Benjamin Wallace-Wells conceded that the boatmen were “heroes,” but complained that Texas’s “libertarian” culture, leading to an “insufficiency of Houston’s city planning” and “willful ignorance of climate change” on the part of politicians, had made it necessary to rely on private citizens. “There is a cyclic pattern to the erosion of faith in government, in which politics saps the state’s capacity to protect people, and so people put their trust in other institutions (churches; self-organizing volunteer navies), and are more inclined to support anti-government politics,” Wallace-Wells wrote.Doesn't seem fair, I admit. If people had no alternative to government, they might be more afraid to oppose it. It's similar to the real (if unstated) argument in favor of monopolies. Choice is so inconvenient.
Unfair competition
A hilarious New Yorker article, which I won't link to because it's linked and summarized in this better one, complains that volunteerism causes people to doubt that they need to depend on government. Funny, that's just why I like volunteerism and strong private institutions.
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11 comments:
The linked Washington Post article is excellent as well.
LittleRed1
To paraphrase, with all the BS removed-
"why won't you let me boss you around?"
Strip away all the fancy talk, and that is what it boils down to.
LR< you're not kidding- that piece is great.
"There are no regulators to check their fishing licenses or whether they have a fire extinguisher and life preservers on board, which they don’t. They’re used to maneuvering through the cypress of Caddo Lake or the hydrilla and coontail of the Atchafalaya, where the water might be four feet or it might rise to 18, and the stinking bog is called “coffee grinds” because of the way boots sink in it. Spending hours in monsoon rains doesn’t bother them, because they know ducks don’t just show up on a plate, and they’ve learned what most of us haven’t, that dry comfort is not the only thing worth seeking."
I'm pretty sure the "most of us" she refers to in the last sentence is WaPo readers. Plenty of regular Americans understand this, thank God.
It is disturbing that what was far and away the most common POV even among liberals not so long ago is regarded as troublesome and surprising. The huge majority of Democrats up until at least Carter would have assented to the idea that natural supports were better, claiming only that sometimes they weren't enough and the government had to step in.
Hell, I'll bet even most Bill Clinton voters thought that. We have dropped far, and recently.
AVI-
Yes, things seem to be accelerating. Sort of like the marble in the gravity well at the kids museum. I don't know what is at the bottom of that hole (or don't want to admit the thought) but it is getting closer and closer.
Perhaps we should make it more of a practice to provide competition to government, and not only in emergencies.
"Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state." - Benito Mussolini
And the Progressives have the gall to call us fascists while they complain about people wanting to do things without relying on government. Sheesh...
raven - I agree.
The thing that bothers them most is that they can compel these actions the same way they talk about redistributing tax money as if it was charity.
can s/b can't
Good point, Matt.
As an indication of things accelerating, consider the number of times in the past several years you read about some kid's lemonade stand getting ticketed for not having the right permits. Out of control bureaucracy!
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