A political post

For a while now I've been exploring the pros and cons of transitioning to a world with smaller governments and more private autonomy. Part of this process has left me to wonder what services should a minimized government still be expected to provide. I used to feel that one of those services would be disaster relief -- until we all saw how badly FEMA responded to the devastation of hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

I would like to believe in a West Wing style vision of government that truly wants to serve the country as best it knows how. I would love it if there were idealists like Sam and Toby running every department (brought down to Earth with the occasional reality check by Ainsley Hayes). But we now have a government that is the exact opposite of that sort of vision -- a government of self-serving cronyism, incompetence, and graft. I'd like to think it'll all be over after 2008 when the country comes to its senses and puts some decent people back in charge. However, we just can't depend on that. It should have been painfully obvious last time just how bad this administration is, and the country put them back in charge again anyway. And now New Orleans has paid the price for it. Thus my desire to make government as small and harmless as possible. So that every few years when half the country loses its mind, we don't all have to suffer for it.

Now, though, my questions is: if a strong federal government isn't going to respond to a disaster like Katrina, who is? Can we count on the private sector to take care of it? On the one hand, I think yes. During Katrina we saw how Wal-Mart was able to get supplies to people in places FEMA couldn't figure out how to get to, and we saw how every private news organization had more information about what was going on than Michael Brown did (the most famous example being Ted Koppel's incredulous remark: "Don't you guys watch television? Don't you guys listen to the radio?") And of course there are NGOs like The Red Cross, the Salvation Army, and Doctors w/o Borders, all of which do a great job and to which Americans give generously in times of need.

But are those organizations enough? It seems to me that Americans are largely neglectful of charity when horror isn't staring us in the face. And we can't afford to wait until after a disaster breaks out to make sure that our police and fire departments are well funded, well trained, and well supplied. Without the government demanding people fork over a significant portion of their income every year, could the American people be trusted, on their own, to give as much as necessary to making sure we have services in place to handle the next Katrina or 9/11?

I don't think so. Culturally, we are not yet capable of understanding how we help ourselves by helping our fellow man, by putting money away for the proverbial rainy day. We are now too dependent on having someone else think about and plan for our problems, and it will take a painful cultural upheaval before that changes. I'd like to think that the events of the last few years, as they continue to culminate in things like the disastrous FEMA response, would serve as the starting gun for that change, but I somehow doubt they will. So now I am left to wonder, what will it take before we start imagining a new type of government, and embracing a new philosophy of responsibility for our selves and fellow countrymen?