Sojo blog has an article about the West Virginia mine accident this week. The author, Rose Marie Berger, takes aim, as many others do, at the mine owner, Massey Energy.
Already outrage is focused on Massey Energy, owner of the Upper Big Branch mine. Massey has a history of negligence, and Upper Big Branch has often been cited in recent years for problems, including failure to properly vent methane gas, which officials say might have been the cause of Monday’s explosion.
My comments:
I’m sorry, but whom are you blaming here? Did not these miners voluntarily take these jobs? Did they not know the risks? Whose responsibility should it be to assess risks? I never trust the opposite side to a transaction, I always check things out for myself.
Miners are paid a premium to work in risky conditions. Is this unjust? Firemen and garbage collectors similarly get paid a premium for working in distasteful conditions, is this unjust? Should no one have to be a fireman?
This article implies that no one should have to be a miner. Fine. Then don’t be a miner. But if other people are happy to take the job, then it is their own lives they are putting at risk. They are free to do so.
Accidents happen.
People get in car wrecks. If we lowered the speed limit to 15 mph fewer people would die in car wrecks, that is, conditions would be safer. But then it would barely be worthwhile to drive or own a car. “Yet much increase is by the strength of the ox (automobile).”
People who wish for a perfect world where there are perfectly safe conditions everywhere live sheltered lives, and fail to appreciate how much better off the world is thanks to people who are willing to push forward and take risks.
Surely we grieve when loved ones die in accidents. We grieve whether the accident was in a mine or in a minivan. But we step outside of grief into vengeance when we propose outlawing minivans because they can result in accidents.
If there was fraud, then the liars should be made to pay. But the workers themselves should never assume that the ones who pay them are telling the truth, and neither should any of the rest of us, whatever our occupation. We often assume that the government should step in and regulate industries so we don’t have to adopt a “buyer beware” approach to transactions. But what should make us trust the government??? We must always practice “buyer beware” even when it is our job we are buying. Any other approach is an attempt to shirk responsibility.
Oh yeah, and West Virginia was loosing before Da’Sean got injured. He also took on a risk, but do we blame his coach for his injury? Of course not.