Letter to the Editor: Vote should reflect our conservative ideals

20 Comments

1. Why don’t we just call Friends of Coal the Friends of Increasing Mercury in our Kids Brains? Your politics are dangerous; the chilling way you blow off that coal is such a high source of the neurotoxin mercury is inexcusable, and more personally damaging to our children than the way “liberals” increase the national debt without looking at the cost of borrowing money. It looks like the Tea Party is willing to injure people to succeed instead of spending irresponsibly. Either way, we are not headed in the right direction. By the way, check the IDEM maps and the scientifically incompetent way Indiana monitors before you try to say that our air quality is improving. And don’t call yourself “Right To Life” unless you have studied Indiana’s infant mortality because Indiana’s business environment appears to be killing children. How pervasive do special needs children have to be before you realize that Tea Party politics cuts off both legs to save the toes? As bad as the big spenders are, the polluters will solve the population problem and health problem because no one will live long enough. Not monitoring what doesn’t matter doesn’t change greed.

   1. Dr. Kreilein, like many others in the environmental movement, fail to
      comprehend within their assessments and frameworks the impact of
      their drive for creating the perfect in a risk free world. Radical
      environmentalists create an agenda that not only is impossible to
      achieve, but is destructive of the economy. Minnows out west that
      thrive at the expense of the most productive agricultural lands in
      the world and coal fired electric generation plants and coal mining
      operations shutting down are but a tiny tip of the destruction
      created by a federal regulatory Leviathan which is a captive of
      Progressives in search of the perfect.

      The Tea Party is willing to injure people??? No, the tea party recognizes
      peoples’ lives in a world of risks and that the risk/reward ratio has
      long been skewed to the point where wealth creation is obstructed for
      minimal gains. Hoosiers need representatives like Andrew McNeil to
      fight to get rid of the EPA and work to create structures that will
      enable the States to collaborate and set their own environmental
      policies while using the courts to settle differences.

      1. How destructive to the economy is the damage to brains and vital organs to our children? Are you aware of the true cost of 1 in 68 children with autism? I am first and foremost a pediatrician quite knowledgeable about the physiology of the human body as it develops, including the pharmacology of medications and other agents that affect its development and function. I read many of the Tea party letters which explore an abstract world but FAIL to address real issues. Yet when I bring one up, i.e. the reality of addressing a serious public health reality, one involving real cost and suffering, you conveniently relegate me to a radical position. GET A CLUE if you are going to assume a leadeship position. This is not an elective vague philosophical question, it is the reality that the critical analysis of harm being inflicted on our children is being drowned in political rhetoric. If the Tea Party is not capable of acknowledging that their own local and state government is part of the problem, then I don’t think tackling the complexities of an even bigger world is a good idea. Some of the “minnows” you so ruthlessly attack are the members of the Florida Tea Party waging war against biomass incineration in Florida. It appears convenient to punt the problem to some vague entity far far away to distract the populace from the real fleecing occuring locally with bad science, monitoring, ethics and decisionmaking. Can the Tea Party solve a trick question without escaping into useless rhetoric? No, they appear to be part of the problem, just one more political excuse gone haywire. Under such leadership, the autism rate will be 1 in 30, not to mention the infant mortality. As a clinician charged to evaluate these problems from a scientific, individual and collective standpoint, I hope you reconsider the fallout of your methods. Children live in the environment you describe.

         1. Dr. Kreilein,

            I respect your attention and concern regarding infant mortality. Imposing unrealistic clean air standards that reach for the perfect, however, destroys livelihoods and capital. It is not an answer we can live with. Hoosiers, and all Americans, need to weigh the costs and benefits.

            You calculate the loss of 150 souls annually. To be sure, anytime one of God’s children loses the opportunity to realize the possibilities our Creator intended for us, it is a tragedy. What you do not calculate is the disrupted, formally productive lives of the men and women who mined the earth and generated electricity. You have not calculated the pain spread through their families, nor reflected upon the squeeze that will be felt in the increased cost structure of all Hoosier consumers of electricity.

            We live in the most interesting of times. With the exponential increase in our understanding of how the world works, a person of science, such as yourself, is standing on a threshold where it seems that the lot of humanity can be dramatically improved for the better. I would just hope that a more responsible environmentalism would tamp down the radical elements bent on a 21st century Luddite vision of de-industrialization. We need time for the arts [economic, political, philosophical] to catch up with the hard sciences. One does not destroy the economic foundation to improve our lot.

