Reactionary Mistakes

This situation is really making me nervous. Watching the news, reading the articles, etc., there's been one resounding sentiment between all political parties, all takes I've read on the matter. The federal government needs to step in sooner.

Why does that make me nervous?

Glad you asked. The federal government currently needs a state's permission to operate within their borders. This was set up to prevent the central government from gaining too much control over the individual states. As US citizens, our primary voting power is not in electing a president, it is in electing local government. They're the ones that influence your day to day most, be it at town, county or state level. They rule your day to day life. If you don't like it, you can move to the next town, the next school district, county, or even state without having to leave the basic principles and inalienable rights afforded us by the Constitution of the United States.

The aftermath of Katrina is horrible. It appears so many people screwed up at their level, but at this point it is still hard to say. There really needs to be an investigation before we start pointing fingers, and there will be several, both official and by the media.

After Katrina struck, the governor of Louisiana believed they had the situation under control. Things were bad, but the levies held, and the first response teams were there. Shortly after, though, the levies started to break apart and New Orleans started to flood more severely. We all have seen the footage. A day later the governor of LA declared a state of emergency, thereby giving the federal government permission to move in. This includes FEMA. Normally FEMA says it will take between 72 and 96 hours to be able to mobilize and be on scene. Thankfully in this situation they had already been preparing and were on the scene about 2 days after the declaration of a state of emergency, just over 72 hours after the levies started to break.

Now one of the major questions floating around is, in the wake of such a horrible disaster when the first response units, which are usually stationed where the disaster takes place are taken out of commission, what's the backup. This makes perfect sense. FEMA really needs a first response backup unit; a second response team, if you will. That doesn't make me nervous.

What makes me nervous is people are asking who makes the decision, and fingers are pointing to the federal government or even FEMA its self. If we enact that, it gives the federal government unbridled power. At what point do they decide a disaster is too much for local authorities? We've seen some of the aftermath of the Patriot Act, and we've seen some ways in which it's already been abused for non-terrorist investigation. Who's to say the government won't decide that city drug use is out of hand, and send the ATF into the scene with shoot to kill orders? It seems crazy, I know, but 6 years ago if you asked me if the government would ever be able to pass something like the "Patriot" Act in this country and have it supported I would have laughed at you until I couldn't breath. Now it's a reality, and it seems its powers are being expanded to other areas outside of terrorism.

There needs to be change in our disaster response. Of this, there is no doubt. However, we cannot make a rash, spur of the moment reactionary decision like we did in the wake of 9-11. We cannot let our emotion, our heartbreak at the suffering there cause us to react instead of investigate and determine what failed and how it could be prevented. All of us are raw right now. We have just lived through the worst natural disaster in the history of this country. It was televised, we saw first hand what was happening, and it was terrible. We need to step back, now, before making changes. We need to let the wounds scab over and look at this analytically, instead of relationally. We reacted after 9-11, and some of our most important, previously inalienable rights were taken away, possibly forever. Don't let this happen again!

So I'm nervous.

Originally posted by junglejake

So I'm nervous.

Not sure I agree with all the facts, but I agree with the emotion. Somehow, the more things change, the more they stay the same. I fear little in the long run will change.

I fear a lot will change if we start enacting legislation immediately, as we did after 9-11.

Also, please note, this isn't a conspiracy exactly. I don't believe the intention would be to manipulate the laws when creating them just as I don't believe there was intention to expand the Patriot Act. Yet, with the advent of new powers granted the federal government, federal agencies will be in position where the new powers could have really helped them, and may try to get it expanded to apply to their own department. For instance, drug charges are being likened to terrorism (I'm sure we all remember those "I smoked pot and got someone killed" commercials). What constitutes a natural disaster? I highly doubt the wording would be extremely specific if we rush into it. My parents called my room a natural disaster when I was a youngin'

Jake, I agree. We're stepping out on to a slippery slope here. And at what point does FEMA turn the govt back over to locals and state? I'm paying close attention to this.

The state of emergency was declared before the storm hit.

Originally posted by GTWill
The state of emergency was declared before the storm hit.

That's true, I got my information wrong. (Thanks for the link supporting that claim, by the way ). The state of emergency was declared on August 27th, and FEMA began preparations for logistical support of the area. It wasn't until August 31st that they started operations in force.

I also presented false information about the legality of sending in the National Guard. The president does have full authority to do so, trumping the governor of the state, but precedent has established that presidents differ the responsibility to governors and wait for a request for resources.

Sorry if I misled anyone. I'm getting this current information from Wikipedia which, naturally, has a very extensive amount of information on the event.