Canary in the Mine

How OSH will kill someone (a parable for our times)
This is a true story, told to me during the holidays by a building inspector. It had a happy ending (at least, no-one got hurt). One day it won't.

A woman recently took a trailer to a Christchurch timber yard to buy some decking for a home project.

After she had chosen the timber, she asked the yard boss if he would help her load the trailer and tie down the load so it would be safe.

The yard boss (an expert at this kind of thing) replied that he could not help her. It was now company policy that no employees help customers to load or secure vehicles. When asked why, he said OSH regulations (a new batch of New Zealand government health and safety regulations) meant that if the woman had an accident involving the timber or trailer on the way home, the company might be held liable. Therefore the experts could not now do the job.

The woman (not an expert), did her best to secure the load (not very well), and drove home very cautiously (and very upset). She got home safely.

One day someone who does not know how to tie a load properly will not get home safely. All because those who are experts are no longer allowed to do the job.

One Nation Under God—Sort of
We've got bigger problems than the Pledge of Allegiance.
This term, the United States Supreme Court will consider the constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance. It's the latest episode in a long-running serial involving attempts to use the courts to stifle all public expressions of Christian belief. The following comment is an extract from an editorial in Christianity Today magazine.
At issue is whether the phrase "under God" suggests a government establishment of religion, and therefore whether the pledge should be banned from public schools. We firmly hope the justices leave well enough alone.
The arguments for the validity of these two controversial words "under God" are varied and strong, as many commentators have already noted. Robert Destro of Catholic University of America presented a fine summary of the political arguments in an amicus curiae brief:

All three branches of our federal government have long recognized the premise from which Jefferson argued his Declaration of Independence, namely that our freedom is grounded in an authority higher than the State … If reciting the Pledge is unconstitutional simply because it refers to a nation "under God," then reciting the Declaration of Independence, which refers to the Creator as the source of rights, is surely cast in doubt. And that would mean that publicly acknowledging the traditional grounding of our rights itself arguably violates those very rights. That would be an earthquake in our national ethos.

Professor Destro seems mistaken about only one thing: the earthquake happened long ago. It wasn't one big shock, but mini-tremors that over decades created a deep chasm in American life.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn brought this chasm to America's attention in 1978 in his now-famous Harvard commencement address, "A World Split Apart." In the last three centuries, all moral and spiritual limitations, all Christian notions of duty and sacrifice, have slowly been discarded in the West. While we've safeguarded human rights, "man's sense of responsibility to God and society grew dimmer and dimmer … We have lost the concept of a Supreme Complete Entity which used to restrain our passions and our irresponsibility. We have placed too much hope in political and social reforms, only to find out that we were being deprived of our most precious possession: our spiritual life."
The spiritual decline has only accelerated in the 25 years since. We live in a political/economic nexus that not only permits but actually protects those who practice evil. In the slavish and mindless pursuit of liberty, we've ended up with a system that guards the rights of pornographers to commodify sex, of advertisers to entice people to hedonism, of executives to pursue a life of greed, of abortionists to kill innocent human life.
This is not a godly system, though it is a system under God—or, more precisely, under God's judgment. The prophetic words spoken against Israel long ago are tragically timely: "Ah, sinful nation, people laden with iniquity, offspring who do evil, children who deal corruptly, who have forsaken the Lord … The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and bleeding wounds" (Isa. 1).
Retaining the phrase "under God" is not going to protect "Christian America" from functional secularism. That earthquake has already shaken our nation. But the phrase will continue to signal the source of our liberties, and to whom we stand accountable for the misuse of liberty.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water!
Welcome to 2004, and the myriad legislative delights that it will bring. In most western countries, 2003 was a watershed year, when human rights were high on the agenda of most governments and courts. In New Zealand, for instance, this led to such law as the decriminalisation of prostitution, and the (thankfully temporary) position that a family can be anything you like to call it, including people with "significant psychological attachment". Although that bit of nonsense was finally knocked on the head - but only after intense lobbying by opposition parties - the flavour lingers long in the mouths of government MPs. In the US and Canada, we saw homosexual marriage effectively legalised, and courts across the land silencing Christian expression in public places.
One move that slipped me by, but is hugely significant, is that Canada has moved to allowed Muslims to govern themselves by Sharia law. This is judicial madness! You cannot have a country espousing two legal codes, particularly when they are so different from each other. It is a recipe for social disaster.
Things aren't much better in the United Kingdom. Huge pressure is being put on England to bring its legal system into line with the rest of the European Union. This could do away with a foundational principle of British justice (the write of habeas corpus), that you cannot be jailed without being charged and brought to trial.
Meanwhile, 2004 in New Zealand promises legal delights ranging from how to decide who controls the nation's foreshore and seabed, to moves towards homosexual marriage (the Civil Unions Bill), virtually uncontrolled human genetic experimentation, and increased children's rights.
It's going to be a wild ride!