We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
|
I see that Instapundit has started a bit of a blogstorm with his campaign against government spending. Together with the Pork Report blog, a grass-roots campaign against government excesses might well take off.
I just wish I could imagine this happening in Australia.
Be that as it may, I wonder what the anti-Porkers will make of the latest NASA plans to resume manned missions to the Moon. It is all very good, but NASA admits it will cost $104 Billion and what is the betting that figure will grow as time goes by?
And this drives to the heart of any anti-Pork campaign. What is pork, and what is legitimate government spending?
I like New York. It is very different from London although they both share the same characteristics of a big city. What I like most about New York is its sense of history. The Art Deco architecture, the 1930s feel to the city, the strange effect of light in the streets that comes through the skyscrapers.
Last night I was on a yacht cruise going from New Jersey and sailing around west Manthattan, the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island all evening. As I could not talk, having lost my voice, it was time to watch the view. It was a spectacular one, beautiful and inspiring. Going around the Ellis Island, I thought about all those who saw the same sight before me. There were many people from my country (it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire then) coming to America in 19th century and one thing I am sure of is that their experience of New York was very different from mine in 21st century. Although the comparision may be rather pointless, as I am coming from London these days, the ‘going to America’ is an integral part of the Slovak history that comes to mind when seeing what to them was America’s ‘front doors to freedom’.
cross-posted from Media Influencer
I happen to be in New York on the anniversary of 9/11 and I visited the WTC site today. Alas, I did not get to see much as the place is open only to the relatives of the victims, may they be remembered when decisions are made…
-thumb.jpg)
 Photo: Copyright Dale Amon, all rights reserved
It is fair to say that I do not always agree with what I read over at the Lew Rockwell blog, considering its position on foreign policy to be sometimes naive to the point of downright obtuse. (That should get the comments fired up nicely, ed). That said, this article drives home very effectively what might be one of the few silver linings of the terrible effects of Hurricane Katrina: it may undermine respect for the wonders of Big Government and underscore the importance of local initiative in times of great danger.
And this article by David Kopel certainly adds to disquiet about what certain state officials are up to.
I ran across this via one of the professional lists I read. It is a fascinating peek behind the scenes of a datacentre that kept going right through Katrina and well into the worst of the aftermath.
The many people like this were (and are) the real heroes of New Orleans.
If you want to read a splendid and truly hilarious article about US politics from the Irish Times, written by Newton Emerson, then go take a peek at Slugger O’Toole, where the entire article has been reproduced with permission.
And the reason it is so damn funny is that it is entirely correct.
A hat tip to Glenn Reynolds for this link to video from Fox News about the total incompetence of the state and local governments and their interference with those who could have given real help: The American Red Cross and the Salvation Army.
There really need to be some rolling heads in Louisiana and I suggest the Mayor of New Orleans be one of the first to meet “La Madame”.
Additional thoughts: If you remove all the weasel words and boil the whole strategy down to its essence, what the government plan in New Orleans seems to be is: starve and disarm the local american populace so they will make less trouble during the forced relocation program.
The job of aid agencies is to supply aid. It is not to tell people what to do. It is not to kidnap people from their homes. It is not to violate their Second Amendment rights and steal their property. It is not to prevent people from creating spontaneous order. It is not to prevent those who attempt to evacuate themselves from doing so.
Perhaps I can get some sleep now.
How else can you interpret the authorities intention to disarm people in New Orleans? We are not talking looters here, we are talking about people with legal weapons.
This is not the first article with this title I have written but if some of the accounts coming out of New Orleans prove to be genuine and fair accounts, then I suspect a whole new generation of people who agree with my tagline have just been created on the Gulf Coast of the United States. This was written by a pair of paramedics who were trapped in New Orleans.
We decided we had to save ourselves. So we pooled our money and came up with $25,000 to have ten buses come and take us out of the City. Those who did not have the requisite $45.00 for a ticket were subsidized by those who did have extra money. We waited for 48 hours for the buses, spending the last 12 hours standing outside, sharing the limited water, food, and clothes we had. We created a priority boarding area for the sick, elderly and new born babies. We waited late into the night for the “imminent” arrival of the buses. The buses never arrived. We later learned that the minute the arrived to the City limits, they were commandeered by the military.
These are clearly admirable self-reliant people here, not a bunch of welfare addled ‘do nothings’ incapable of independent thinking. They came up with a solution to their problem and the state simply stole it from them.
And if this is true, I can think of no better justification to openly state that people should own firearms to defend themselves not just against criminals but from agents of the state when there is a crisis.
We organized ourselves and the 200 of us set off for the bridge with great excitement and hope. As we marched pasted the convention center, many locals saw our determined and optimistic group and asked where we were headed. We told them about the great news. Families immediately grabbed their few belongings and quickly our numbers doubled and then doubled again. Babies in strollers now joined us, people using crutches, elderly clasping walkers and others people in wheelchairs. We marched the 2-3 miles to the freeway and up the steep incline to the Bridge. It now began to pour down rain, but it did not dampen our enthusiasm.
