(1) The #Parkland case is similar to the #PikeRiver case in NZ.

At 3.44pm Friday November 19, 2010, naturally occurring methane gas caused an explosion in an underground coal mine. 31 men were underground at the time.

Two got out alive.

(2) Even that day it was clear the 29 were dead & the Pike River mining company was liable for the explosion and the lack of detection or mitigation. However, the CEO, Peter Whittle, spoke at every news conference about keeping hope alive.

(3) Whittle said things like "there could be a pipe outlet where they are, that's piping fresh air to them. We just don't know."

The NZ Police were in charge of the rescue/recovery operation & no one intervened to say this was obvious BS.

(4) Here's Whittall's corporate photo beforehand, and him testifying at the non-binding "royal commission of inquiry" afterwards. The ultimate conclusion years later was that the company (incl Whittall) had been negligent in operating the mine, but there was no way to prosecute.

(5) So the NZ government changed the law so that if anything like this happened again they would be able to prosecute, and also to change everyone's health and safety practices to reduce risk. A good thing, but it did add to the regulatory burden on our small businesses.

(6) Sheriff Israel, the corrupt, proudly Democrat, anti 2nd Amendment head of the #CowardsOfBroward county Sheriff's Office reminds me of Peter Whithall. Pretending to mourn the dead and comfort the families, while knowing exactly what he did to avoid saving their lives.

(7) Here are the 28 men (and 1 17 year old boy who was on his first day of work) who died because of regulatory failure and corporate malpractice at Pike River, NZ, on 11/19/10. We will remember them.

(8) Losing them was bad enough, but the person with a responsibility to either show leadership or hand over to someone who could, rubbed salt in the wound by giving false hope & trying to cover up his own culpability. Just like those who contributed to #Parkland being possible

(9) The NZ government made other missteps before & after Pike River, too. The mine had the potential to transform our economy by exporting hard coking coal to India for steel production. But now I doubt that huge seam of coal will ever be mined. Because...

(10) You guessed it, environmentalists succeeded in stopping a plan for a safer open cast coal mine, to protect a species of giant snail.

So the company went underground, killed 29 people, and walked away from NZ's potential economic boom that we need to avoid becoming Greece.

(11) The NZ govt messed up its response to the Pike River families, too. The volunteer Mines Rescue crews, who seem to know more about mines safety than anyone in govt (go figure), said from Day One they could re-enter the mine safely to retrieve the remains. Govt stopped them.

(12) Ordinary citizens overwhelmingly supported the families vs the govt, which won re-election twice but lost power in 2017 thanks, in part, to this issue.

Last year families and supporters occupied the access road to stop anyone going near the Pike River mine site.

(13) The new government, which includes the #NZFirst party, the longest serving supporter of mine re-entry, recently met with the families and agreed to not stand in the way of bringing the Pike River men home after 7 years.

(14) I share this story with my American friends as an encouragement to keep fighting against govt corruption and malpractice in all its forms.

The #CowardsOfBroward aren't the only institutional and individual contributors to the #Parkland tragedy, but they must be dealt with.

(15) You might think NZ is too different to the US to serve as a useful example and comparison. I disagree. True, we're a small constitutional monarchy not a large federal republic. But we have more things in common than not.

(16) NZ and the USA are (meant to be) a nation of laws, with functioning judicial, law enforcement and public school systems. To a policy analyst like me, the solutions to complex problems are actually quite similar. They involve #PrincipledRealism.

(17) President Trump calls his foreign policy #PrincipledRealism but IMO the term applies just as readily to his domestic policy.

Democrats are not realists. Half the time they don't even live in the real world with the rest of us. And they certainly have no principles.

(19) The comments Democrats have made since #Parkland are not principled or realistic. They do not even make sense in the simplest ways. They are easy to refute and would make ideal examples for a Logic 101 class.

(20) Don't let a #Parkland or a #PikeRiver happen in your community. Vote Democrats out. While you're waiting for that, get involved in the business of govt to research and expose what they're doing. Protect yourself and your family at all times.

(21) And if you're like me, and the anxiety is just too much to bear, move to a safer community, even if you're financially disadvantaged for a time. Staying in a community like Broward, without a morally competent Police force, is one heck of a risk.

(22) The devolved model of US govt is the best system ever developed in the world. But it does mean that some communities can't be effectively protected from outside. The Federal govt can't fix everything (and obviously parts of it's own FBI are just as bad as Broward).

(23) Learn how to do objective risk assessment in every area of your life. Long term we all want places like Broward to meet the potential envisioned by the founding fathers. Short term, we want you to stay alive.

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