|
 The
Katrina Speech Bush Should Have Given
Missed opportunity…
[by Mac Johnson] 9/20/05
As some may
have recognized in my
last column, by my use of the words “disgusted, ”unburdened
by principle,” “Big Government,” and “tartar
sauce,” I was not very pleased with President Bush’s
address to the Nation regarding the coming long-term response
to Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath.
My disappointment
focuses around several distinct points. Primary among these
is that I have had about all I can afford of “compassionate
conservatism.” Unnecessary deficit spending is neither
conservative nor compassionate, and if someone discovers the
budgetary difference between a compassionate conservative and
a bleeding heart liberal, please, let me know. So far, my best
guess is that the government would not grow nearly so quickly
under the liberal as it has under the profligate conservative.
Contributor
Mac
Johnson
Mac
Johnson is a freelance writer and biologist in Cambridge,
Mass. Mr. Johnson holds a Doctorate in Molecular and
Cellular Biology from Baylor College of Medicine. He
is a frequent opinion contributor to Human
Events Online. His website can be found at macjohnson.com [go
to Johnson index] |
My concern
here is not just financial or economic, although only a fool
would
ignore all such concerns. My concern is Freedom.
Money is power; and power is the source of all freedom. Without
it, you have none. When more money is controlled by government,
and not by individuals, we are all made less free. This sort
of thinking is what was once known as plain “Conservatism,” and
it is pretty darn compassionate, since it seeks to liberate individuals
from bureaucracy, dependency, and demoralizing levels of taxation.
Cutting spending is nearly impossible without a clear and overwhelming
cause that moves people to admit that maybe some things are more
important than Robert Byrd getting one more rest-stop named after
himself in Justice, West Virginia. Last week, Bush had such an
overwhelming cause: the need to help several hundred thousand
homeless Americans (and I mean really and suddenly homeless,
not just bums). He could have held this cause up in comparison
to all manner of silliness and shamed much of the waste from
our current budget. We could then help our fellow Americans and
not expand government nearly so much.
After the speech,
the uproar to President Bush’s right
caused him to then mention the need to cut other spending, but
the grand opportunity was already lost.
My second major peeve is the paternalistic and politically correct
manner in which Bush addressed the racial issues surrounding
the disaster. Being white and talking about race, however relevant
the issue, is a little like juggling nitroglycerin while jumping
on a trampoline. It may be entertaining to watch from a safe
distance, but there is considerable downside for the slightest
misstep. But I have no idea how we will ever improve race relations
in America if one race is all but banned from creatively discussing
the issue, so here goes.
The President said:
As all of us saw on television, there is also some deep, persistent
poverty in this region as well. And that poverty has roots in
a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations
from the opportunity of America. We have a duty to confront this
poverty with bold action.
He then went on to promise a variety of increased welfare and
job training programs, and strongly implied increased affirmative
action programs in the rebuilding effort.
His statement is the
standard apology for disproportionate black poverty, disproportionate
black crime, and disproportionate black
underachievement in America. It is the bread and butter of Al
Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and the standard “Get out the
vote” cry of the Democratic Party in the inner cities of
America.
And it is simply hogwash. If you were poor and black in 1955,
you could offer this explanation for failure truthfully. It no
longer is very relevant. No one has been cut off from the opportunity
of America by external impediments for forty years. The doors
have been thrown open, the way lighted and the government has
spent several trillion dollars attempting to guide poor blacks
through the door. Yet many remain inside the prison of poverty.
Racial discrimination, even if prevalent, cannot injure a people
without other assistance. Neither can simply being born into
poverty.
I have known many Jewish friends in my life, and to say that
the Jewish people have had a bit of prejudice and discrimination
thrown their way in the last 2000 years or so, would be something
of an understatement. Yet they prosper.
I have known many Asian friends whose parents came here penniless
and in one case -- quite literally -- bearing the scars of napalm
upon their backs. Yet they prosper.
I have known many Hispanic friends who have sought the opportunity
of America without a Federal roadmap. Yet they prosper.
Many people have been poor. Most peoples have known ethnic discrimination
at some point in their past. Yet most people prosper when external
impediments are removed.
When the President
of the United States drags out tired and safe clichés
about discrimination explaining current black poverty, he stifles
the growing debate inside the black community
on what internal cultural impediments need to be admitted and
confronted.
Such a statement does more to reinforce and justify failure
than the weight of all modern discrimination combined. It is
wrong.
Lastly, the President
repeatedly emphasized planning and Government action. So many
programs to be administered. So many decisions
to be made –by bureaucrats. Except for certain hydraulic
engineering decisions, why is any central planning needed? Why
can we not just cut a check to individuals, covering a portion
of their uninsured losses (but by no means all their losses,
lest we incentivize a return to the unsafe, unwise status quo
ante), and allow them to decide whether they rebuild, where they
rebuild, and how they rebuild?
Change is inevitable, New Orleans is no longer sustainable by
its own financial resources. Giving people a no-strings attached
aid check allows them to rebuild in Baton Rouge or Chicago if
they want. This is not a bad thing. It lessens the next disaster.
The Port and its workers will stay. The French Quarter and its
tourists will remain. But do we really need to reclaim land at
great Federal expense just to subsidize a telemarketing or insurance
business that could easily exist thirty miles inland on higher
ground? Do we need to rebuild a housing project for the unemployed
on expensively maintained land behind precarious levees?
Cities once waxed and waned naturally, and such natural change
is a good thing. Now the Federal Government decides that large
cities will stay large, simply because they have been large.
If they cannot maintain their own grandeur, people in smaller
cities are taxed to maintain it artificially -- keeping the big
bigger and the small smaller. Is this freedom? Is this efficiency?
The President may
yet enact wise policies, but he sure didn’t
try to sell them last Thursday. Leadership is not saying one
thing and then sneaking in the right thing when no one’s
looking. Leadership is explaining what really needs to be done
to solve problems --and changing people’s minds. But leadership
is politically expensive and the President is short on political
capital just now. Still, regardless of why, the fact remains
that the President’s first explanation of his plan for
New Orleans and the Gulf Coast was an opportunity for leadership,
lost. tOR
copyright
2005 Mac Johnson
§
|
