Comments (14)

• Joe Kelley

  The challenge:

  [Thus, I leave readers with this question: If you believe that the government "failed" in the aftermath of Katrina, will the government then have less or more "authority" when the next disaster strikes? I think all of us know the answer.]

  Government has two sides. You are on one side while I am on the other side. When you look in the mirror and see “government� as being “them� then I observe how you make government false, destructive, and morally bankrupt. You create conflict. You demand obedience. You construct false authority.

  I look in the mirror and see government looking back. I see me defining government as a peaceful association founded upon equity.

  How does your government work for you? You create ignorant victims worthy of contempt and every imaginable punishment because they cause all the trouble. Vote the scoundrels out!

  How does my government work for me? I see me voting with my mind and my actions; rejecting prejudice and embracing accountability. I see a future bright with possibilities where each new association strives toward equity, mutually agreeable definitions of government, and an ongoing negotiation striving for liberty.

  Which definition of “government� is doomed to fail? Your government appears to be working well. Mine works for me and the people I credit with the investment of equitable association. The people I try to help invariably reciprocate. I insist. Bad investments, in my government, are my responsibility.

  Who has and will have more “authority� in your government? “They� will have exactly as much more “authority� as you and your government elects to give them now and on into all the future disasters that your government creates.

  I think some of us know that the answer is a process. Look in the mirror and define a better form of government.

  To those inclined to accuse me of being the pot calling the kettle black:

  Words either have a common meaning facilitating accurate communication or not. What is your definition of government? My definition stares back at me in the mirror. When I can see clearly, then, I see a pot, a kettle, and blackness requiring careful continuous exercise of authority. I see a need to treat others equitably. They deserve exactly no more and no less.
  

  Published: September 13, 2005 12:35 PM

• George Carnahan

  The character of govermanent agencies is, by definition, incompetence coupled with a complete lack of common sense manifested by the denizens of our Civil Service system.

  The nonsense of government by the consent of those governed was settled definitively at Appomatox. Ever since, we have had a more & more powerful central government that is less & less accountable to the people.

  Published: September 13, 2005 3:26 PM

• Harry Valentine

  I am still shocked, appaled and in a state of utter disbelief at U.S. government officials, in pin-striped suits as well as in uniform, turning away help from people in need when that help was being offered by voluntary freedom of choice and with no strings attached. I remember the defense of Adolph Eichmann . . . . . "I was only following orders" . . . when I read the appaling and sickening accounts of people-in-uniform "only following orders" when they denied help to American citizens who were in need. This act of denying help is a very sad and pathetic statement about government behaviour during a crisis and about people in uniform.

  Harry Valentine

  Published: September 13, 2005 5:57 PM

• Joe Kelley

  “The nonsense of government by the consent of those governed was settled definitively at Appomatox.� (George Carnahan)

  The above statement is perhaps an oversight. Evidence suggests that the nonsense of government by the consent of those governed was settled in 1787 when the “dirty compromise� allowed for the adoption of the Constitution (setting up the inevitable conflict between Northern mercantile interests and Southern agricultural interests). The definitive enforcement of control (supposedly legitimized by the constitution) occurred in 1794; well before the not so Civil War.

  “The president [Washington] believed…
  Fortunately for the country, these “enemies of order� had showed their hand too soon, and the “army of the Constitution� had ably defended the laws.� (The Whiskey Rebellion, Thomas P. Slaughter)

  “Friends of liberty offered instead an explanation of the Rebellion just as cynical as Washington’s, placing the entire blame on the government. “We have been accused of wearing the mask of conspirators,� Benjamin Franklin Bache reported in the Philadelphia Aurora. “As well we might say… that the friends of law and order had secretly fomented the insurrection that they might borrow another argument against republicanism and be furnished with a stronger evidence in favor of a standing army.� (The Whiskey Rebellion, Thomas P. Slaughter)

  Appomattox was an undoing of the dirty compromise. The rule book prescribing the undoing was written beforehand. The undoing was already well tested and in good working order. The undoing of the Declaration of Independence was the signing and subsequent enforcement of the Constitution.

