Y’know, its tough to prepare for the upcoming apocalypse and not get political about it. Way back when (“Back in the day”) our friendly .fedgov used to give out brochures and blueprints for making your own bomb shelters. Now Tom Ridge, the grasshopper of “The Ant And The Grasshopper” says that if we all just store three days of food and water we’ll all be fine. I suppose the only upside to this is that if youre stupid enough to believe that then the world will be a better place when you die because you didnt know how to use a gas shutoff wrench, staunch the bleeding in your leg from the broken window, or asphyxiated because you lit your barbecue grill indoors.
You want Homeland Security? Put me in charge…I’ll show you Homeland Security. Government pamphlets on preparedness, tax credits, surplussed military rations and equipment given to states for their own emergency agencies, completely non-porous borders, disaster response teams that work…and funded quietly and cheaply.
Ah well…chaos brings change…control the chaos and you can control the change. Maybe some sort of horrible national tragedy is whats needed to effect a sea change among the sheeple. What sort of change is needed? Very simple – get people back the the way of thinking that made this country great … that each person was responsible for their self and their families. That government assistance was something to be eschewed and avoided at all costs. You get people away from the idea that government is their mommy and you start getting people who want smaller government..and smaller government is good.
Really, the well-being of others is not my concern. My concern is the well-being of me and my tight little circle of LMI’s.
I often agree with your writings, but I’m afraid I have many points of contention with this rant:
1) If the worst happens and everyone scurries to their homemade bomb shelters, the gov’t no longer controls the populace. I rather suspect our politicians are more scared of that than of the apocalypse.
2) Er, wasn’t 9/11 “some sort of horrible national tragedy”?
3) I think the biggest problem is that even the gov’t can’t teach people to start taking responsibility for itself – even if it wanted to, which it doesn’t bc it’s composed of (at least half) people who think the gov’t should be responsible for everything and legislate morality. What’s needed is a sea change – and unfortunately change rarely comes from those in power.
Why do you think “non-porous borders” and “small government” are mutually compatible goals?
Way back when (“Back in the day”) our friendly .fedgov used to give out brochures and blueprints for making your own bomb shelters. Now Tom Ridge, the grasshopper of “The Ant And The Grasshopper” says that if we all just store three days of food and water we’ll all be fine.
I think you know the reason why this is so. The relationship between government and people has changed. The seat of trust has shifted from the people to the guv. And now we’re stuck with it.
1) This actually may be a good thing. The blindly obedient will die in the initial blast wave and the think-for-themselves types will be in their shelters. An almost Darwinian situation.
2) Actaully it was an atrocity, rather than a tragedy. 9/11 got people moving in one of two directions…towards the mommystate to protect them or towards realizing that government wasnt the solution and they had to take the initiative. Call it 50/50…now, a few more situations that polarize and divide and you get 50% of 50% of 50% until finally all your left with are the individualists.
3)Remember the old joke about Grouch Marx saying he wouldnt want to join any club that would have someone like him as a member? If youre taught personal responsibility by the government, youre not really personally responsible.
Because it doesnt take much government oversight to operate a concrete wall thirty feet high, twelve feet wide and a thousand miles long. Alot of Border Patrol, INS and other agency personnel could be replaced with poured concrete.
How are you defining “small” government? How much of the current annual federal budget do you believe is justified?
What do you estimate the cost of building and staffing such a wall to be?
The staff and budget of the FBI, CIA, ATF, et. al was reduced when the Dept. of Homeland Security was created–why do you expect that the INS and Border Patrol would be any different? How much smaller would you expect the INS and Border Patrol to become?
Just being picky, but INS is no more. It was broken up into US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Border and Transportation Security (BTS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
None of which has any real impact on what is being said here, just a informational tidbit.
Er…although it is probably apparent, that should be “…was not reduced…”