OK, I am becoming a Libertarian

Standard Bush administration cycle: tear down an agency, pocket funds for corrupt privatization, wait for catastrophe, say that the catastrophe proves that government doesn’t work, pick another agency and return to step 1.

“I guess FEMA couldn’t figure out the last leg of the trip or something?”

Scaling up from some 700 people at the Hyatt to 30,000 people at the Superdome should be instant?

With current technology, personnel, and equipment, there is no way to evacuate a city the size of NO in 48 hours. There is, also, no way to mobilize a perfect feeding, medical, security and evacuation scenario to 100,000+ stranded, scattered, and hidden hurricane victims in less much less than the time it has taken.

I am more astounded every day at the enormous and ludicrous expectations of perfect “America” in the face of this massive hurricane.

It’s one thing to criticize a 200 year history of a country that led to a social structure that allowed poor African Americans to live in an unprotected swamp. But this enormous natural disaster is not a culmination of that.

Well, they could have, you know, brought water and some medical supplies to the Convention Center. Don’t insult our intelligence.

eudoxis – as a former military truck driver, I somewhat agree with you (people vastly underestimate logistical hurdles), but honestly: you could feed/water thirty-thousand people with a couple convoys of 5-tons hauling water buffalos a week… not impossible for a National Guard unit, even one depleted by OIF (and they aren’t all in Iraq).

In the meantime, am calculating that if this is 1927 Flood, we’ve got two years ’till Depression starts, five until the vets storm D.C., and fourteen until we go to war with China.

The wonder is: do the Freepers, et.al., look forward to this? A colleague of my wife’s (thankfully: a contractor!) remarked in passing last week, “Well, I guess the time IS coming!”

… actually, on further calculation, make that: a couple convoys a day.

I can’t quite figure out why observing governmental incompetence (to whatever degree there was) would make one a libertarian. The connection escapes me. The “lesson” of governmental incompetence would be to improve government. No? Unless the author thinks that government cannot, even in theory, do anything correctly, in which case watching it do something foolish should make no difference. Oh well.

How do rock festivals happen?

Pure silliness. Rock festivals are physically prepared by all involved for months in advance.

Only in an ideal world is it possible to move unprepared, unorganized, unable, and often, unwilling people in a smooth and fast transaction using a system already strained by those who were leaving on their own. Seemingly simple decisions such as which unique individuals to move first, the most needy or the most accessible, etc, or assessing their needs for the move (what to pack) takes extraordinary time even with a practiced routine. New Orleans simply could not make up for a lack of preparedness and for dismal local conditions in such a short amount of time.

After the storm hindsight is easy, but at every step a vast decision tree was waiting and the right decisions can’t possibly be made during a natural catastrophe because of lack of communication, inherent weakness of command structures that have never been operational, a dearth of information about the location of people, disorganized and incompetent personnel, restricted access, and so forth.

Even if it’s entirely human to direct anger at the actions of people rather than nature, I think that the size of the hurricane should mitigate some of that.

It’s another myth that people, especially Americans, can be risk free with well laid plans.

(I was raised in Europe during much of the Delta Werken discussions and building. Experts there say that the levees cannot protect against the 200 year floods (for which they were built)because of underestimations of wave lengths during storms, soil reduction inside the levees, increased rainfall and rising sea levels. The risks stand high because of heavy industry and large populations in that area. Still, “Luctor et Emergo!”)

Actually, this was quite a libertarian episode: everyone being free to take care of themselves as they wish and according to their ability. Those with money were helped, those without left to rot and die. How much more libertarian could it be?

… I am not trying to make excuses but let’s put the logistical problems in perspective.

… decisions can’t possibly be made during a natural catastrophe because of lack of communication, inherent weakness of command structures that have never been operational, a dearth of information about the location of people, disorganized and incompetent personnel, restricted access…

And you can file these comments in the of “Nobody anticipated that those levees might break” bin. My guess is that david and eudoxis could each spend an afternoon thinking about potential natural disasters in their own cities and figure out different scenarios, consider various options, identify some potential problems and put some sort of plan together in a 3-ring binder. Keeping in mind that FEMA stands for Federal Emergency Management Agency, I assumed that there was an office somewhere in WDC where people created plans for managing emergencies using the resources of the federal government. People who were trained in this sort of thing, or who at least read one or two “Worst Case Scenario” booklets; people who tried to work out some of these logistical issues in advance.

