Originally On LinkedIn: Regarding Government And the Workforce

I will (at least try to) never forget when Former Pakistani Prime Minister Bhutto was murdered on December 27, 2007—and I will never forget the clip in which she highlighted her philosophy on government: "Where the madrassas won't get involved, the government will." 

The equivalent of the late Bhutto's statement for Non-Muslim (or at least Non-Muslim-majority) countries: the government has to and will get involved when the churches, synagogues, mosques, etc. won't get involved. Taking the examples of my people in the Desert and churches in particular—since I'm a Jewish Christian—I highlight why OSHA had to be created and why legislation such as the Civil Rights Act had to be written (Incidentally, what a shame that Barry Goldwater did not support the Civil Rights Act.)

The first example comes when God spoke to Moses about when a house is being built:

“When you build a new house, then you shall make a parapet for your roof, that you may not bring guilt of bloodshed on your household if anyone falls from it.

So much for that being applied and happening in the Judeo-Christian United States! Thus came along the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, since its predecessors weren't adequate enough—and even after Upton Sinclair exposed the equivalent of "guilt of bloodshed...if anyone falls from [a being-built roof]" in the meat-packing industry! By the way, when I Googled to find out when OSHA was founded, I was surprised to see that it was not founded until 1971, long after "one nation under God" should have had an organization to hold the reckless employers and overseers accountable.

Also by the way, OSHA came too late for those such as coal miners in Northeastern Pennsylvania—with my great-great-grandfathers Michael Gajdos, Sr. and Julian Czarnecki among them—and groundskeepers such as Julian's son Anthony (whom, as I've written before, severed three of his toes and his leg up to his knee as he mowed a lawn at the apartment complex which hired him—and his work-related accident partly affected his suicide just months later). 

Were their churches there to raise a voice for them and other workers, to hold their congregants' and community members' employers accountable for the employees' safeties. After all—as especially the Bible-literate ones, including my family whom needed someone to speak up for them as workers, would have known—"Justice, justice you shall pursue!" Yet, not even a layman or laywoman rose his or her voice enough to affect that an organization such as OSHA would be unnecessary.

The same laymen and laywomen also neglected to raise their voices enough when civil rights were an issue, even though "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" automatically implies that nobody should discriminate against anyone else. Because not enough men or women raised their voices until laywomen like Rosa Parks spoke up through their civilly-disobedient actions, and clergymen such as Drs. Martin Luther King and Abraham Joshua Heschel marched as they called for freedom for all Americans, the derogatory signs such as the horrid ones against Jewish and Irish men remained on business-owners' doors and windows, and Blacks and women were lucky if they were paid even remotely close to fairly. Never mind that a Jewish man whom wouldn't have been allowed to apply, James by name, admonished fellow followers of another Jew, Jesus of Nazareth:

Indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth." 5 You have lived on the earth in pleasure and luxury; you have fattened your hearts as in a day of slaughter. You have condemned, you have murdered the just; he does not resist you.

How many church-going businessmen "condemned...the just" such as the Jews (including church-going ones) and Irishmen whom they would not hire, despite that these Jews and Irishmen would have gladly "mowed [their fields]?" How many of these same church-going businessmen had "wages...which [they] kept back by fraud" from sharecroppers, shoeshiners, maids, nurses, and other laborers?

(Incidentally, I have questions for you if you wonder—or, if you knew, still wonder—why my paternal family remained Crypto Jews in even the United States—after all, "No Jews" still reeks of the albe-far-worse Anti Semitism that they escaped when they left Imperial Russia and Austria Hungary. If my family isn't enough of an example, look at the family of lucky-to-be-a-businessman, Austria-Hungary-born Fritz "Frederick Kerry" Kohn.)

Because apparently-pious, God-and-country, "Bless your heart" businessmen withheld wages from and otherwise discriminated against Blacks and women (even with intimidating maxims such as "It's a man's job" and "A woman's place is in the home."), and refused to hire Irishmen and Jews (all while slandering and libelling Jews as conspirators whom owned every business), the Civil Rights Act (including Titles VII and IX) had to be written and signed into law. By the way, in terms of Title IX: you try getting a decent job without some kind of college degree (whether you'd've gotten an Associate's Degree or a four-year-degree), let alone if you had to leave college because you faced horrid discrimination, and tell me when you get that job. 

Even I have a B.A. in Political Science from UMBC, and—according to the National Association of Mental Illnesses' recent newsletter—I am statistically doomed because of mental illnesses, which make me three times more likely to be unemployable than someone with a physical disability—and here's the kicker: I have both mental illnesses and Cerebral Palsy. So, think again if you don't think that Title IX relates to the workforce as much as it relates to the educational system.

I also note that Titles VII and IX far from help me, and they also far from help others—since the government is made up of people whom should be getting involved in their communities both within and outside the government sector, Title VII and IX often fail to be enforced. After all, many of the people who are supposed to be enforcing the Civil Rights Act—not to mention the Americans With Disabilities Act—are the same kinds of people who look down on the kind of people on whom the oh-so-pious businessmen of back then looked down. Therefore, quite a bit of government involvement that's supposed to make up for the lack of community involvement actually becomes a Catch-22.

Nonetheless, the government has to be involved when the communities won't get involved—even when the government gets involved too late for those like Michael Gajdos, Julian and Anthony Czarnecki, and Frederick Kerry, not to mention the Irishpersons, Blacks, and women whom were in similar positions to the positions of the Gajdoses, the Czarneckis, and the Kohns.