Disaster...what is it about us?

What is it about us that makes us apparently so inept at planning for disaster? Is there some kind of systemic problem in our land, in our national psyche, that makes us incapable of taking the potential for disaster seriously?

I was just reading the AP's analysis of BP's preparation for dealing with a catastrophic oil disaster. Sad but true, the plan for dealing with a major blow out of a Gulf oil well was woefully inadequate. That's pretty obvious now. But why wasn't it obvious to the regulators in advance? Had the government enforced its own regulations and studied the plan months ago, the 'plan' would have been shot full of holes. Is it the fox guarding the hen house? Is it our insatiable need for oil? Is it the dumbing-down of the regulatory process to the point that 'drill baby drill capitalism' sadly outweighs rational thought that protects the common good? Is it the big money that lubricates and permeates the political process?

In a word, YES.

I know I don't want to support the so-called 'Nanny State' in which government takes care of everything. But wouldn't it be nice to be confident that existing laws and regulations were being enforced?

But, you know what really worries me? It worries me that our free world is so fragile. We assume so much until there's a disaster of some sort, until the lights go out, the retirement fund is gone, the Internet totally crashes worldwide, until we find the most common, untested chemical is killing us, or there's one of those horrific attacks.

Each new catastrophe makes me hope we are learning.

Truth be told, in large measure, I think it's just the nature of things...we muddle through, do what we can, and hope it all works out. Much of the time it does work out. It's just when it doesn't work out, it makes me wonder why we're just so damned inept at being ready for disaster. It's infuriating when we know how to be ready but we (or those who are supposed to be in charge) just haven't bothered.