FEMA to the Rescue - With $2000 Debit Cards (from my account)
by Jim?Rutter
Let's now salute the dumbest idea in wealth redistribution in our (or any) nation's history.
FEMA announced yesterday that as part of the 'massive recovery' aid program to victims of Hurricane Katrina, they were going to issue government credited debit cards to the tune of two-thousand dollars per person.? Just to, you know, help them get by.? Of course, the press-release contained the 'rational-person' terms of use for these early Xmas presents that they'd ostensibly get used for food, new clothes, transportation (what do you call those big fan-boats they use on the bayou?), and other 'necessities' that would help the victims of the worst natural disaster get back on its feet.
In other news, the government just passed the 'disaster relief' tax in the form of a mandatory 10% of whatever decent people have in a bank account. You'll get hit with it when you try to withdraw your savings from the bank. Of course, when the mainstream press carps about this, they always paint it as, "we'd have plenty of money to help fix this problem, if we hadn't blown all that cash invading Iraq."? And they say doctors have god complexes.
What self-righteous editorialists don't see is that the government wouldn't have had the money, because taxpayers would possibly still have it.? But that's what you get for talking about the logic of a group who? thinks the word 'free' is a suitable prefix to the satisfaction of anyone's desires.?
So now the taxpayers don't have the money, but the hurricane victims do.? I'm trying to remember the exact moment during the Johnson administration when this became the new rules for playing "pass the buck."? And of course, I'm wondering who becomes the final beneficiary of the 2k debit cards, since I don't own a boutique, hotel, or mini-mall anywhere near Louisiana or Texas.? How soon do you think it'll be until bars and the lottery counter at the 7-11 are the prime recipient of these "magic debit cards?"? At least it'll make the bartenders in refugee town happy it's been quite a while since you could use food stamps to order Wild Turkey in most places.? "And make it a double, cause he's paying for it."? I wonder which picture of Bush they used for the photo-validation on the back of the card monkey, or idiot.
A better question is whether or not the drug cartel holed up in the Holiday Inn off Bourbon street gets the luxury of these cards.? Not that they won't get them soon enough, but I would like to know which Ebay vendor will sell them the machines that swipe the damn cards for purchases it'll make a good stock tip.? And finally!? We'll have concrete proof that the government is involved in the inner-city distribution of narcotics.? Hell, we'll have the damn MasterCard receipts to prove it!? And who knows, now that they're paid in advance, maybe the drug dealers will? register to vote too.? (Felons can absentee vote from prison in Louisiana, right?)?
I guess you could call this problem number one that I have with any sort of government handout no @#$%ing oversight to make sure the money gets used for its intended purposes.? And as always, abuses will take place.? Not to mention that the mayor of Vegas just launched a new ad campaign with comped rooms for disaster victims called, "Your debit card doubles as a room key!"? Nor the rumors that the guy on the corner will pay sixty-cents on the dollar for these cards, and in cash!? At least with charity, you'd have someone setting up beds to be slept in, spooning out meals to be eaten, and assisting the needy with medications.? Round out that metaphor on your own kids I'll give you the substitutions booze, whores, and drugs, but not in that order.? Two real issues come up will prostitutes and dealers give disaster relief discounts, or am I being bilked at the going rate?? And what does the defense department usually pay for a hotel suite in Houston?
But of course, that's their right; after all being the victim of anything checks off the box on the entitlement application.? And they can spend it as they please.? Just tell me something in advance though: when the 'victims of tragedy' burn through the first 2k, am I going to have to pony up more money to satisfy the government's unlimited power to tax? And of course, what bothers me more is that these debit cards are already seen as an entitlement as something someone is owed by the rest of the above-sea level dwellers of the nation. When I listen to news reports, the cries of help in New Orleans get drowned out by someone yelling, "I'm sitting in twenty inches of water.? If I don't get a hundred bucks an inch I'm firing .303 rounds at a helicopter!"
Alright, you could say I'm pissed and I am.? I can't wait to see how Louisiana school-kids react when they get their government mandated degrees from Harvard (read the fine print kids: you don't even have to go to class!? And don't worry about the bill, someone else will get it).? Most of this anger of course is in response to how the establishment press is treating this as a racial and/or class issue in America as if by some earlier policy decree that took place on Day Two of Creation, a proper government, run jointly by John Edwards and the New York Times could've solved this problem, in advance, and through empathy and kindness.? I can't wait to hear Edwards when he runs again in 2008:? You know, my illiterate hick dad was once flooded out of the bathroom of a Taco Bell the same day he got laid off from his job breaking down boxes in the factory. Those rich racist bastards are still out there Edwards stick it to em in 08!? Mistakes were made, as humans of both parties will always make them, but you can be damn sure that you'll hear the word Katrina mentioned in all the Presidential debates, with the same frequency as you hear the word 'poor,' and probably more often than you hear the word Hilary.? And from now on, when you talk to anyone with press credentials about the weather, make sure you're all for sending Mother Nature to sensitivity classes.?
