Government-Dependent Mindset - From Food Stamps To FEMA - Expected & Deserved

  206 buses sitting in a flooded parking lot in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina

 

The reading aloud of The Constitution of the United States (minus the four clauses pertaining to slavery) on the House floor that began John Boehner's Speakership on the first day of Congress assembled in 2011 was the high point of the One Hundred Twelfth Congress.  This meaningful exercise was done to acknowledge the eighty-seven Tea Party Members who had been elected in November 2010. 

 

Now we find that the elected Reps should have gone slower when they read the eleventh & fourteenth amendments so that House Minority Leader Pelosi would know the difference between them.  Nancy's confusion re these amendments just about tops her "are you serious" answer to where in the Constitution ObamaCare is authorized. 

 

But we can't blame Nancy for the things that quickly went downhill following the reading of the Twenty-Seventh Amendment as sixty-six of the eighty-seven Freshman Republicans deserted Tea Party standards by income-tax filing day 2011 & voted in a way they thought was best for their congressional careers – click on Only 21 Of 87 Freshman House Republicans Are Still With You for all the details including who voted for what @ that troubling time that was very instrumental in getting us into the pickle we are in today.

 

Following Hurricane - now better known as Super Storm - Sandy blowing through NJ, I had three separate occasions to see how the above type of mindset that disregards the Constitution & our founding principles of limited government & personal responsibility has given way to government-dependent thinking.

 

1.  On election day eve I received a call from a pleasant enough woman who called to remind me to vote for a certain local Republican candidate.  Our conversation shorty turned to how I made out during & after the storm.  I said that I had some water in the basement & although it was a pain @ the time it really was minor compared to neighbors who had trees fall on their houses.  The woman proceeded to give me suggestions re how to make application to FEMA & even provided a location & phone number for me to call.  I repeatedly assured her that was not necessary but I was most taken by her government-dependent mindset that was revealed as part of a Republican get out the vote call.

 

2.  Several days later I had occasion to call a government office located in another state.  The conversation quickly turned to Hurricane Sandy & when I told this woman that I had water in the basement she asked if the government helped me clean it up.  I told her that Carol & I cleaned it up with the help from a neighbor.  The woman was is a state of disbelief & asked if an insurance company came to help.  She thought of everyone but us doing the work.

 

3.  I have received several invitations from my Town & Republican Congressman to call a FEMA hotline that is open to residents who need legal help related to the damage caused by Hurricane Sandy. 

 

The legal hotline is probably well intentioned like the women in the above points 1 & 2 definitely were but all of these experiences were cut out of the same cloth as the recent radio & TV government advertisements letting people know where to sign up for food stamps. 

 

This government-dependent mindset is preying on us & many just take it for granted not understanding how destructive it is to our freedom.  Far too many people overwhelmingly believe that government should do everything for us never recognizing that government can't because it is actually made up of regular people (like all of us) with no magical powers let alone any incentive to make everything right.  People's hopes in government are pinned to a fake that doesn't exist because government bureaucrats have no incentive to make anything right. 

 

Just like the terrorists are taught to hate when they are 3 or 4 years old, the American people have been brainwashed, mislead, & hoodwinked for decades to believe that a government program is the answer to every problem imaginable.  This march of fifth column statists has bred the dependence we have for government.

Chicago was rebuilt after its fire, as was Galveston after its hurricane, & San Francisco after its earthquake - all without a dollar of government money.  In fact until the Civil War, virtually every president regularly vetoed legislation because he thought some bills were unconstitutional - mostly for violating the Spending Clause of Article I, Section 8.  Savannah was not offered any federal government help to rebuild after its devastating fire that destroyed the entire city in the late 1700s because the Congress did not think it had the constitutional power to help a city - the fire did not affect the general (that is national) Welfare of the entire United States – a constitutional principle one of my favorite presidents, James Monroe, applied during his presidency of 1817 to 1825.  The philanthropy & charity of the American people coupled with the free market capitalistic system that has made America the envy of the world restored these cities.

 

Please contrast the points from the preceding paragraph with today's government-dependent mindset.  All of the above cities were restored through acts of genuine charity & free enterprise with the affected people taking control of their lives & property.  Early in our Republic people learned to take care of themselves since they are the only ones they can really count on anyway, as everyone finds out sooner or later as they go through life.  Instead of fostering the above type of self-reliant individual responsibility, we have people like NJ's Governor Christie already applying for & receiving over $29 billion of federal aid -  the governor may very well add to this sum & says NJ "expects & deserves"  federal government help to rebuild after the damage caused by Sandy.

 

With re to Hurricane Katrina – 1) Although he didn't use any of the resources (over 700 buses & Amtrak trains that offered to help) available to him, the New Orleans Mayor blamed the federal government for a slow response in evacuating people.  See photo above of 206 school buses famously sitting in a flooded New Orleans parking lot, & 2) FEMA spent almost $1-billion on prefabricated homes that wound up sitting & rotting when it was discovered the homes were in violation of FEMA's own regulations. 

 

There is a better way than people all over the country continuing to move into hurricane alleys in trailers with the mistaken notion that government will take care of them when disaster strikes.