            Life is full of risks, and we want to mitigate them, but at a cost to citizens in Indiana which is less disruptive and more affordable.

            1. Nice try. I’m not sure what “perfect” world you are looking for because we rank #47 in infant mortality (a reliable indicator of the environment our fetuses are cooking in) which ironically mirrors our environmental ranking. And the premies are not affordable. Where were you to lobby for the vaccine companies who were expected to decrease mercury for the safety of our children at whatever cost or get out of the kitchen? Poor $$$$$ energy industry has had decades to figure this out but can’t seem to decide whether to have you cry for them or threaten the rest of us. Personally, I am looking for a more responsible industrialism that doesn’t need to destroy the police they can’t pay off. Your defense of an energy industry who also brought us the green debaucle is indefensible. They use the the same pseudoscience, marketing technques (and paid off universities) that YOU are. Don’t cry foul when YOU are caught playing their game. I am sure that coal and every other industry can quickly do some calculations instead of the true medical and educational cost. . . and your local ideology is still guilty of supporting Jasper Clean Energy (affordable???). You hide your agenda while accusing me of having one while your priorities are fundamentally flawed. I hope your children and grandchildren find a better medical clinician than what your local party is sellingl

            2. It is not a perfect world for which Conservatives search. It does not exist. That is the point I am driving home. The elimination of elusive risks sought for by Progressives is the problem. Should it be a discrepancy in incomes or the absence of pollutants in man’s manipulation of the environment, Progressives strive to achieve that which cannot be.

               Clearly, you love your patients and desire to do what you can to protect the innocent. This is a good thing, a noble trait that we need to see more of in society. As a retired Special Educator I am well aware of the impact behavior and the environment have on human development. I worked with many children and young adults who are inflicted with multiple challenges. Neither of our experiences, however, negate the necessity of assessing the risks and rewards associated with establishing industrial policy.

               Perhaps you could be more productive in your efforts to mitigate the environmental impact on babies if you could escape the shackles of Progressive utopianism. If you desire to positively impact the problem, it would be important to most accurately assess the world as it is. The Austrian School of economics offers a much more practical perspective than any of the ideas offered by the left which passes for as economic thought. It would be helpful if you could re-examine the classical liberal tradition upon which our national foundation was established to get a better understanding of the character of our society and the individuals which Progressive Statists are intent upon controlling and transforming.

               Free people acting in free markets create the greatest opportunities for improving the human lot, not a sterile, diminished economic and social environment imposed upon the people by a tyrannical elite.

            3. I would like to see Michael define what he believes the free market to be and name one country he would want to live in where free market has created the greatest opportunities without marginalizing segments of society.

               If you want to see what places look like that refuse to impose environmental regulation on industry look at what is happening in Beijing and Shanghai.

               In the meantime, I hope that people that read Michael comments realize he is not reporting any evidence or any science. He tosses a great tea party word salad and seems flummoxed that Kreilein think Conservatives are attempting a “perfect” world while at the same time accuses her of being shackled by progressive utopianism. Basically responding “I know you are but what I am.”

               To assist in finding some information about what is happening in China read below.

               Also, Michael how would your free market address what is happening there?

               http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/10586296/Shanghai-considers-arming-residents-with-anti-pollution-masks.html

               “Proposals to distribute free masks come after the Chinese mega-city suffered periods of severe smog that saw flights diverted, schools closed and citizens ordered to stay indoors”

               http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/11/131108-lung-cancer-childhood-china-pollution-eight-year-old-girl/

               “An eight-year-old girl, living near a major road in the Jiangsu Province of Eastern China, has become the youngest person in China, and possibly in the world, to be diagnosed with lung cancer caused by pollution—the cause of her disease according to Chinese officials. And last month, the World Health Organization classified air pollution as a major human carcinogen.”

               http://www.wunderground.com/news/shanghai-china-pollution-smog-hazardous-conditions-20131206

               “Shanghai authorities ordered school children indoors and halted all construction Friday as China’s financial hub suffered one of its worst bouts of air pollution, bringing visibility down to a few dozen meters, delaying flights and obscuring the city’s spectacular skyline.”