  “In the end, a deal between the New England delegates and the South Carolinians was obviously struck. The “dirty� particulars are hard to track down, and thus exactly what happened is still a matter of debate. Nonetheless, the outcome is clear. On the one hand, South Carolina joined the northern states to defeat the motion requiring a two-thirds vote when it came to the regulation of commerce. Only a simple majority was required. In exchange, New Englanders supported one exception to this clause. For the next twenty years, congress was forbidden from abolishing the African slave trade or imposing a tax of over $10 on an imported slave. In addition, the fugitive slave clause was allowed to pass without debate or a recorded vote.� (Shays’ Rebellion, Leonard L. Richards)

  Why was it so important to compromise when “the people� already won independence through an insurgent rebellious war against the Greatest Military Might on the Planet? And these rebels did so without a draft, without a Nation State!
  What was so absolutely necessary that slavery had to be written into National Law? Why did the Deep South ‘governors’ give so much control to the northern ‘governors’ and why did the ‘anti-federalist, republican, Whig, democrat Virginians sign the pact too?

  “Washington thus redoubled his efforts to obtain a stronger national government – one that would provide national aid in suppressing local disturbances.� (Shays’s Rebellion, Leonard L. Richards)

  Published: September 13, 2005 8:18 PM

• Lisa Casanova

  Joe,
  With all due respect, you seem like someone who thinks government works well for him, and thus fails to see the heavy costs it exacts for other people. Frankly, my government doesn't work for me. It criminalizes my living arrangements. It forces me to worry when I fill a painkiller prescription that the war on drugs will come home to my doorstep and leave me without options. It leaves me in limbo waiting to find out if I can choose for myself effective medical treatments that have risks, or if I will have it decided for me as though I were a child. It takes my money and wastes it doing a terrible job of everything I think matters, from advancing scientific research to helping the poor. Government is not me. It is not people who think remotely like me, or care even the least little bit about the things that matter to me. It is a system where if I wish to be free, I have to devote most of my time to convincing complete strangers who thik they know what's best for me that I deserve to be free. Unfortunately, thinking positive thoughts about government does not change this one bit. Thinking that government works for me will not suddenly give me the freedom to make my own choices about medical treatment or anything else that the government deems me too incompetent to decide on my own. Government and I are not equitable. It has virtually limitless force at its disposal. I have one vote in the next election (in which, incidentally, my political party is not permitted on the ballot, by state law!) How can that be "ongoing negotiation striving for liberty"? If you feel your freedom has never been significantly infringed upon by the government, then I am glad for you. But I think that your faith that government will always do you good if you believe it's a force for good
  is misplaced.

  Published: September 13, 2005 11:24 PM

• Joe Kelley

  To be clear:

  My government stares back at me when I look in the mirror. If I can presume to know your definition of your government then my guess is that your government infringes upon the common concept of liberty. If so then we do not share the same definition of government. My definition works well for me. My definition of government makes sense to me. I am responsible for my government. I try to be accountable for my responsibilities. You may not agree with my perspective. I certainly don’t agree with yours as I see it.
  My perspective of your definition of government equates to my own definition of crime. Infringement upon liberty is crime in my view. People who do not hold themselves accountable for their own actions are criminals in my view. Crime is a relative term like lies and violence. A little white lie, for example, saying that you like someone who you do not like is relatively truthful; you may like someone just enough to spare them from discomfort. Spanking your child, for example, is relatively less harmful than letting them beat upon their siblings. Lies remain lies. Violence remains violence. Crime remains crime. Who is responsible for the people suffering in New Orleans? I look in the mirror and see me. Relatively speaking; through tax payments I have financed the people operating the National State apparatus. The same operators who impede the progress of liberty and the same operators who command illegitimate and irresponsible authority are the same ones I finance, again, relatively speaking.
  In my view; paying an involuntary tax is a crime. In my view, looking in the mirror, the idea that those people who operate the State are somehow representing me is a big, rather than a little white, lie. I simply choose not to embrace that lie. I’d rather look in the mirror and look for a way to be more accountable.
  When agents of the State, supposedly representing me for my own good, knock on my door; I’d rather not be confused about why they are knocking and I don’t think it is a good idea to take their words on faith. People tend to follow orders rather than look in the mirror and decide for themselves.

