| 7:55 am |
Up and
at 'em
Slept in til 7am today. The police and military
still control the streets and they're patrolling in force by vehicle --
you can see this on the cam. A lot of people have asked about the vehicles
and who's in them. They're all police vehicles now -- commandeered.
Let me address the political situation for a moment. I noticed
that the responses I've been getting on the blog and the stuff I've been
reading in the mainstream media has become very politicized. I'm not going
to get into politics here -- I'm just going to do my work and then report
what I see and hear throughout the day. If you guys want to play Democrat
vs Republican vs Independent, go right ahead, but I'm really weary of the
permanent election season this country's turned into. Honestly, these are
politicians you guys are getting so excited about. Politicians. As far as
I'm concerned, I don't trust people who want to tell other people how to
spend their money and what they can read or see on television and what
they can do in the privacy of their own homes. There's no way I'm going to
feel comfortable supporting someone who thinks he knows what's best for
the rest of "society" and is willing to use force and the threat of force
to make others fall into line.
So yeah, I'm not going to support or
condemn anyone specific for what's going on here.
And another
thing to think about when we start pointing fingers is this. The
government is never equipped to handle a crisis like this. There's too
much bureaucracy -- initiative-stifling bureaucracy which prevents swift,
effective action. I would like to hear from government employees on this.
The nature of that bureaucracy is such that you have very specific
guidelines to follow for even the most minute tasks. You need approval for
just about everything, and the person you need approval from usually needs
approval to give you the approval.
It's not as easy as say
rounding up 4 of your co-workers and saying, "We've got someone at such
and such an address, let's go grab her and get her out of there." Now add
a destroyed or disabled command and control center to that bureaucracy and
you've got a total and complete mess.
You (as a civilian) don't
need "Approved" stamped on 3 different forms before you can run into your
neighbor's house and pull them out. I hope this makes
sense.
Anyway, I'm sure there's been human error in this
catastrophe. How could there not be? But what I'm saying is that I've come
to expect poor decision making and a total lack of initiative from
government. They can't even balance a budget, at the federal, state, or
local levels. I could balance my checkbook and spend within my means when
I was a teenager. But I'm not gonna point fingers and get into the blame
game. If you want me to blame something besides the storm herself, I blame
the nature of government in the first place. It's too big, it's too slow,
it's too inefficient, it's too bloated, and it's too intiative-stifling to
be effective in normal circumstances, much less in a disaster. It's a
systemic issue, more than an issue of individual people in
government.
Ok, that being said, I see more civilians on the street
now -- although many of them appear to be journalist types.
More
later. |