            4. Well said and WOW, what an article. Obviously Mr. Lewinski has been to the library, but I think before he purports I need to add to MY education, he should test out of philosophy and speech in order to devote considerable time to structured remediation in physiology, psychopathology, and last, but not least, ethics, before he and the local Tea Party surgically correct ANYTHING in government or public health.

               Mr. Lewinski would be reassured, I think, to know that not only did I ENJOY philosophy at Notre Dame, but managed to understand it in a foreign language in a foreign country, namely AUSTRIA, during the turmoil of 1979-80. My year abroad broadened my perspective. . . resulting in an expontial increase in understanding of how the world works. . . . and I got to WITNESS, not just study, the operational limits of socialist health care by observing the Austrian system and traveling incognito with Austrian students to the Soviet Union. Surprisingly, I didn’t feel particularly constrained by an equitable socialist government, and neither did Austrian industry and tourism. Surprisingly, everyone seemed united for the common good of the country and nobody wanted to approach much less return to the previous conservative regime (Hitler).

               Ironically, “liberal” shares a common root with “liberty.” Why do conservatives conserve money but not see the value of our priceless human and environmental resources? Why do many liberals commit the SAME contradiction and relegate the unborn child to slave nonperson status? Contradictions exist in both party platforms resulting in legislators preferentially voting for hidden but generous industrial motherships while marginalizing those comiitted to the common good as rabid radicals bent on an unachievable utopia. I don’t agree with the “freedoms” some liberals take and or what conservatives “conserve.”

               Mr. Lewinski’s vast knowledge of history should include the disclosure that the Nazi mentality emerged from isolationist CONSERVATIVE extremism and imagined superiority/persecution taking aim (literally) at “liberals” and their thinking.

            5. Dr Kreilein,,

               “I am,” you observed “asserting that the Precautionary Principle IS
               the foundation upon which best practices are built, akin to Jesus is
               the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and “equivalent” to “on
               earth as it is in heaven.” You will note if you read it that the
               Precautionary Principle is staunchly favorable to the sanctity of
               life. While the EPA may fall short as most human enterprises do, its
               mission does at least mirror the Precautionary Principle in intent.”
               Yes, but its’ mission has been corrupted by radical environmentalists.

               They, and followers such as yourself, do not understand wealth and value.
               You lack a concrete measurement for assessing how the Precautionary
               Principal could be applied in formulating economic policy. Wealth is
               all the things and services a people produce. It is a can of soup in your cupboard, a manicure, your mode of transportation, the energy you consume, and all other things you acquire, preserve, and consume. This is your personal income. What you create and produce for the market is your production.

               As a nation, we have a national balance sheet. A given percentage of
               our resources will be allocated to shelter, another to food,
               transportation, education and all the other things people desire and
               need. Increasing the resources devoted to healthcare, for example,
               comes not from thin air, but from the other sectors of the economy.
               One expression of this transfer of resources between sectors can be
               observed anecdotally through the large numbers of people who lost
               their health insurance. Many are paying more for their healthcare which must come from a family budget. Also, those who are subsidized by the
               government are likewise pulling resources that could be used for
               transportation, education, shelter, or investment in productive
               capital.

               The radical standards that are being imposed on the coal sector have
               marginal utility. They constitute great expenditure for minimal gain.
               In applying the Precautionary Principle, where does the caution and harm lie. Is it with the people killed and injured by low risk environmental factors, or with the people who have their material lives diminished through the loss of access to inexpensive energy, and for some, the loss of their livelihoods? Where does the greater good lie?

               You asked, “Why do conservatives conserve money but not see the value
               of our priceless human and environmental resources?” Conservatives
               conserve money because of what it is, a store of the value in which
               their lives are invested. We do recognize our human and
               environmental resources, but also understand that the concept of
               priceless has no place in calculating economic policy.

               Progressives strive for that which cannot be realized because of its intrinsic good, while conservatives work for that which is feasible given the restraints of unlimited wants and the scarcity of things. Hence, a weighing of the costs and benefits in gauging the value of environmental standards based upon their marginal utility.

            6. Joe,

               A free market consists of an organization of economic activity
               in which the state barely regulates how goods, services and labor may be used, priced, or distributed. The State’s role is to enforce
               private contracts and the ownership of private property, striving to
               provide a level playing field in the economic sphere, and getting out
               of the way of productive people. Free people engaging in voluntary exchange will solve more problems and create more wealth than any bumbling bureaucrats could ever begin to even imagine.

