Senator Barbara Boxer quotes Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney as follows:
"During a Republican primary debate last year, Governor Romney was asked whether the federal role in emergency management should be handed over to the states. "Absolutely," he responded. "Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that's the right direction. And if you can go even further and send it back to the private sector, that's even better.""LawPundit is a political centrist and very much a pragmatic realist.
We belong to no political party and find rabid partisanship odious.
We dislike big government, but see the need for government where needed.
We do not pay attention to what people SAY but rather what they DO, especially in the case of emergencies, which separate the men from the boys.
When the chips are down, who is THERE, and who is not?
The vast damage caused by Hurricane Sandy is now primarily in the hands of the President of the United States and federal government agencies, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), working together with federal, state, and local government agencies or charitable institutions.
Tax dollars viz. donations by "the people" -- that's YOU, the reader -- pay for most of that. TAXES are a part of civilized survival. Be happy they exist.
Just read As Hurricane Sandy Approaches, FEMA Urges Residents to Follow Directions of Local Officials and Hurricane.
Not only were many federal, state and local GOVERNMENT workers involved in alerting and preparing the country to and for the coming danger of a gigantic hurricane, but masses of public servants are now busy and will long be busy rectifying the damage that has been done. Without the federal government, that damage would have been substantially greater than it was and the loss of life would have been much higher.
But who should pay for all the damage and loss?
Last year we wrote at LawPundit that the monopolist Apple had more cash in the bank than the federal government -- an impossible situation caused by bad judgment at all levels of society, especially in the political sphere. Why not have Apple foot the bill?
You take out of the pot, you put back in. Those should be the rules.
So, we wondered, what is this modern monopolistic Midas, Apple, doing in the present disaster situation to help their customers, customers in a country which serves as the operating and legal base for their vast profit-making? Indeed, what are any of the big multi-national private companies in the United States doing in this emergency other than making a token donation?
You can read in the following link that Apple in its generous heart, and of course as an optimal means of advertising THEMSELVES, opened iTunes to donations by YOU -- not THEM -- to the American Red Cross via the iTunes interface.
That could be called "profiting by the storm", because there is of course no reason not to make donations to the American Red Cross DIRECTLY.
Maybe Apple should try doing that themselves. Direct Donation!
Apple, however, is not pledging let us say $20 billion of ITS cash overflow
to the storm clean-up.
They are in fact pledging -- nothing.
None of their OWN money. That all goes into private pockets of the few.
What did Michael Jackson sing "they don't really care about us".
So who will help YOU when the chips are down?
Apple? Other private companies? Entrepreneurs? Big business types? The people at Fox News ... and we have a bit to say about that shortly.
Not very likely.
How about helpers at the federal government, the state government, and local government?
Very likely.
And yet, FEMA has been criticized in a totally inexcusable partisan way
by Fox News for helping people in need of help.
As if people should rely on Apple and small government to help them when a storm of this scale and force hits the nation? Ridiculous.
These political demagogues are people who have lost sight of their sanity -- paper dragon politicians full of theories and little positive action.
Rather than bashing the federal government of the United States,
who IS THERE when the chips are down, when others are not,
maybe those voters in the country who retain sane faculties
should rethink the nation's over-riding pragmatic priorities,
especially when electing a President of the United States.
You can't run a country on empty theories. A strong, well-financed federal government is essential when the chips are down. That has nothing to do with the political party that you call your own. It is a fact. A fact of survival.
America was formed by pioneers -- expert at helping one another.
It should stay that way.
