Check out this funny but true piece in The Weekly Standard by P.J. O'Rourke on how the folks of the left seem to have over-reacted to Katrina and can't seem to get over the fact that smaller government not more government is the solution to disaster relief in this country. I have to agree with O'Rourke that if the "buck" of emergency response stopped at the local/state level (The true embodiment and representative of "We the people".) instead of the deep pocketed federal government, then the situation throughout the disaster zone in New Orleans would have been much different. Unfortunately, the Crescent City proved once again that when a community or a city is so addicted to the welfare teat of others that when the teat is gone they go bonkers and don't know what to do. I think O'Rourke put it best in presenting an "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" and a "small government" argument when he noted:
The lowly, distant concept of private property ought to be ignored. Recent decisions have made the Supreme Court's position on property rights clear, and liberals need fear no judicial opposition on this point. But what if the New Orleans levees had been owned by the people whose property the levees protected? Rather than supplying proven reserves of liberal outrage, New Orleans would have been a dry hole. What if the New Orleans taxpayers, instead of the nation's taxpayers, had borne the expense of those levees? There would have been no difficulty getting people from New Orleans to Baton Rouge. They would have been there already. And making flood insurance a federal program was a brilliant stroke. That way homeowners didn't apply for it, since federal government services arrive whether requested or not--the Internal Revenue Service, for example.Let's hope the American people have also been awakened by O'Rouke's alarm clock of "small government" instead of being pulled towards the "more government" cries coming from the sirens of the left? If so, maybe they should tell the folks in Congress to cut some fat from the budget and various bills, namely the Highway, Energy, to pay for the $200 million being sent to New Orleans. They can also fix the problem in their local/state governments by electing leaders who prefer milk from their cows in their backyard rather than from Daddy Warbucks and his friends in D.C.
4 comments:
Yeah! darn those people who want their tax dollars returned in the form of government funding! Don't these people realize that the federal has a lot more important things to squander their tax dollars on, like no bid contracts for Halliburton (even after they've been caught ripping us off), paying Armstrong Williams and Jeff Gannon to spread Bushita propaganda, unconstitutional faith based initiatives, endless quagmires in the Middle East, and funding for "independent" states like Israel? What, do they think the government is supposed to work for them? The nerve of some people!
Well, let's talk about your Air America/Moveon.org/ANSWER talking points. 1.Haliburton has had a contract with the US government ever since 1996-1997 under the Clinton administration, 2.Armstrong Williams screwed up for accepting money from the nuts a Dept. of Education(Horrible liberal boondoggle should have been tossed to dust bin by Reagan in 80's) as for Gannon, I think he was a journalist who lost his credentials because he was posing as a journalist in the White House Press Corps while he was really an opinion journalist who never was on the payroll of the Bush White House. 3.The faith based initiatives are not unconstitutional. Remember the "Establishment clause" portion of the 1st Admendment states: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . So the White isn't establishing any religoius groups but are maiking it easier for these religious groups who are providing needed services(Shelters, drug & alcohol rehab, foster care, hurricane/storm relief, porochial education) to openly partake in the above mentioned activities like other organizations. The White House hasn't established a religion or prohibited the free exercise. Where's the meat to your claim of un-constitutional behavior? 4. 50 million free folks in Iraq and Afghanistan, both of which have held free and legit election, drafted or are drafting their own constitution, the birthing of democracy might look painful or as you prefer "a quaqmire" but it's a hell of a lot better than the hell they were living and what we spent daily in patrolling the Southern and Northern "No-Fly" Zones. Syria also hauled tail out of Lebanon after we laid the smackdown on Saddam, so add another 3 to 4 million folks freed from tyranny. Looks good to me. 5. Come to think of it, the US helps out a hell of a lot of independent nations like Israel, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Europe, Indonesia, South America and coutless others via our dynamic economy, globalism, technology and the most obvious fact that we are a superpower. I'm all for massive expenditures in the defense of this nation and the missions we take on abroad because it destroys dangerous predators in the jungle known as the world instead of allowing them free range here. I prefer to watch TV and blog rather than fighting bomb laden folks named Ali, Osama, or Abdullah who are willing to kill me and my family because some mullah or crazed cleric told them to. As for the domestic priorities of this nation I still think that people prefer that Uncle Sam to have as little participation in their life as possible. If we have to cut some pennies in our budgets, how about those spendthrifts in Washington? Government is still best when it does the least.
Oh, Christians aren't religious groups? Giving the money to organiztions that do the type of worked mentioned also do it only as an attempt to spread the word of whoever (Pat Robertson, I think)is clearly establishing a religion, which is a violaton of the establishment clause.The no-fly zone was established by the US and Uk was illegal under international law, and we were the ones bombing the Iraqis, not saddam, who, I reiterate, had no WMD, no links to AlQeida, and ties to 9/11, the three reasons stated as the just cause for our invasion. We are not birthing a democracy there, we are creating a theocracy. The 50 million free folks in Iraq aren the ones who are fighting us now. As for our dynamic economy, I don't what Ivory Tower you sit in, but down here on the ground the situation stinks as the Congress allows Korporate America to hemmorage more jobs overseas while those who lose their jobs are left with debt and no opportunities to crawl out as Wa-Mart doesn't hire full time, and they don't pay a living wage.
p.s. I don't listen to Al franken, I find him to be as irritating and partisan as those nut jobs on Fox. The whole congres is corrput, from Tom Delay on down and the sooner we get rid of all the D.s and Rs, the sooner we'll stop squandering our money overseas in Israel when the money could be better spent here in America, after all, it is our money.
I guess some folks react before they read. First of all, do you not get the point of the Establishment Clause.
1. The Constitution says: Congress shall make no law law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. This means that the government can't establish a national church like The Church of England but since Pat Robertson, Robert Shuler, Billy Graham, The Catholic Church, Rick Warren, James Dobson and other religious organizations are private and not part of the government, then they are free to do what the wish and congress has no say so. If they were part of the government or Congress created such bodies then I could see your point.
The folks fighting us in Iraq are only a small grouping of Saddam hanger-on's, foreign jihadis from neighboring nations, and a small smattering of criminals. If the whole nation was fighting us, we'd definately be seeing more trouble than we currently see. I can assure you that if you think that Iraq is a theocracy, then I have a bridge to sell you in Arizona. Please read some pieces from The New Republic or folks like Fouad Ajami, Michael Rubin and Reuel Marc Gerecht to see that Iraq is far from an Iranian style theocracy or a Wahabbi madhouse like Saudi Arabia.
Wal-Mart hires full-time, starts folks off at $8-10 an hour, movement from employee to management is pretty fast, offers 90% of workers health benefits while other 10% have insurance via other plans. That living wage you yammer on about is silly claptrap created by some wild-eyed socialist in Europe. To see what a living wage does to an economy just look at the troubles in France and Germany. Secondly, where would you set a living wage at anyway $10, $20, $30, $50 an hour. You need to think about your bright idea a little bit more. As for people being in debt, they brought that on themselves. I you can afford to pay for it you don't need it.
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