While the Republican response to Hurricane Irene has been inhumanely draconian, holding people in need of relief hostage to taking more from those who can least afford it to offset the relief. The worst of all in this regard is Ron Paul (R-TX), because he proposes to disband FEMA and says the federal government has no business dealing with relief. He suggests that in 1900, the residents of Galveston needed no federal relief, so lets look back at the history to which Paul would return us.
As Hurricane Irene pummeled the East Coast this weekend, flooding homes and businesses, knocking out power, and killing at least ten people, Texas Congressman and Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul asserted that the federal government should not help with disaster recovery. Americans, Paul said, need to "transition out of the dependency on the federal government." He implied that federal disaster assistance was something new. "We should be like 1900," he said. "We should be like 1940, 1950, 1960." Without a doubt, the role of the federal government grew tremendously over the course of the twentieth century. But Paul’s imagination of a mythic American past of individual self-reliance is bad history. A brief review of major storms shows that these events have long involved federal help and, in fact, have been catalysts for a more active government.
Let’s use Congressman Paul’s timeline, which starts in 1900. That was the year a major storm decimated Galveston, in Paul’s home state. Because of the failure of existing structures to deal adequately with rebuilding, the hurricane prompted citizens to centralize power in the hands of municipal managers and experts. They wanted to make government more active and useful in times of crisis. The so-called "commission form" of government was a key innovation of the Progressive Era, a period conservatives today look back to as the beginning of the end for local self-sufficiency. Texans at the time, though, celebrated their new sea wall and other improvements they achieved through their newly empowered government… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <Huffington Post>
I urge you to click through to learn the history of federal involvement in disaster relief.
Now more important is what actually happened in Galveston in 1900, since Paul uses it as an example.
On September 8, 1900, the greatest natural disaster to ever strike the United States occurred at Galveston, Texas. In the early evening hours of September 8, a hurricane came ashore at Galveston bringing with it a great storm surge that inundated most of Galveston Island and the city of Galveston. As a result, much of the city was destroyed and at least 6,000 people were killed in a few hours time. The following is the account of Isaac M. Cline, the senior Weather Bureau employee present at Galveston, of the events leading up to the storm, his personal experiences in the storm, and the aftermath. The horror of Galveston is only partly described in this work. He was probably somewhat still in shock when he wrote this report as he lost his wife when his house collapsed during the storm and virtually all of his possessions. In a later biographical work, he referred to the shooting of hundreds of looters by vigilantes in the aftermath of the storm and the cremation of hundreds of unknown storm victims who otherwise would have decomposed where they lay. This particular report is excerpted from the Monthly Weather Review for September, 1900… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <NOAA>
Again, I urge you to click through and read this man’s story, and ask yourself, is this what you want for America today?
I have heard Paul explain his rationale. He said that it makes no sense to spend federal money to keep rebuilding in places where nature will just knock it down again. That appears to make sense, but it’s just a sophism. The gulf coast and the eastern seaboard are vulnerable to hurricanes, so we’d need to evacuate those areas. The Mississippi river and its tributaries are vulnerable to floods, so we’d have to evacuate those areas. The plains have tornados, so evacuate them. California is vulnerable to earthquakes, so evacuate that state too. Even here in Portland OR, we have an active volcano right in the middle of town. If we moved all Americans to places safe from natural disasters, if there are any, we’d be stacked many layers deep.
We cannot avoid natural disasters, but we can be there for each other when disasters happen. The federal government is empowered to “provide for the common good”. Federal disaster relief is the most efficient and cost effective way to do this, as long as Republicans do not have the opportunity to put a “Brownie” in charge of the relief efforts, or curtail the agency’s funding.
17 Responses to “Ron Paul Puts Ideology Before History”
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He and quite a few others need to have their heads examined.
If you don’t remember history, you are doomed to repeat it.
Very scary- when someone with the distorted , and simplistic view held by Paul and his ilk , are given prominence -;When the appalling ignorance of history and disregard of lessons learned in order to advance an ideology is put forth as factual– it increases the odds that history will be repeated-
Amen to both of you!
Paul and his ilk are so blinded by ideology that there is no room for history or anything resembling facts. Something I can’t help thinking about. If Ron Paul really wants to live in the 1900, I assume the next time he needs medical attention he will insist that the doctor only use medical treatments that were available in 1900.
LOL Maria! For himself he’ll want the best money can buy, paid for by his single payer government health care plan.
Yeah, the good ol’ days of 1900. Most households didn’t have indoor plumbing. Illiteracy was predominant. Polio epidemics were rampant. Typhoid fever was common. A lot of barefooted children had hookworms. There weren’t any automobiles. The ice man used to cometh. etc. etc. etc. A real idyllic lifestyle if you were one of the wealthy like Dr. Paul, I suppose. 👿
Exactly!
Ron Paul is a loon. That he’s a physician makes that fact doubly painful.
Nameless, watch yourself around real loons for a while. They’re pissed at you! 😉
I think there is a case to be made for marrying insurance premiums to catastrophe risk. There are identifiable high risk areas — in frequent flood plains for instance — and that is part of an insurance company’s expertise to identify such locales. In the past the US government has required people in such areas to buy federal insurance for the possibility of receiving assistance. My heart wants to exercise compassion for those who have failed to buy insurance, but my intellect has a hard time making the public case for this. When builders don’t pay for known risks, we end up with de facto subsidization of building projects in high risk areas. This is particularly applicable to the beachfront homes of the wealthy.
Now on to a subject of more interest: can you provide us a picture of this active volcano in the middle of Portland, Oregon?
Paul, I have no problem with that it with making it mandatory.
I can’t put it in a comment, but I will put a pic of Mt Tabor at the bottom of today’s open thread.
To Anonymous from Salem, OR who threatened to hack this site. I reported you to your ISP, Comcast.
To Joshua from StumbleUpon:
Read the rules page, regarding personal insults to each other. If you can’t be civil, you are not welcome here.
Ron Paul is living in the past fer sure!! I suppose the fellow wants to go back to the time when no woman could vote, neither blacks nor women had any rights worth speaking of, when black men were frequently lynched for no good and decernable reason, no unions, ect. The no votes for ladies would mean that neither Bachmann nor Palin could run for prez (THAT part I like) 😡
Welcome Cindy! 🙂
That may be the cloud’s silver lining, but imagine the comedy we’d get from a Palin/Bachmann ticket.
We are supposed to learn from history so that we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past. I guess Ron Paul conveniently forgot about that. Like the others, I don’t think Paul could handle giving up his modern perks to go back to 1900. One thing though, he wouldn’t have as large an audience because word wouldn’t travel so fast. And fewer would read about his proposals because they’d be illiterate.
Nah, the trade offs aren’t worth it. “The federal government is empowered to “provide for the common good”.” I very much like this idea. Community’s banding together to help eachother with the help of the federal government through FEMA.
Lynn, I think Paul wants to repeat it. Back then only the white well-to-do mattered.