What have they done for you lately?


If government fails, why keep depending on it to rescue people?
There has been a lot written the last few days about the failure of the "new" FEMA in dealing with Katrina. And there has been a lot written about about the Federal government's failure to provide adequate funding for flood control.

I think this misses the point.

Let's look at some other factors.

Long before George W. Bush was elected Governor of Texas, New Orleans had one of the highest crime rates in the country coupled with one of the highest unemployment rates. In the mid 1990s New Orleans was labeled "Murder Capital, U.S.A." Since about 1995, the crime rate had been dropping due to some heroic anti-corruption efforts by a new police superintendent, but was still considerably higher than many other cities it's size.

In mid-August, the AP reported that while the homicide rate was lower than it had been a decade previously, it was still about ten times the national average.

I point this out not as an attack on New Orleans and it's people (except it's political class), but to point out that there were social issues that had very little to do with levee construction.

Houston had long since outgrown New Orleans as a major oil city, despite having less infrastructure and transportation to start with.

This year the AP reported that the New Orleans school district was in turmoil, so much so that the budget was millions of dollars out of balance and that no one could tell just how many employees the district had. And that was before anyone talked about the conditions of the buildings.

New Orleans had one of the highest poverty rates in the country, and had been used repeatedly as a "laboratory" for various government social programs over the last few decades.

All of those factors together make this more than a Republican screw-up. The social conditions in New Orleans resulted in large part because of repeated "progressive" intervention. Basically government made a promise, "vote for us and we'll take care of you."

Government failed to keep this promise.

This goes far beyond what any politician did or didn't do. It goes to the very heart of big government. This is the premise of statism that we are talking about here.

Government promised, but didn't deliver.

Not just on the levees or flood control. It promised to end poverty. It promised that people wouldn't have to be responsible. It promised that people depended on it, all their problems would be solved by a benevolent State.

The latest FEMA screwups are just one example.

WalMart trucked in water. The Red Cross brought in supplies. The owners of more than 500 Florida fan boats brought in supplies at their own expense. Doctors and emergency trauma teams from all over the nation converged on New Orleans to do what they could. All were turned back by FEMA.

And that doesn't even count things like FEMA cutting emergency communication lines.

Government has a long history of screwing things up by the numbers.

History is a neglected subject these days, but the logistical marvels of WWII used to be cited as American ingenuity. Manufacturing and transportation did as much to win the war for the Allies than tactics and strategy. Yet very few remember just how long it took to get it right. Years, and we were fighting a war at the time.

Americans volunteer when people need help, we organize ourselves at the drop of a hat. We don't need a government agency to do it for us. And we certainly don't need a government agency preventing people from what needs to be done.

Remember, government at all levels consumes close to half of the GDP just so people don't have to do it for themselves.

What have they done for you lately?

— NeoWayland

Posted: Mon - September 5, 2005 at 05:27 AM  Tag


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