Wrong Paul: We don' need no stinkin' FEMA

[Schneibster]

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washing ... -fema.html

Bet he'll be real popular in the Carolinas.

ETA: Man, you guys got some great icons.

[Seth]

FEMA is a giant bureaucratic cluster-fuck that cost people their lives during Katrina. Nothing FEMA does cannot be done better and more efficiently by state and local governments.

If there is a need for disaster relief money from the federal government (and sometimes there is, but only very, very rarely) then it should come by block grant to the states directly from Congress, which is how it's supposed to work.

When FEMA shows up at a disaster site, things get worse, not better, because FEMA takes over and interferes with the local disaster relief efforts being performed by people who live in and know the community and know what's needed, where it's needed, and how to get it there.

During Katrina, FEMA turned away experienced local residents with boats who knew the area and neighborhoods and residents intimately and were prepared and willing to go in and rescue people. As a result, people suffered and died waiting for FEMA-approved rescuers, who were in short supply and didn't know the area, to show up. A Sheriff in one Parish arrested and handcuffed a FEMA bureaucrat who refused to let the Sheriff through a roadblock with a tanker full of fuel for emergency generators at a hospital because he didn't have the proper FEMA paperwork. The fuel got through in spite of FEMA. FEMA bought millions of dollars worth of ice to preserve food, but couldn't figure out how to deliver it where it was needed, so it eventually melted away while waiting for FEMA to decide how and where to send it.

FEMA participated in an utterly unconstitutional seizure of private firearms by police and federal agents, leaving citizens helpless and at the mercy of roving gangs of looters and thugs in the aftermath.

Fuck FEMA, it's useless Progressive federal bureaucracy that needs to be done away with.

[Schneibster]

Typical Libertardian rhetoric; make somebody else pay for it, it'll be fine.

[Robert_S]

Some Republican ex-governor appointing an ex-lawyer turned horse botherer to head FEMA had nothing whatever to do with the Katrina clusterfuck though.

[Schneibster]

I wasn't gonna go there since that was the last administration, but it is an excellent point since it appears Seth is a bit confused about that.

[Tyrannical]

Where is the SC National Guard? Could it be the middle east? Bring the troops home and that is your emergency responce.

[Seth]

Some Republican ex-governor appointing an ex-lawyer turned horse botherer to head FEMA had nothing whatever to do with the Katrina clusterfuck though.

Nope. The Director of FEMA is an administrator and has no actual operational duties in the chain of command when it comes to disaster response, and nothing he said or did, or didn't say or didn't do made a difference when it came to FEMA's cock-up during Katrina. It's a political apointee position that's been held through patronage for decades. Everybody in FEMA pointed fingers at everybody else in the aftermath, but the fact is that the entire bureaucracy is such an inefficient and bloated nightmare that it was (and remains) inevitable that they will fuck up whatever they get involved in.

Of course Ray Nagin, the Mayor of New Orleans and Kathleen Blanco, the Governor of Louisana are the primary culprits in the disaster. It was THEIR responsibility to have an effective hurricane response plan in place and to activate it in a timely manner and operate it with efficiency and thoroughness.

FEMA just made things worse when Blanco FINALLY asked for federal assistance. You see, FEMA isn't authorized to respond to such emergencies without a request from the state's governor, due to a little thing called the "Separation of Powers Doctrine."

[Seth]

Where is the SC National Guard? Could it be the middle east? Bring the troops home and that is your emergency responce.

And where were all the military helicopters needed in Vermont and the rest of the Eastern Seaboard during the last incident? Iraq and Afghanistan.

[Seth]

I wasn't gonna go there since that was the last administration, but it is an excellent point since it appears Seth is a bit confused about that.

Nope, I'm not even a little confused, though you are.

[Schneibster]

I wasn't gonna go there since that was the last administration, but it is an excellent point since it appears Seth is a bit confused about that.

Nope, I'm not even a little confused, though you are.

"Heckuva job, Brownie!"

Maybe you forgot.

[Seth]

I wasn't gonna go there since that was the last administration, but it is an excellent point since it appears Seth is a bit confused about that.

Nope, I'm not even a little confused, though you are.

"Heckuva job, Brownie!"

Maybe you forgot.

Nope, I didn't forget. There's no evidence that Brown's dismissal was anything other than a political expedient, or that any decision he made was responsible for the slow FEMA response. FEMA was slow because FEMA is an enormous federal bureaucracy that's incapable of responding in a timely manner, much less being flexible enough to deal with on-scene unexpected eventualities.

Brown in fact criticized Nagin's choice of the Superdome as a refuge, but Nagin ignored him, along with many other recommendations made by others to get people OUT of New Orleans in time.

Brown was a scapegoat, and he took the bullet for the systemic failings of a huge, bloated, ineffective, incompetent bureaucracy created long before he came on the scene.

[Schneibster]

There's no evidence that Brown's dismissal was anything other than a political expedient,

Three in a row, sport. Where do you get this stuff, Larouche?

He resigned. <---CLUE

[Tyrannical]

The Constitutional way to handle disasters would be for the State Guard to head up disaster relief under direction of the Governor. The Governor would request help either from the Federal government or another State's Guard units if needed.

[Schneibster]

Like I said, a government is an insurance company with an army, and the Libertards wanna stop it from insuring anyone and steal the money after we already paid for it.

[Seth]

Like I said, a government is an insurance company with an army, and the Libertards wanna stop it from insuring anyone and steal the money after we already paid for it.

No, SOCIALIST government is an insurance company with an army that makes promises it cannot possibly keep. Libertarians recognize that government cannot provide everything for everyone and suggest that people ought to provide for themselves and one another based on voluntary associations and actions rather than coercion by force, usually using the very army you refer to to repress and oppress the people in order to get them to labor as slaves on behalf of others.

I'm fine with you paying into your government insurance plan if you wish, however stupid and delusional your reasons and expectations may be for doing so, just don't try to force ME to pay for something I neither need, want nor will make use of, because that's just stealing my money and enslaving me to pay for your "insurance."

Fuck that. I pay my own bills, not yours.