Hey! Where’s MY Plasma TV?

Why is it that, five years after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, LA, we’re still being told to “remember Katrina” even though hurricanes regularly trash Miami and the rest of the Caribbean every year? At the risk of seeming unfeeling, I’m definitely going to have to address this one today, because it highlights a huge example of how the American sheeple…um, I mean people, have succumbed over the years to the temptations of instant gratification and entitlement at the expense of others.

Let’s face it, folks. As tragic as Katrina was, bad things happen to good people all the time. That’s the way life is. And it doesn’t mean they don’t deserve help. As with everything else I’ve discussed so far, it’s how things are done that matters. In our country, per the 10th Amendment to the Constitution, the authority, and therefore the responsibility for local problems, including disaster prevention and recovery, lies with the local community and government, up to the State government. Period. Can others help? Of course, voluntarily, and many do, out of the goodness of their hearts. In fact, the American people are by far the world’s largest contributors to charity. But they cannot, by law, be forced to do so.

So how does the above apply to what happened just before, during, and in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina? Well, to begin with, the city of New Orleans is below sea level. Mayor Ray Nagin knew this, Governor Blanco knew this, and just about everyone that had a position in the city and state government knew, or should have known this. Second, the levees that were the only thing keeping New Orleans from sinking into the Gulf of Mexico in the case of such an event were miserably not up to the job when the storm finally happened. Now, regardless of who built and maintained said levees, if they were in the city of which I were the Mayor, part of my job as the Executive (remember, to execute?) would have been to make sure ahead of time that my city was safe from natural disasters, being both in a flood AND a hurricane zone. Fix the darn levees, dude, BEFORE stuff happens! I can’t blame Mayor Nagin alone, however, because those levees had spent who knows how many years (decades?) sitting there, badly designed, and ignored by a long line of Mayors and City Councils, just waiting for the Sword of Damacles to fall. It’s not like they didn’t have advance warning, either. The Army Corps of Engineers had been telling them for years that if a major storm hit, those things wouldn’t sustain.

And then came the day they actually saw the hurricane coming. Hurricanes aren’t like earthquakes. They don’t suddenly fall upon land without warning and destroy the whole place. We have amazing technology that actually shows us, days in advance, where the hurricane is, where it’s headed, and how bad it’s likely to be when it hits! It’s so cool, we can even name them in advance! So, when the weather people at NOAA informed the Gulf States that a hurricane called Katrina was coming their way, the local governments had plenty of time to execute (there’s that word again) their evacuation plans. Any one of us that’s lived in a hurricane zone knows the drill: go to Home Depot, board up your windows and doors (or already have storm windows installed in advance), and if the hurricane doesn’t require evacuation, get some water and canned goods, and hole up until the storm is over, preferably away from windows and doors. If evacuation is required, then board up your house and hightail it out of there! The responsibility of the local government is to give those instructions and help provide transportation to those citizens who don’t have any of their own. The rest of the responsibility lies with the citizens. As in, get in your car, carpool with your neighbors, or get on those buses and get out!

Two things happened in New Orleans. Apparently, no one believed NOAA when they reported the severity of the hurricane, not even Mayor Nagin, because he sat placidly on his butt instead of executing (!) the evacuation plan for New Orleans. Oh, he had plenty of excuses (lack of buses, insurance for said buses, etc.) but the point is he did nothing. Or he did too little, too late. Second, many of the citizens, when said evacuation was announced as necessary, decided to stay put, either because of lack of transportation or just plain stupidity. The result: hundreds of thousands of people unnecessarily stuck in New Orleans, who could have easily been evacuated in plenty of time, when a Category 4 hurricane hit the Gulf Coast. The levees failed, flooding the city, and tragedy ensued: lives were lost, people were stranded without food or water, crime inevitably skyrocketed, and everything was left a shambles.

There is a Nicaraguan saying: “Limosnero, y con garrote.” Translated literally, it means “Beggar, with a giant stick.” It means that the beggar is so entitled that even though he’s begging, he’s holding that stick as if he’s going to whack you over the head if you don’t give him what he wants. This is, literally and figuratively, what happened in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. While giant sticks were being used literally to break into New Orleans businesses in order to loot them, “giant sticks” were also being used to loot the rest of the Republic as well. Somehow, the local city government’s lack of action and the problems of New Orleans became the fault and the responsibility of President Bush, and weirdly, the Department of Homeland Security, which now housed FEMA (apparently, terrorist organizations had learned how to create natural disasters to attack the USA.) Ridiculously, authors and media outlets started in on the Department of Homeland Security, shocked at how unresponsive it was to this disaster, its first “test” after 9/11. See examples here and here.

