaphor, the "nation" -- is to realize that the precepts and destructiveness of socialism and fascism are alive and well. Congress has no constitutional authority to dwiddle in the production of any brand of energy. Whether the issue is providing electricity or natural gas or oil for business or personal consumption, all politicians can do is muck things up. These eloquent ignoramuses have no legal -- let alone moral -- right to promote or to discourage nuclear reactors or hydroelectric dams or windmills or solar cells or anything else as a means of generating electricity.

These dolts ease up on production rules for electricity while refusing to relinquish transmission requirements, then they are shocked! shocked! at the results. These twits pretend that the safety of consumers will suffer if electric companies are left to their own devices but ignore their usurpation of control from the industry's very beginning. These jerks whine about prices then deny free and open competition among companies while preventing consumers from selecting among alternatives. These numskulls expect perfection from a handicapped system but conveniently forget their own innumerable mistakes and their hand in crippling the feedback function of prices.

We should not be surprised by such contradictions, of course. The kind of mentalities that brand NAFTA as "free" trade or babble on about our "free" society, our "free-market" economy, are blind (by choice or by habit) to the consequences of their own behavior. Scapegoating -- blaming the victim -- is what such slimy personalities do best.

The statists and collectivists want the goodies but without the bother of recognizing "unpleasant" causes. They desire limitless power on demand but minus the cost and sans any transmission lines or production plants in their own backyards. They seek to shackle the doers while demanding they serve us flawlessly.

The real problem facing America is not a rare blackout, even one resulting from human fallibility. It is the "blank out" that exists between causes and effects, between means and ends; a blank-out that denies the autonomy of the individual, that rejects the sanctity of the mind, that refuses to acknowledge that thinking is not a commodity that emerges from a socket.

We need to honor -- not vilify -- those whose diligence, hard work, and creativity make it possible for the rest of us to "take for granted" what they offer us: the producers, the struggling remnants of capitalism. If you truly and sincerely want to solve our energy problems, break their chains. All of them.