Sweet Charity

There's been a lot of criticism of FEMA and the Bush Administration for the way the rescue and relief efforts in the Gulf Coast were very slow to start and more poorly organized that outside observers might imagine. Some of this criticism is justified, but Hurricane Katrina Vanden Heuvel , like its namesake, was an epic disaster.

The degree of devastation was unimagineable. The outcome could hardly have been expected--except that it was. Both FEMA and the US Army Corps of Engineers predicted disaster in New Orleans in the event of a high-category hurricane.

After the Kkklinton administration called everything more devastating than an unusually heavy snowfall a disaster worthy of FEMA aid, GW Bush trimmed FEMA's budget and placed it under the evil and fascistic Homeland Security Dept. FEMA attention was directed more toward the "War on Terror" than toward natural disasters.

New Orleans Mayor Nagin spent more time whining about why the feds were so slow to arrive than actually using the city's own resources to provide search & rescue and to try and restore order.

Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco showed her utter inability to handle a natural disaster by failing to act quickly to mobilize the state's National Guard.

In the midst of all this bureaucratic fumbling, one has to ask if one-size-fits-all government management of disaster mitigation and relief is really a good idea at all. Thanks to the Wine Commonsewer, who reminds me of some of the actions taken during the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, and to Samizdata, who provided me with a link chain which led me to this FEE article about the disaster relief that was implemented to recover from the 1871 Chicago Fire.

It's a pretty well-known fact that the federal government has insinuated its way into so many areas of endeavor that historically (in the US) had been private, and which can be demonstrated to be better executed in private hands, that it is unable to do anything very well.

The road, street and highway system of the United States, once unequalled by any system of roads on earth, perhaps excepting Germany's Autobahn, is crumbling from lack of maintenance. The public utilities in many cities are similarly failing. Police departments are hamstrung by mindless edicts stemming from political correctness, while the citizenry is admonished by law against defending themselves against all manner of mass murderers, child molesters and jaywalkers.

In the wake of an attack by the subhuman al queda pigs, the Bush administration put together the "War on Terror," in which he conducts yet another undeclared war on Afghanistan and Iraq, tries to fight it without "actually hurting anyone." In Afghanistan, we were dropping food to the enemy among with bombs (!?). When we had Osama bin Lama cornered, we stood down for a religious holiday of some sort to let him make his way to Pakistan.

In Iraq, when the savages were shooting from mosques, we slinked away like cowards, lest we harm a single stone on their precious witch doctors' hangouts. We had the whole of the worst pack of savages bottled up in Fallujah, and we let them go!!! We certainly wouldn't want to hurt any of the sub-neanderthal cretins!

To reiterate, government has slimed its way into so many areas of endeavor that, not only has it turned each of them, in turn, into bastions of incompetence, but it can no longer even perform its Constitutional functions. In few words, it's spread far too thin. Top down central management cannot deal with such a monster.

We are all suffering (at the very least, we're losing half of our productivity to the monster) to a larger or lesser degree as a result of the behemoth government the non-productive among us have created.

Remember, VOTE FOR NO INCUMBENT!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California