               What have Beijing and Shanghai to do with the American approach to addressing environmental concerns? Surely you’re not suggesting regulatory reform is equivalent to aspiring to realize what has developed in the Eastern experiences you describe.

               Ridding the nation of the EPA and it’s radical agendas would finally compel the states and individuals in association to determine the best practices for providing clean air, clean water, and a healthy environment. The cure for an out-of-control federal tyranny is the balance afforded the States in our Republican form of government.

            7. It just occurred to me that another way I interpret the Precautionary Principle is literally “What would Jesus do?” Please read it with an open mind.
               I’m not sure what else I can say here that is constructive except that on the vigil of our Savior rising from the tomb I hope Christ’s peace and abundant mercy fills your heart. My prayers are with you.

            8. To further clarify, since we are dealing with actual toxins and people here, not just abstract ideology, I am asserting that the Precautionary Principle IS the foundation upon which best practices are built, akin to Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and “equivalent” to “on earth as it is in heaven.” You will note if you read it that the Precautionary Principle is staunchly favorable to the sanctity of life. While the EPA may fall short as most human enterprises do, its mission does at least mirror the Precautionary Principle in intent. I find your solutions, however, to be intentionally backing up over the “severe tire damage.” The very industries you idolize, particularly the energy industry and the agricultural chemical industry have significantly deviated from these best practices and so has IDEM, and there is incontrovertible evidence supporting this. IDEM’s deviations are far more systematic and intentional so I suggest that if you think the EPA needs to be dismantled you START closer to home.

            9. You are saying we should rid the US of the EPA and replace it with a 50 separate environmental agencies… agencies that will have governance over rivers and air that cross state lines. That does not sound like a smarter solution.

               And you have to ask how what is happening in China is relevant. I don’t see you advocating regulatory reform. I see you calling for the deconstruction of regulations that keep us from becoming what Beijing and Shanghai have become.

               As well, your definition of a free market works well in the movies and fantasy, but it is hardly what manifests in the real world.

               Like I asked previously, name a place that you would like to live that operates as you described that also does not marginalize a portion of its population.

      2. I want to make it clear that my concern is the decade long rise in autism/severely affected children and dismal Indiana infant mortality rate and ranking, corresponding to the rise in policies you espouse. These issues are particularly acute HERE in southern Indiana and the rest of the state compared to the rest of the country. Indiana can no longer hide that it ranks #47 in infant mortality, which ultimately means they are either incapable of figuring it out or deliberately hiding the reasons compared to the rest of the country. This translates statistically to 150 real children dying per year just because they were born in Indiana compared to the performance of the rest of the country. Please don’t blame this on “minnows” somewhere wherever you choose to punt. INDIANA stands out here, and the “environmentalists” you ruthlessly attack suspect that TOXINS in the environment might actually be TOXIC! Meanwhile, the Tea Party suggests the total dismantling of the EPA, not because they are lax, but because they are too strict and costing us money.

      3. furthermore, the “perfect world” I seek to live in is to acknowledge that there is a problem and BEGIN to stop the acceleration. Should we leave it to people with your knowledge of medicine to finish the job of making it perfect? Let’s get out of the local Tea Party’s fantasy that the EPA is destroying our “perfect world” and improve on the F- of Indiana’s infant mortality before we inaccurately accuse the messengers of being high on something. The Tea Party’s objectives do have victims and an interest rate just as surely as the “liberals.” I am neither conservative nor liberal. I am seeking to solve the problem while BOTH SIDES line their pockets with biased corporate paychecks and deceive the public that they have been reinvented. The bias is just more silent and deadly when it and the public do not recognize it.

2. Just like any other progressive approach, the coal miners will retrain and find new employ within the energy sector, or any other avenue they choose. It cannot be argued successfully that the burning of coal is the cleanest or safest option we have. Times have changed considerably, and within our always changing economy, improve your skill set or be left behind. I shudder at the idea of banishing the EPA! Do some research on the condition of the Ohio River in the early 20th century. The pollutants were so prevalent it did not allow an environment for life. In other words, there were no fish to be found. That is not the condition of quality of life any righteous person could support.

