@SPAM+++++++++ Re: [Vision2020] Mississippi and FEMA

Pat Kraut pkraut at moscow.com
Tue Sep 6 09:24:18 PDT 2005


"not the mayor's brother's college roommate's daughter's cousin." 
But, what if you really believe that person is an organized, responsible, capable person who would do a really good job? 
Have you any idea of the massive amount of problems there are down there now. No phones, no power, no roads, lots of water and everyone is trying as much as possible to do all they can. But, like you said I am just blaming the victim. Actually in some ways I do. They lived under sea level. They didn't choose to move somewhere before or even when the storm was coming. Yes, they did have choices. (Of course it would have helped if the mayor had left the city systems running.) Some of them won't leave now. And they are already asking who can they sue! So, a complex horrible mess will just get worse as we get lawyers involved. I do believe we need to get a congressional review set up so that we can do more next time but I don't believe we did all that bad this time. 
Also, Jeff sent me this post offline and I meant to answer it offline but made a mistake. I have apologized to him and I do so again. Oh, don't get so excited! I bet your offline posts about him or I are not something you'd want shared either!

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Andreas Schou 
  To: Pat Kraut 
  Cc: vision2020 
  Sent: Monday, September 05, 2005 10:42 PM
  Subject: Re: @SPAM+++++++++ Re: [Vision2020] Mississippi and FEMA


  To all --

  A translation:


    Personal accountability

  Blame the  victim. 



    Self-reliance

  Blame the victim. 



    State Sovereignty

  Blame the State. 



    The difference between a helping hand and a handout

  Blame the victim. 



    The government can't make life perfect - only the individual can do that.

  Blame Nature. 



  The state exists to handle eventualities and risks that no citizen, not even the richest, can handle. We do not expect people to hire private bodyguards to protect them against muggings. The police force does that. We do not expect people to put out their own fires. We have the fire department to do that. We don't expect people to pay for whatever unforseen medical disorders they may encounter in their later years. We have Medicare for that. We cannot expect peopel to 'just deal with' a hurricane on their own: living through a hurricane is something that someone will do, once, maybe twice in their life. We cannot expect people living through a hurricane to make informed decisions: we have, as a society, delegated disasters from your stove being on fire to a massive hurricane to the government. 

  We expect the Moscow Fire Department to not get drunk and run into trees, and when they arrive, we expect actual professional firefighters, not the mayor's brother's college roommate's daughter's cousin. Why can't we expect that from our federal government?

  -- ACS
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