We can mirror sacrifice of Japan's nuclear reactor workers

Driving home today, I listened to a interview with an expert who said, "The company that operates the damaged nuclear reactors in Japan probably is asking for volunteers among retired workers -- for obvious reasons."

I took that to mean that if you're old, you don't expect to have nearly as many years left to live as younger workers do, so dying prematurely from radiation exposure, though distressing, would take on a different cast than if you were in your thirties with young children.

A news story confirms that a search for volunteers, both old and young, likely is occurring:

As the radiation levels are rising in damaged nuclear reactors in Japan, a concern has been raised as to how long workers can keep struggling to control it as the radiation exposure continues to rise.

...Arnold Gunderson, a consultant that worked in US plants identical to damaged Japanese plants stated that most probably [the] company was asking retired and workers from other plants to volunteer and sacrifice as they may receive additional radiation exposure.

...Gamma rays, as well as other kind of radiation exposure, can be the cause of cancers and illnesses that can be extremely detrimental to the health in long or short term or could lead to death.

Being 62 myself, I thought about the bravery of those who come out of a comfortable retirement, or employment at a safe nuclear power plant, to risk death in order to save many others from radiation poisoning.

I wondered if I'd be able to do this, if I was given the opportunity.

Emotionally I was moved by the thought of ending my life in a dramatic supernova of self-sacrifice. Yet I also wasn't thrilled with the prospect of suffering through a painful lingering bout of radiation illness.

After these initial reactions to the idea of volunteering to keep a damaged nuclear power plant from melting down, it dawned on me that each of us is faced with less dramatic -- yet equally real -- opportunities to make sacrifices that will save lives.

Such as by being willing to pay higher taxes. And donating additional money to worthy charities.

But since governments are a more potent life-saving force than non-profits, given the resources at their disposal, the money we Americans fork over at tax time is a financial self-sacrifice which enables us to rescue others from premature death, disease, and disability at no bodily risk to ourselves.

I'm not exaggerating. This isn't a progressive's excuse to grow government. It's a fact.

Funding biomedical research saves lives. So does foreign aid aimed at preventing the spread of HIV in Africa. Ditto with expanding access to Medicaid and other low-income health programs. And so on, and so on.

Government programs save many more lives than individual heroism does. Yet we tend to focus on the drama of a fireman pulling a child from a burning building, rather than on the quiet effectiveness of pre-natal services in reducing infant mortality rates.

Back in the 1980's I was the executive director of Oregon Health Decisions, a group that encouraged citizen discussion of bioethical issues. At that time John Kitzhaber (now Oregon's governor) was president of the state Senate.

An emergency room physician, he boldly drew the state's attention to the paradox of how people would willingly make donations to fund a very expensive liver transplant that had a chance of extending one person's life for an uncertain number of years, but they'd balk at funding health prevention and early detection programs which would save many more lives at a lower cost.

This same dynamic is at play in the Japan nuclear reactor story. Appropriately, we admire the selflessness of those willing to sacrifice themselves in the name of a greater good.

Yet too often we fail to recognize the life-saving opportunities open to us right here at home -- by supporting legislation, and tax policies, which spend our money where it will provide the most benefit for our fellow human beings.

We have to recognize that taxes are good.

And that people who are happy to sacrifice more of their disposable income for the sake of others are heroes. Obviously not in the same way as someone who volunteers for dangerous duty at a damaged nuclear power plant, but heroes nonetheless.

Comments

[Stephen]

I once worked for an American nuclear facility and can go to Japan. Do you have contact information on doing so? Thanks.

[Jes]

These people are heroes. Thank you for writing about them.

[Randy]

Why not just ask General Electric executives to volunteer?

[Truth Detector]

Typical liberal. Using an international crisis to advance your own liberal, big government agenda. Doesn't surprise me though...

[Blogger Brian]

Truth Detector, I note that you didn't disagree with anything I said -- probably because what I said is true.

Attacking the messenger doesn't stop truth from being truthful. Government is good. Thanks for agreeing with me about that, by failing to point out any errors in my marvelous logic.

[Truth Detector]

So you think there's a possibility that I _agree_ with you?

Wow, you're further out in left field than I thought. (pun intended)

[Gipper141]

Dude there's a difference between punitive taxation and charity. Charitable acts are BY DEFINITION VOLUNTARY. Taxation is imposed by a centralized power who decides how to allocate or (in your liberal utopian fantasy world) redistribute those confiscated monetary resources. There is nothing logical about anything you said regarding taxation being "good" or "heroic." INDIVIDUALS in the PRIVATE SECTOR who CHOOSE to give of themselves are good. They are heroic. Someone like you who is intellectually poisoned by the deluded and self-aggrandized notion that a small centralized group or governing body knows best how to take and spend the earnings of others does not understand the first thing about charity. To put it another way, if you yourself make a choice to give a thousand dollars to a family in need during the holidays (or any other time for that matter) so that they can feed and clothe themselves and buy gifts for their children, that is a wonderful and selfless act and you should be commended for it. If on the other hand, you go to the ballot box and vote for some egotistical, elitist dope who promises to take from other people you have never met and give to those in need, and you make this choice to vote for this person based on the warped and naive notion that this is somehow "charitable," then you are in truth only contributing to the crippling dependency that so many in this country and others around the world are saddled with by paternalistic nanny states. Furthermore, you are beyond naive if you actually think that every dollar the government says they are taking to give to the poor actually gets there. The percentage of waste exhibited by practically every government body and beaurocracy in existence today would NEVER be allowed in the private sector. Take Social Security as an example. Just do the math. It's really quite simple. Take every dime you've ever paid into social security and add it up. This might take a minute to figure out if you get too specific, but I'm sure someone as enlightened as yourself will have no problem approximating the figure. Now take that number and plug it into any of the myriad of savings calculators that can be found online via a simple google search. Then look up the average life expectancy for someone in your demographic. Now calculate your total savings over the course of your working life based on investing at the same rate that social security has been confiscating your money throughout the same time, and figure for a modest return (say about 4.5% APY or something like that - very reasonable based on historical standards of savings returns in consumer savings accounts). I can virtually guarantee you that you would save far more for your own retirement ON YOUR OWN over the course of that time than whatever you can reasonably expect to ever get back from Social Security. And that's based on modest figures in low risk investment such as consumer CDs and Savings accounts (i.e. FDIC insured products and not even looking at higher yield options like stocks, bonds, and mutual funds). So the question then becomes, where is all that money going? If taxation is so good and so noble and so right, how do you account for all the overhead? It's OK if you don't have an answer for me. None that fit your childish narrative currently exist.