   1. Whether it can be “successfully” argued depends on the jurisdiction and the judge. . .Visit HDC’s website for a brutal insight into just what malarky can be successfully argued by an industry through a government against its citizens. Jasper successfully argued that their lease was not an obligation, even when the lease itself said it was.
      I suppose that local Tea Party eliminating government regulation will in turn eliminate any confusion as to who calls the shots. Plenty of job opportunities will exist for years to come for those with training in the grave-digging and special education sectors. detecting cancers early so the uninformed will be grateful that their needs were anticipated instead of prevented.

      Many chilling similarities exist between the “controversy” of global warming and acknowledging the atrocities of the Nazis. Many still deny the “evidence” of the Holocaust. . . hey, it was probably just a random deviation of the Jewish death rate. . . or maybe just made up and paid for by Jews to further their agenda?
      Why would Keith Baugues, IDEM assistant commissioner recently under fire (pun intended) for stating “Anyone who says global warming is obviously suffering from frostbite,” also officially introduce Air Quality 101 by endorsing Hitler/Goebbels ideology: “If a lie is told often enough, it becomes the truth. I’m not sure who originally said this, but they were right.” Ironically the full quote in context states that the lie will only work as long as the state lies to citizens, not the other way around.

      While it is tempting to turn a deaf ear to the endless Tea Party verbal dysentery and discount medical warnings as “exaggerated,” someone upstream, down wind or dear to someone will get the illness and the bill.

      The limitations of science demand consistently embracing the Precautionary Principle (http://www.precautionaryprinciple.eu/), a timeless, succinct fusion of Matthew 25:40, the Serenity Prayer, and the Ten Commandments. It provides an excellent fundamental axiom for navigating public policy, parenting, medical dilemmas and other perilous unknown waters, but sadly appears conspicuously absent if not blatantly contradictory to local Tea Party and Jasper government initiatives.

      1. Norma,

         I respect your passion, I respect your education, and I respect your experience…but please do not start to sound like them by invoking imagery of the holocaust and Nazis. It makes it hard to respect what you say even if I agree with your facts.

         So please, stick to the facts and the oratorical slaps like “verbal dysentery.” Avoid Godwin’s law.

         I may agree with what you say but if I disagree with how you say it then I cannot applaud.

         1. The Nazi quote was directly from Baugues, and used directly against educated whistleblowing and in spite of their invalid science. The man insists Hitler is right, right on the IDEM website. It has been there for over a year. Unlike his comments on global warming, no one seems to find it offensive; maybe no one reads the website, but that is fed to us from a high ranking state authority as the FIRST sentence to the Introduction to Air Quality 101. Perhaps it would be more relevant to specifically refer to the similarity of deliberate indiscriminate promotion of pesticides without acknowledging the human harm instead of the general reference to global warming. I still maintain that government tactics I have EXPERIENCED and WITNESSED in the trenches are strikingly similar to the Nazi propaganda campaign used to subvert the public’s awareness and response, and also brutally intentional. Similar understandable initial reactions occured regarding the Catholic Church and The State University of Pennsylvania. Subsequent investigation substatiated the surreal allegations, and both organizations and their victims are for the better. Whether we stop before we become Shanghai or Dachau is up to us. Nonetheness it is what it is. As a physician, I refuse to minimalize or exaggerate.

            1. One lecture I remember as one of the most profound in medical school was a lecture given by Dr. John Pless, a forensic pathologist, regarding child abuse. He taught us that the most effective perpetrator is the unrecognized one that appears legitimate. Many times we are through the looking glass.” The ideologies start in the trenches. How many they affect or access depends on how far they advance in a power structure before they are recognized. They also tend to exist where things don’t make any sense, i.e, in addition to intimidation, the cover is confusion–here we get bad data and a recurrent “you are that which I am.” It’s also a utopia that fascist ideologies are a thing of the past. They are in the closet, but the fundamental orientation of a person generally inevitably comes out. You may find my statements blunt, but while I work in a cocktail of wonderful children, I also have to recognize often subtle or hidden pus, cancer, and psychopathology, and orient myself to protect the kids. I take pride and care in double checking my data and conclusions, but lets face it, there are trick questions and not everyone is safe or what they seem. It’s one reason why physicians don’t make good politicians. Exact science and informed consent are not always what people want to see.

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