As we approached the bridge, armed Gretna sheriffs formed a line across the foot of the bridge. Before we were close enough to speak, they began firing their weapons over our heads. This sent the crowd fleeing in various directions. As the crowd scattered and dissipated, a few of us inched forward and managed to engage some of the sheriffs in conversation. We told them of our conversation with the police commander and of the commander’s assurances. The sheriffs informed us there were no buses waiting. The commander had lied to us to get us to move.
We questioned why we couldn’t cross the bridge anyway, especially as there was little traffic on the 6-lane highway. They responded that the West Bank was not going to become New Orleans and there would be no Superdomes in their City. These were code words for if you are poor and black, you are not crossing the Mississippi River and you were not getting out of New Orleans.
And the real stunner…
Unfortunately, our sinking feeling (along with the sinking City) was correct. Just as dusk set in, a Gretna Sheriff showed up, jumped out of his patrol vehicle, aimed his gun at our faces, screaming, “Get off the fucking freeway”. A helicopter arrived and used the wind from its blades to blow away our flimsy structures. As we retreated, the sheriff loaded up his truck with our food and water.
Once again, at gunpoint, we were forced off the freeway. All the law enforcement agencies appeared threatened when we congregated or congealed into groups of 20 or more. In every congregation of “victims” they saw “mob” or “riot”. We felt safety in numbers. Our “we must stay together” was impossible because the agencies would force us into small atomized groups.
In the pandemonium of having our camp raided and destroyed, we scattered once again. Reduced to a small group of 8 people, in the dark, we sought refuge in an abandoned school bus, under the freeway on Cilo Street. We were hiding from possible criminal elements but equally and definitely, we were hiding from the police and sheriffs with their martial law, curfew and shoot-to-kill policies.
Ok, now would someone like to tell me why these people (a) should not have been armed (b) would not have been entirely justified using deadly force against the ‘law enforcement’ officials who, at gunpoint, did their damnedest to reduce their chances of survival?
We have heard accounts by authorities of crazed looters inexplicably shooting at contractors who were just trying to repair essential infrastructure. You know what? Maybe that is what happened and maybe not. I find myself thinking the official version of a great deal of what went on is far from the truth. Yet all we are ever going to see on CNN is pictures of heroic cops and National Guardsmen saving the day.
Unless this account proves to be a hoax or a gross misrepresentation of what happened, nothing less than a root and branch purge of the power structures in Louisiana will be enough. This is a true national scandal of the highest magnitude. I am appalled but not entirely surprised.
I am sure very few readers have the slightest doubt about the Samizdata Editorial opinion on forced removal of sovereign individuals from their property. It is without a doubt their right to use deadly force to defend their property. If there were a confrontation of homeowners and the State, it would not be the first time there has been a Southern showdown between residents and corrupt officials. Although I doubt it will happen in this case, a good dose of property rights enforcement by free men and women would certainly be a pleasant thing to see on the nightly telly in place of the victim of the day image.
Local government officials are claiming they are worried about disease and the danger of gas explosions in the flood and hurricane effected areas in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Poppycock. The population density there is hardly enough at this time to be cause for worries of any massive outbreak. Both are risks which individuals may choose to accept. It is not the place of the State to second guess the wisdom or foolishness of the individual citizen.
Now, finally, in my round about way I come to General Inge. In his recent press briefing he is ducking and weaving on the issue of committing violence upon peaceful American citizens:
GEN. INGE: I’ve been watching the news this morning and I understand that this is an issue. The situation as I know it now is that civil authorities in Louisiana and New Orleans are discussing this issue. It’s not clear to us what the exact state of the mission is. We would believe — we are told there are some 900 policemen in New Orleans. We would certainly see forcing evacuation as a first priority for them to work. If the authorities in the state of Louisiana chose to use their National Guard in a state status, that would certainly be permissible and their call.
When this turns into a law enforcement issue, which we perceive forced evacuation is, regular troops would not be used.
I sense relief in his words that his troops do not have to take part in this foolishness. I also sense he is politely sidestepping what he really wants to say about the local authorities.
Addendum: One of our commentariat supplied this reference. Read it. The State Is Not Your Friend.
I have read a comment that said that New Orleans had large numbers of school buses, literally hundreds of them, which were not only not used by local government to move people out of New Orleans, they were abandoned to the floodwaters. Is this true?
Now presumably the local authorities in New Orleans were uniquely aware of the economic situation of their poorer subjects and thus aware of their lack of motor transport when they started telling people to evacuate New Orleans.
If that fleet of buses was indeed available right there within the city, can anyone explain why, rather than encourage people to assemble at the Superbowl without any logistic planning in place to actually cope with them or plans move them elsewhere promptly, why were these buses not used to move those displaced people to several sites not so close to New Orleans (i.e. somewhere the transportation and logistic infrastructure were not so badly disrupted) and then use those same buses to provide logistic support for a few days for the relocated people. Presumably Louisiana has contingency fuel stockpiles that are enough for a few hundred buses for, say, 4 to 5 days (i.e. the peak crisis period)?
I realise that logistical planning is not a game for amateurs but seeing as the transportation assets were just sitting there near the people who needed transportation, surely there must have been a way for the city government to have avoided what happened in New Orleans even if the situation in more rural areas may have been more problematic. Am I am missing something?
Update: Take a look at this. Yes, the buses were indeed there and some people did indeed get evacuated… but guess who?
|
Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
|