And I further assumed that “managing emergencies” included a primary focus on tending to the needs of the displaced, the elderly and the infirmed, the ones who had just lost everything. Instead, we have tens of thousands of people stranded for days with no water, no bathrooms, and no information, and it is being broadcast across the world on live television. If just some of the initial reports are true, FEMA was actively obstructing relief efforts. Here’s one example:

Far from deferring to state or local officials, FEMA asserted its authority and made things worse, Mr. Broussard [president of Jefferson Parish, south of New Orleans] complained on “Meet the Press.”

When Wal-Mart sent three trailer trucks loaded with water, FEMA officials turned them away, he said. Agency workers prevented the Coast Guard from delivering 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel, and on Saturday they cut the parish’s emergency communications line, leading the sheriff to restore it and post armed guards to protect it from FEMA, Mr. Broussard said.

(Curiously, there was no need to take a trip to Wal-Mart, as Wal-Mart was attempting to deliver.)

Yes, evacuating those left behind was a logistical nightmare involving myriad levels of government as well as private companies. The failure to provide food, water, toilets, and leadership when those resources were at hand, however, goes beyond incompetent execution and strikes me as depraved indifference. I make no apologies for expecting my government to do better, and for being ashamed that it added to the suffering and the misery and the death count in New Orleans.

Hyatt had a convoy arrive by Wednesday?

Yes yes, some will add it to the “incompetence” column. But this ones grows so much i begin to look elsewhere. Maybe the only beggining of a plan that was applied, the first reflex of the goverment, was to control the blacks.

Everywhere it is said there was no plan, or the plan wasn’t applied, or badly applied. I’d like to know why the police was holding checkpoints (as seen on fox news, people), blocking people fleeing, and if this was in application of a plan. I’d like to know if their plan in case of flood, and the only one that was applied in this mess, wasn’t something like, say, “make sure black people don’t cause no trouble”.

Does anyone have any idea why FEMA would cut emergency communication lines? I can’t think of any good reason to do so, and I’m trying. I am hoping there is one.

Any hollywood director would have planned a better rescue and evacuation plan than this governement…

It appears there was stiff state resistance to federalizing the disaster. MS had national guard and FEMA running the show the day after the disaster and things have gone comparatively well there (even though they were hit much harder). The governor of LA didn’t call in the NG for police duties until Thursday and would not allow Bush to put FEMA in charge of all operations as late as Friday. The poor security situation is completely the fault of the governor as she was responsible for calling up the NG. 200+ cops deserted their posts? Anyone of them who mentioned security as a reason can be put on the governor.

When the Congressional investigation ends, we are probably going to find that the poorest most corrupt state in the Union has a government to fit. They will find that the state’s inability to function in the disaster coupled with their unwillingness to relinquish control is what caused this.

winna,
If someone cut communications lines to a Sheriff’s command post, that is probably a felony. Just because some president of a parish who’s never going to win another election is making that claim (and trying to cover his rear), doesn’t make it true.

A full-scale repair effort for oil infrastructure was also planned for and well under way within 24 hours.

It never fails… some people are lost without the belief in an omnipotent state… otherwise, they’d not just be on their own, they’d have to take responsibility for being on their own!

And yet, any beliefs to that effect in NOLA were powerless to change the reality that the Feds cannot deliver.

The size of the total Federal budget has nothing to do with actual resources, given that most of it is transfers. My sister and I could pass a $100 dollar bill back and forth 10,000 times, but that doesn’t give us a budget of $1,000,000 to spend on anything. Use real numbers; you’ll be able to make your point without looking silly.

Going higher in this comment thread, the government couldn’t do what Hyatt did because big organizations can never react as quickly as small. No one at Hyatt was going to get fired for ordering this. Someone at FEMA doing it might have moved resources that a higher up had decided were needed elsewhere. You can have the benefits of scale (large effect) or distributed individuals (fast, flexible), but not both.