Of course, to only call this mess a "natural disaster" is to miss the point entirely of what made it a disaster.? Wind storms kicked up thousands of acres of forest across Western Europe two years ago, but hardly anyone was killed or injured because most people don't live in the middle of a @#$%ing forest, or build their whole @#$%ing city below the level where the tide comes in.? Nor do they refuse offers and then, a day later, orders to evacuate a city quickly filling up with water (no, we're cool, we got plenty of paper towels, they're the quicker-picker upper). What made the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina a disaster was the combination of human judgment in reaction to the natural world.? And perfect hindsight is the surest form of hubris in finger pointing.? But the only human disaster most journalists in this country are willing to tolerate in the wake of this tragedy is 'government error,' particularly any we can pin on the hated President Bush. Personally, I think the press sucks in both directions, but blaming Bush for this disaster?? You've got a better argument for letting those weapons inspectors go back to Iraq.? A final note to the press:? talking about what you could've done in the past is not the same as a genuine prediction of the future.? We elect politicians who make trade offs, not lying charlatans who just take our money. Oh, wait.?
So I'm angry at the media blame game, but I'm pissed at the entitlement solution because it's at the root of the media speculations to begin with.? A policy failure, being unable to predict a natural disaster, does not at the same time fail to ensure that any potential future victim has cash on hand when disaster strikes (only an entitlement culture seeds
the ground for that, asshole).?? Reader Alert!? "If you're not a seasoned libertarian, or at least someone who takes personal responsibility seriously, it will appear that the author has just begun playing a round of "Blame the Victim.'"?? And if you define "victim" by someone who has to deal with the consequences of their own choices, then that's just what I'm doing.? Because the part of this two-thousand dollar solution that pisses me off the most is how it (further) kills personal responsibility on the part of individuals and moreover, how it makes them more and more likely to become dependent on the power structure of the government.? (I don't mind dependence on charity, because charity runs out right at the point of irresponsibility on the part of those it's to help.)?
So here's my short list of real questions in round one of 'blaming the victim:'? Why don't these people have their own debit cards,? and their own savings accounts with money set aside for potential emergencies like this one??? I can't wait till it's mass bailout day in Detroit when everyone's transmissions seize up at once.? "What do you mean we've got to have money ready for auto repairs?? Or get the oil changed every three thousand miles?? Help us out here, this is a natural disaster!"? So long as you mean human nature by that word, I agree.? And don't blame me (or racism, or class structure) because there's low unemployment and poverty in New Orleans.? Wipe the dust off the mirror and ask yourself why the @#$% you both A stayed there you're whole @#$%ing life; and B didn't leave before you could do laps in your living room.? Uneducated immigrants from other countries know that the first rule is: go to where the jobs are.
Or else, why the @#$% is my money now being used to support the lack of preparation in the form of bad habits?? And that's the worst of it for me.? I could give a @#$%'s all to anyone for how they want to live (or not) their lives productively, self-destructively, or even in a permanent vegetative state.? But what I do mind is Uncle Sam picking my pocket every time an unmanageable crisis comes up in someone else's life.? And it's not that the crisis is unforeseen that justifies my getting robbed that's the @#$%ing definition of a crisis, the sudden onset of disaster.? What pisses me off is being the mop man here, not for fate, but for the habits of others.? What the @#$%?? Did every one of the people getting debit cards skip class the day we ran a fire drill in elementary school??? And that's the point we prepare for disaster even though? we hope it never happens.? We prepare so that we're ready if it does.? (And I hate having to write like I'm a bumper sticker, but the last thing politicians tend to grasp is the obvious.)
But in order to save face, it seems, the Bush administration through? FEMA is handing out cash.? My cash, your cash, everyone's cash.? And all this happening even before they wait to see if charity could handle it.?? Christ, they let the Red Cross set up camp after 9-11, and raised a billion-plus dollars. (But of course, no one in New York at the time was getting gang raped by the victims of the disaster.) Now you know why I don't care if you accuse me of being cold-hearted about this.? It's because the government took and distributed my money before I could give it to charity.? You assumed that people would not be as generous about this as they were after a billion plus poured in September four years ago. You pre-empted my decision as to whether or not my money could be disposed of according to my moral values; and in effect, you stole from me.? Unlike everyone who regularly votes Democrat or Republican, I don't take high taxes as a given for the government to redistribute as a response to angered editorialists.? (Of course, you bastards, if you're reading a libertarian blog, you already realize that as reasons trumps emotion as quickly as justice beats out mercy.)?
And now they want to rebuild the city too.? Bush obviously focused too much on the Intelligent Design passages of the Bible and skipped over the parable detailing why you should build you house on solid ground.? So put up a 'new' New Orleans.? I can't wait to see how much that's going to cost me.