  
  

  Published: September 14, 2005 2:03 AM

• Tim

  Here is some of the latest bureaucratic nonsense. Officials want to prohibit a low powered FM radio station oriented to Katrina refugees.

  See Village Voice entitled "FEMA Nixes Grassroots Radio Station for Hurricane Evacuees" and WIRED.

  Published: September 14, 2005 9:01 AM

• Curt Howland

  Mr. Kelley, at last something we agree on. The Constitution for the United States was a mistake, a counter-revolution by those who wanted to impose exactly the same merchantilist policies upon Americans that the British had done.
  
  
  As to the rest of your posts in this thread, since they are so obfuscated and convoluted that I cannot understand them (exactly like most ever other post of yours I've read), I leave them ignored.
  

  Published: September 14, 2005 1:52 PM

• Joe Kelley

  Curt Howland,

  Ignornace is bliss.
  

  Published: September 14, 2005 2:09 PM

• bruce

  Singapore and Katrina
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  By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
  Published: September 14, 2005
  Singapore

  There is something troublingly self-indulgent and slothful about America today - something that Katrina highlighted and that people who live in countries where the laws of gravity still apply really noticed. It has rattled them - like watching a parent melt down.

  Skip to next paragraph
  
  Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

  More Columns by Thomas L. Friedman That is certainly the sense I got after observing the Katrina debacle from half a world away here in Singapore - a city-state that, if it believes in anything, believes in good governance. It may roll up the sidewalks pretty early here, and it may even fine you if you spit out your gum, but if you had to choose anywhere in Asia you would want to be caught in a typhoon, it would be Singapore. Trust me, the head of Civil Defense here is not simply someone's college roommate.

  Indeed, Singapore believes so strongly that you have to get the best-qualified and least-corruptible people you can into senior positions in the government, judiciary and civil service that its pays its prime minister a salary of $1.1 million a year. It pays its cabinet ministers and Supreme Court justices just under $1 million a year, and pays judges and senior civil servants handsomely down the line.

  From Singapore's early years, good governance mattered because the ruling party was in a struggle for the people's hearts and minds with the Communists, who were perceived to be both noncorrupt and caring - so the state had to be the same and more.

  Even after the Communists faded, Singapore maintained a tradition of good governance because as a country of only four million people with no natural resources, it had to live by its wits. It needed to run its economy and schools in a way that would extract the maximum from each citizen, which is how four million people built reserves of $100 billion.

  "In the areas that are critical to our survival, like Defense, Finance and the Ministry of Home Affairs, we look for the best talent," said Kishore Mahbubani, dean of the Lee Kwan Yew School of Public Policy. "You lose New Orleans, and you have 100 other cities just like it. But we're a city-state. We lose Singapore and there is nothing else. ... [So] the standards of discipline are very high. There is a very high degree of accountability in Singapore."

  When a subway tunnel under construction collapsed here in April 2004 and four workers were killed, a government inquiry concluded that top executives of the contracting company should be either fined or jailed.

  The discipline that the cold war imposed on America, by contrast, seems to have faded. Last year, we cut the National Science Foundation budget, while indulging absurd creationist theories in our schools and passing pork-laden energy and transportation bills in the middle of an energy crisis.

  We let the families of the victims of 9/11 redesign our intelligence organizations, and our president and Congress held a midnight session about the health care of one woman, Terri Schiavo, while ignoring the health crisis of 40 million uninsured. Our economy seems to be fueled lately by either suing each other or selling each other houses. Our government launched a war in Iraq without any real plan for the morning after, and it cut taxes in the middle of that war, ensuring that future generations would get the bill.

  Speaking of Katrina, Sumiko Tan, a columnist for the Sunday edition of The Straits Times in Singapore, wrote: "We were shocked at what we saw. Death and destruction from natural disaster is par for the course. But the pictures of dead people left uncollected on the streets, armed looters ransacking shops, survivors desperate to be rescued, racial divisions - these were truly out of sync with what we'd imagined the land of the free to be, even if we had encountered homelessness and violence on visits there. ... If America becomes so unglued when bad things happen in its own backyard, how can it fulfill its role as leader of the world?"