What a dumb title, when even the author has to post a correction pointing out that the content of the post contradicts it.

Yeah, it would be pretty silly for anyone to become a libertarian based solely on events like these, and knowing Kieran’s aversion to the philosophy, I thought the gist of the post title was pretty clear.

That being said, many people, including me, who frequently favor less government, do so b/c they believe the government is inefficient at delivering services. Obviously, this goes beyond the pale of what is an acceptable level of inefficiency or gross incompetence. But given what the political process is, I view it as inevitable from time to time. Of course, I have also noticed that this perspective is not shared by many.

If the point of the post escaped you, derek, it is possible that you are not familiar with Kieran’s politics and with his sense of humor. It’s not your fault. But it certainly isn’t a dumb title. It’s a funny title.

“Don’t tell me that isn’t within the operational capacities of the U.S. army.”

Yes, please stop confusing Kieran with facts. After all, it’s hard to tell those tidy moralistic stories he likes, when the facts get in the way.

soubz, how is the statement “correct”? It’s in the imperative mood, not the declarative, so, as I read it, it’s not something that even pretends to be correct.

Kieran may know an awful lot about some things, but it isn’t clear that those things include the operational capacities of the United States military. And, as it it isn’t clear that the operational capacities of the US mililitary is one of his areas of expertise, it might be–can it be said?–premature to offer an unqualified opinion on the subject. Even if the delay in offering such an opinion prevents one from telling the kind of stories one likes to tell.

Eudoxis writes that many of us have a ludicrous expectation of a “perfect” America, one that could quickly and adequately respond to Katrina. I agree in part. Our expectations of what our government can do are very high, maybe unrealistic.

But I blame the Bush administration for those expectations. The Bush administration told us that we could blast Iraq back into the stone age and then rebuild the country as a democracy. The message here has been “we can do anything” because we are the world’s only superpower. But if we can allegedly reshape an entire country, why can’t we have a better response system setup for predictable tragedies like Katrina?

In an effort to provide some clarification, I-55 was impassable into New Orleans proper from either side at one point. What is the source of information regarding the Hyatt?

Baton Rouge, LA

I blame Bush too. He is responsible for the governor of LA and mayor of New Orleans. He should be fired for hiring them. Oh wait, wrong country. Sorry…the mayor and governor totally failed their constituents by failing to do a total evacuation and to take care of emergency response for the first 2-3 days as they are legally required to.

Impeach Nagin! Impeach Blanco!

Mark, that’s a very good post. Of course, on the essentials, it emphatically disagrees with what Kieran’s insistent understanding of the world, in which no delay–and certainly not a delay of 48 hours–is understandable. After all, people leave stadia every day, or something completely irrelevant like that.

Now, if one starts with a different understanding of the facts–with the understanding that, as the NOLA newspaper blog reportted, food (in the form of more than 300,000 MREs) and water was provided to the Superdome prior to the storm–then any delay in providing additional food and water to the Superdome might be understood as simply a matter of priorities. On this line of thought, the Superdome has food and water, while many other places in the 90,000 square mile region do not, and even though these other places aren’t on television, they are no less real for that. If those are the facts–and as always, we really don’t know much right now–then Kieran’s insistence on providing additional food and water to those folks he can see, at the expense of those he can’t, must be understood as something truly monstrous: we should afflict particular individuals, and comfort others, not based on need or available resources, but simply based on the level of comfort we can give those academics watching the scene on television at home.

robin, I do understand that the US army is in the logistics business. That doesn’t mean they move quickly; to the contrary. (BTW: I don’t doubt that we could have bombed LA very quickly–it isn’t that the US can’t respond militarily very quickly, just that we can’t deploy troops on the ground very quickly.)

Of course, on the essentials, it emphatically disagrees with what Kieran’s insistent understanding of the world, in which no delay—and certainly not a delay of 48 hours—is understandable.

48 hours would have been awful enough. It was far worse than that.

“And he said, ‘Yeah, Momma, somebody’s coming to get you. Somebody’s coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody’s coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody’s coming to get you Thursday. Somebody’s coming to get you on Friday’ and she drowned Friday night.”