Anyway, what was, under Constitutional law, clearly under the authority and responsibility of the State of Louisiana quickly became a Federal issue. FEMA and the White House made the front page of the media outlets as the responsible (or irresponsible) parties. So, what did George W. Bush do? In his typical “I’m going to ignore the American Constitution” way, he signed a $10.5 billion relief package using Federal funds and ordered help be sent by FEMA and the National Guard in the form of firefighting equipment and firefighters, supplies, water, and ice trucked all the way from Vermont, among other things. My personal favorite items in the “disaster relief” effort were the FEMA-issued debit cards given to hurricane victims so that they could survive in the days and weeks after the tragedy. This took a couple of days but apparently was still not fast enough for the giant stick beggars (who were actually responsible for their own city and state) and the media, who continue to demonize and criticize the Federal Government for their “lack of effort” to this day.

Whoa, you may be saying. What’s wrong with you? So far, it’s sounding like you think New Orleans should have been left to its own devices. If you are thinking this, then stop right now and go back and reread my entire blog up until today, then read the text of the 10^th Amendment and write it 100 times as punishment. I am absolutely not saying that. I am saying that while Louisiana and New Orleans were free to ask for help and anyone was free to help them, that “anyone” did not include the Federal Government, which is supposed to stay out of State matters. 

Next, the media started in on FEMA for bungling the efforts and being disorganized. Really? You don’t say. How surprising. I’ve always thought the Federal Government a model of efficiency and expediency. Of course they bungled it! They weren’t supposed to be there at all! In fact, FEMA’s involvement actually got in the way of private organizations who were trying to contribute to the relief effort, and who would have been much more effective. They were actually prohibiting private medical personnel from outside the area to treat the injured and sick people affected in the hurricane!

The problem with getting the Federal Government involved, in case you haven’t guessed, is this: that $10.5 billion in Federal funds? It came from your tax dollars, whether or not you live in Louisiana. So, whether you wanted to or not, you became an unwitting (and forced) contributor to the Katrina relief effort, in addition to anything you might have donated of your own free will. What’s wrong with that, you say? Well, that money was not meant for that! Federal funds, and Federal authority, extend only to issues that affect the country as a whole, not ones that only affect certain regions. This was written into the Constitution to ensure that States on one side of the country did not end up supporting States on the other side, and also to prevent the Federal Government from sticking its nose where it did not belong. In fact, the Federal Government was never supposed to have that much money to begin with (or power, and money IS power), and it didn’t, until the 16^th Amendment, of course. Ugh.

But, you may still be asking, if they needed help, why wasn’t it OK to help them with Federal funds? After all, they needed food, shelter, medical supplies, breast implants, plasma TV’s!

Huh? Yeah, you read right. Those debit cards I mentioned earlier, given out using Federal funds, from YOUR tax money? Well, they weren’t exactly limited in what could be purchased with them. So, while you were working hard every day saving up to buy yourself a regular old TV, thinking it was cool because it had HD capacity, those brand new Federal debit card holders were going out and getting cosmetic surgery and buying a better TV than you could ever hope to get. With the money you paid in taxes. And you had no idea or control over how it was spent.

We’re back to the accountability thing. I talked about it here, remember? When a nameless, faceless bureaucracy is simply handing you money that isn’t theirs to give away, neither you nor the bureaucracy are being held accountable for how that money is being handled. When it’s your local community, private donors, people you can see, who know you and are checking on you daily, then it’s much more difficult to be irresponsible.

See, from Washington, D.C., it was really easy for George W. Bush and Congress, without a second thought, to just give away your money through FEMA (which is now charged with responding to ALL local disasters, by the way). It was also really easy for Mayor Ray Nagin to wash his hands, make a ruckus, and blame the Federal Government so that they would send in the Federal agencies, and the media to get on the bandwagon, because we’ve been conditioned to believe that every time something bad happens, the Federal Government is supposed to jump right in and save the day. Not so, folks.

By expecting and accepting this, we’ve turned into a shadow of what the American people used to be. We’ve become American sheeple. We’re so afraid of being uncomfortable that we’ve given the Federal Government much more power than it was ever meant to have, in exchange for keeping us safe and cozy. We’re entitled and easily swayed by the promise of “protection” and “rescue,” when in reality, we’re giving away our money and our rights, and becoming a country of controlled, helpless, well…sheep.

Next up, more of your hard-earned money gets flushed down the toilet, while your home value plummets and you get laid off! Stay tuned…