The running thread about 'defending' supplies, legal ramifications about hoarding etc. have brought forth many regional bits and pieces along with the "my cold dead hand" kneejerk response. If the recent disaster/debacle in New Orleons has revealed anything, it's that our governments are whoefully unprepared for disasters of this magnitude. If we can't even evacuate a modern city, what makes anyone think learned men and women sitting on court benches have pondered hoarding Pepsi Cola and toilet paper? Such issues rarely elicite candidacy to the Supreme Court. Firearm magazines have devoted entire legal columns to deadly force. I have yet to see a stack of Guns and Ammo entered as evidence in a shooting case. The truth at present is nobody really knows what 'laws' or emergency measures would be implemented; not you,me, the governors or the president. Until then fall back on Elmer Fudd's mantra, " be quiet, wery,wery quiet." <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Elmer is my hero, so I must correct your pronunciation.
It's "Vewy Vewy Quiet !"

Get it wight you wascally modewator!!

You know, I consider myself to be a fairly well-read, thoughtful individual. I have never been one to go on a half-cocked tirade against the government. I understand that government=bureaucracy, and that bureaucracy=fubar. But I have always thought that the fubar effect could be managed. But perhaps we have gotten to the point where our government--even what we consider to be our "local" government--has simply grown so huge that at best it is unresponsive, and at worst (like Katrina) it positively becomes a hindrance.

I grew up thinking that the closer government was to the people, the better the response. I'm not sure it makes any difference anymore.

Regards, Vince

I should have known better to step on a land mine...

There is still some level of accountability when dealing with local government officials. All other levels have become unresponsive, bloated, insatiable, self preserving monstrosities. Bastiat said it best "Government is the great fiction wherein men strive to live at the expense of other men".
My more modern take is that Government has evolved into a jobs program for second rate lawyers.
We'd be far better served by stronger local government, and state and federal governments limited to part-time assemblies. Mutual self-defense, insuring a stable money supply, and a minimally invasive amount of regulation of interstate commerce is what the founders envisioned. Arguments are made that this type of limited government would not be effective in todays more complex world, but I disagree. Heck, how much worse could it be? You could make a pretty strong argument that we'd be better off paying the politicians a salary to stay home and do nothing. We'd still be out the money we pay them, but they wouldn't be spending all the rest.

See my earlier post citing Davey Crockett's admonition.

Copywight 2005 Elmer Fudd. All wights wesewved.

My impression is that the slow response to Katrina was largely due to your President putting people in charge because they helped his campaign rather than because they were the best man for the job. You guys voted Bush in for a second term so I guess you got what you wanted.

Bah, you didn't know.

Now, don't move your foot. If you wiggle, it might go off. :P

The way it works over here in the US is that the local level of government has to request the help for it to come. It is not something that can be “forced” on to the local levels because it is something they “need”. One of my friends is the emergency response coordinator for Florida and was ready to send her people over directly post hurricane but could not until requested to do so. She also had to send people over to teach them how to request and whom to request from since many of the local level governments had not bothered to even gain that much knowledge. Our federal government had communicated on a fairly strong level to the Louisiana state government as well as to the New Orleans city government the need to evacuate its people to little effect.

Were they slow in getting there?? Yea maybe, but they had a faster response time than during several storms in Florida.
I have lived in every one of the states that got hit during this year’s hurricane season and can give you a personal observation that the results of the storm in Louisiana were sown many years ago by the people of Louisiana who put up with a corrupt government on every level and let their officials run their state as it pleases them.

Brangdon, as a Canadian living 6 miles from the US border, I'm pretty sure I get a lot more US news than you do, and I probably take a much more active interest in US affairs than you.

I am appalled that you would insinuate that Bush was responsible for the failings of the Katrina response. Certainly FEMA failed the test, but anybody who has spent any time studying the lessons of Katrina will tell you that there were failures at many levels, with some of the worst at the state and local level. What ever your thoughts of President Bush, you can’t place the Katrina failings on him alone.

The important thing to take away from Katrina, are the lessons we can all learn by studying the response. I pray it never happens, but it would be interesting to see how most G8 countries would respond to a disaster of Katrina proportions. I doubt many would do as well as the US did, and I know for a fact that my own would do much worse.

I originally thought allong similar lines to you, but after looking into things and finding out how things work in the US, I discovered my impressions were wrong.

I guess the same could be said of Blair regarding the subway bombings then.

That seems about as absurd a connection as the one you made.

Don't sling mud.

Yes, we did: lower taxes, a superb Supreme Court chief justice, the end of the ridiculous "Assault-Looking Weapons Ban" (took some turns, though), and most importantly a proactive policy towards stopping terrorism.

While FEMA definitely made some mistakes, the gross incompetence of Louisiana's & New Orleans' leadership was the chief element of failure regarding Katrina.

Feel free to stay in the UK.

Amen to that.

I am currently studying FEMA's "Citizen's Guide to Disaster Assistance" to earn a certificate. It seems clear to me the mayor and the governor knew little about disaster mitigation and the rules and regulations regarding Federal response in the wake of natural disasters.

-- Craig