John, that’s very clever stuff, and I’m sure those in the choir find your preaching very persuasive. I particularly like your willingness to look past your narrow partisan interests, to serve your broader ideological interests–you’ll throw over Democrats, if necessary, if they’re not the right sort of Democrats. High principle? It depends on what you mean…

UK–I think you’re confused about the subject. Kieran didn’t see that poor woman die on her tv, so he doesn’t have any immediate interest in what happened to her. Further, it isn’t clear to me how supplying food and water to the Superdome (which had food and water) and the convention center (which didn’t) would somehow rescue this woman from a place 20 miles away. Is there something I’m missing? It seems to me that the impact of supplying food and water, in some cases to those who already had food and water, would have meant diverting resources away from search-and-rescue. But you were in favor of that diversion, weren’t you? I mean, if you’d been in charge, no one would have been rescued in Jefferson Parish until the people that the tv crews were showing were given food, water, a shower, new clothes, and an evacuation to a place of their choosing.

Finally, if you can find anyone anywhere in the Bush administration or elsewhere who has made a serious argument that the “vesting clause” of the constitution gives the president the power to do anything he might want to do in the event of a natural disaster, then, please, provide a link, a quote, some evidence for that position. (If you don’t know what the “vesting clause” is, then skip it, because you’re in over your head as it is.)

But you were in favor of that diversion, weren’t you?

Thomas, you clearly know more about my opinions than I myself do, so there’s no reason for me to stick around. You just go ahead and debate the Uncle Kvetch that lives in your head. Enjoy.

I personally will not be so quick to place fault on the mayor of New Orleans or the Federal government’s speed in movement. In accord with the Stafford Act (42 USCS @ 5121-5206) jurisdiction over declaration of a disaster is placed first in the hands of the state. Following the formal request by the State of Louisiana the Federal Government is then allowed to start the process. Blanco’s request as I found it via LexisNexis was dated Saturday the 27th, less than 48 hours before the hurricane. The approval to start the process of the Federal government was dated Saturday the 27th. According to the state wide evacuation map, it takes 30 hours for traffic evacuation from New Orleans http://www.lsp.org/pdf/Web_StateMap2.pdf

It does not follow logically that 30 hours of traffic not including the creation of public awareness to act should be placed into the paper work request pile 48 hours before the event.

What events transpired post the hurricane are a whole different ordeal, but the fact remains that the purpose of evacuation was to not be where we are now.

I qualify my statements with the fact that I am a Louisiana resident and have been here the entire time. I am not writing this supporting one party over another, but I can not expect steps 2+ to work with the first one was not followed.

Pointing blame does not necessarily create the action to resolve the problem.

Baton Rouge, LA

Efficient government is like a non-stinging scorpion. Aesop’s fable always ends the same way – with both the scorpion and toad drowning because of the nature of the scorpion.

Government will always tend toward a system that people want to reward their friends with positions instead of finding the best person. Where they will play by some rulebook instead of doing things which make sense (large, bureaucratic corporations do the same) because they can’t be blamed. Where they won’t take risks or hurry because they will suffer a lot if they can be fingered and blamed for initiative, but will generally be ignored if they make sure paperwork is done (consider the FDA – approve a thalidomide and you’re deadmeat – hold a life-saving drug off the market for an extra year where 2000 die – you will just be thought of as being careful since no one will know the names of the 2000 dead).

The market works on incentives. If people got a big bonus for getting water to NOLA, it would be overflowing with fresh water. Instead you want the army – which is trained to do war – to be nice and turn into teamsters or longshoremen, and be really good at it. They have a logistics section, but that is set up to help the army, not something like rescue.

Government can’t be efficient – the incentives are more perverse than Abu Gharib. The market can be. Even non-profits or private citizens can be.

So as often as we do the experiment, the scorpion and toad drown when the scorpion stings the toad, but people still imagine we can just find a better scorpion or toad and it will all work better next time.

I’ve heard insanity defined as expecting a different result when you do the same thing. While the market might not be socially optimal, Libertarians aren’t insane enough to expect government to work except by a lucky exception and typically when it is destroying something.