I am in earnest, I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard.


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Required Reading

The Declaration of Independence

The Constitution

The Bill of Rights

The 1982 Senate RKBA Report


Important Stuff



a human right




Exercise Your Rights. Buy on Gun April 15th.


Why We Fight
11 September, 2001

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Heartless Libertarian
"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." P.J. O'Rourke
 
9/02/2005

More Heartlessness from the Heartless Libertarian 


First off, let me apologize for the lack of links and other HTML goodies. Apparently, even if you put in the HTML code, Blogger doesn't recognize it on posts done by email. So my posts will be without hypertext links for the foreseeable future.

Now, on to the Heartlessness...

The chorus of blame attacking the federal government in general, and President Bush specifically, is flat out stupid and ignorant. First of all, as I pointed out yesterday, preparing for and responding to a natural disaster are properly the purview of the state and local governments. So why haven't I heard any criticism of the government of the city of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana?

Now, I understand that, given how rapidly Katrina increased in power, it was simply a logistical impossibility to completely evacuate New Orleans before it hit. The transportation assets required to move the up to 100,000 people who lacked the means to leave the city on their own can't just be conjured out of thin air. If you estimate that one bus can carry 50 people, it would have required at least 2,000 bus trips to clear the city. Just a SWAG, but that means, in hindsight, they should have started the evacuation process-meaning moving busses to the city-back when Katrina was a Category 1 storm moving across Florida. And at that time, nobody predicted that Katrina would be stronger that a Category 3. Even if there had been perfect forecasting, did a plan even exist to get everyone out of New Orleans? Did the city and state governments have a contingency plan to secure the necessary transportation assets, and to assemble all the people who would need to be moved at co
llection points so they could be moved? The city, or at least the New Orleans school district owns some busses-I've seen TV shots of them up to their roofs in water. Why weren't they used to at least start moving people once Mayor Nagin ordered the city evacuated? And why isn't anyone asking Mayor Nagin these questions?

Next, the city obviously had plans to use buildings like the Superdome and the convention center as shelters. All well and good. But just as obviously, they had no plans as to what to do with the people taking shelter there if they couldn't return to their homes after the storm passed. Why didn't anyone think of the fact that the toilets wouldn't work if the city water system shut down, and that thousands of people generate a lot of urine and feces that has to go somewhere? Why didn't they have a plan to get these people out of the city if a storm made the city uninhabitable. The state government should have been assembling every school bus they could get their hands on in the northeast part of the state before the storm hit. Quite obviously, they weren't. And yet nobody is blaming Governor Blanco for this failure.

And for all the people who had the means and opportunity to leave the area, but chose not to and are now demanding help: shut the fuck up. You made your choice, now you've got to live with the consequences.

Finally, another question that isn't being asked enough: did federal government programs, such as government-provided flood insurance and subsidized disaster relief loans, contribute to the scope of the disaster? (Note: IMO, such programs are well outside the limited powers defined in the Constitution as being granted to Congress, and therefore have no business existing.) From the Fort Wayne (Indiana) News-Sentinel:

"How far should the federal government go in helping out people who are not insured but who suffer losses in natural disasters? Do the soft-hearted disaster-relief inclinations of politicians encourage people to live and invest in disaster-prone areas? Would the insurance market do a better job than the feds of making people size up the risks they face? ... Finding the right answers is the key to preventing future disasters from being even worse."

Anyone who lives in areas prone to hurricanes, or tornados, or floods, or earthquakes, or whatever, knows that they are at risk of being hit by a disaster. They should take the potential costs, and the cost of insuring themselves, into account when deciding where they want to live. If they choose to live there anyway, the government should not take money from their fellow citizens (taxes) to help sheild people from the consequences of their decisions. If you want to live in hurricane country, you should have to bear the cost of insuring your home, business, etc. Insurance companies will insure just about anything, if you pay them enough. When the federal government provides low cost insurance, it it basically taking money from you and me and giving it to people who are making an unwise decision-a decision they might not make if you and I weren't subsidizing the cost.


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9/01/2005

Can You Hear Me Now? 


OK, here's the situation-Uncle Sam sent me off on a working non-vacation.

My apologies to DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince.

I'm currently away from home station, at the Yakima Training Center. I'll be here until just before Christmas. Due to access limitations-meaning Blogger & Blogspot are on the list of unauthorized sites-posting will be limited. I'm posting this by e-mail (and I hope it's working.)

I've got a couple good books to read, and my wife will send me more when I finish those, so I'll be using the time to broaden my base of knowledge on the Constitution, liberty in general, and RKBA issues.

Also, there are a couple of microbreweries in town, so I'll be expanding the breadth (and depth) of my knowledge of beer as well.


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Behold My Heartlessness 


I am about to say something which many, I'm sure, will find to be heartless and uncaring. Too bad.

There has been much crying (or accusatory statements, depending on how you choose to view them) in recent days about how slow, inadequate, etc, the response of the federal government has been to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. My response to them is this: disaster relief is not the federal government's job. It's not within the limited powers allocated to Congress by the Constitution.

Just ask James Madison:

<blockquote>"...[T]he government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. <em>Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.</em>"(Emphasis added)</blockquote>

and further:

<blockquote>"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents." </blockquote>

Cleaning up after natural disasters, rescuing victims, and aiding the displaced, are, Constitutionally speaking, matters for the state governments, private organizations such as the Red Cross, and individual citizens. In the currently unfolding disaster, about the only possibly Constitutionally proper role I can see for Uncle Sam is reopening the Mississippi River to navigation. Even though the scope of destruction and human suffering is vast and covers multiple states, dealing with it is properly beyond the powers granted to Congress, and as such Congress should just leave it alone.

Oh, and to anyone who migh bring up the "general welfare" phrase in the Constitution, I give you, once again, James Madison:

<blockquote>"With respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers [enumerated in the Constitution] connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."</blockquote>

In other words: nice try, that don't fly.


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