  Janadas Devan, a Straits Times columnist, tried to explain to his Asian readers how the U.S. is changing. "Today's conservatives," he wrote, "differ in one crucial aspect from yesterday's conservatives: the latter believed in small government, but believed, too, that a country ought to pay for all the government that it needed.

  "The former believe in no government, and therefore conclude that there is no need for a country to pay for even the government that it does have. ... [But] it is not only government that doesn't show up when government is starved of resources and leached of all its meaning. Community doesn't show up either, sacrifice doesn't show up, pulling together doesn't show up, 'we're all in this together' doesn't show up."
  

  Published: September 14, 2005 3:41 PM

• Lisa Casanova

  "It is not only government that doesn't show up when government is starved of resources and leached of all its meaning. Community doesn't show up either, sacrifice doesn't show up, pulling together doesn't show up, 'we're all in this together' doesn't show up."
  The government screwed up the response to hurricane Katrina in every way imaginable, yet I saw all of those things show up from all sorts of places, including such bastions of evil as Wal-Mart. Why do you think that is, since apparently without government we're all paralyzed?

  Published: September 14, 2005 4:17 PM

• arielb

  whattheheck? today's conservatives believe in very big govt. This is all about big govt falling apart and most of the problem was caused way before Bush came into town. There's an entire culture that is entirely dependent on govt to do everything for them: build super levees (not that they would've helped a direct hit from Katrina like Biloxi), evacuate them, get them out of welfare induced poverty, etc etc. I'm sorry but people will have to learn to do things for themselves and not expect FEMA (even without Michael Brown who really was an idiot) or the ACE to do their job.
  I have 2 questions however. Is Singapore a proof of good govt (albeit very tough)? Does Somalia prove that a stateless society only leads to tyranny of a different kind?

  Published: September 14, 2005 5:14 PM

• Tim

  "Is Singapore a proof of good govt (albeit very tough)?"

  Maybe Singapore is proof of the optimum size of governments. See this recent Economist article on the size of nations.

  "The Economist" says that the US has been.. up until now... an anomaly, a relatively large nation-state that is also economically successful. Maybe the US government has now grown to the point where 'the anomaly is gone', or at least, going.

  Published: September 15, 2005 12:31 AM

• David White

  Curt, et al.,

  The Constitution was a mistake because, as Lysander Spooner made clear, constitutionalism is a mistake: http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/NoTreason/NoTreason.html. In the present case, as historian Charles Beard put it in "An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States," the process amounted to a “coup d’état� carried out

  "…during secret deliberations of a convention called merely to regulate commerce [that was] was received with hostility by the populace, which forced the precipitate addition of the first ten amendments. The document provided for a government of ostensible checks and balances (but really, as a wit has said, of all checks and no balances), and at the same time guaranteed itself the utmost freedom, unchecked and unbalanced, to propertied interests. In short, the government itself was tightly laced into a strait jacket, while private economic enterprise was given unprecedented freedom to establish and develop a strong informal government outside the bounds of formal government—a de facto government beyond and behind the government de jure."

  And why not? For as Ferdinand Lundberg wrote in "America's Sixty Families," the groundwork had already been laid:

  "The first fortunes on the virgin continent were out-and-out political creations--huge tracts of land and lucrative trading privileges arbitrarily bestowed by the British and Dutch crowns upon favorite individuals and companies. ... The early royal grants—forerunners of tariffs; ship and airplane subsidies; doles to banks and railroads...; war contracts let on a cost-plus basis; public-utility franchises; imperial grants of vast stretches of public lands to railroads, mining, and land companies; tax-exempt securities, etc.--were the sole property titles of the newly created landed aristocrats."

  It was all rigged from the beginning, in other words, and no more constituted government by the consent of the government for the vast majority of the early Americans than it did for the millions of Africans and "Indians" that the newly created aristocrats conquered and enslaved, respectively.
  

  Published: September 16, 2005 7:21 AM