11/7/2005, 3:54 pm
-- Red Square
The starting point was this post:
----------------------------------------------------------------------By Rich333
9/3/2005, 5:29 pm
...if you've ever read, and agreed with, anything written by John Locke, Richard Cantillon, Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson, Frédéric Bastiat, Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, or Ayn Rand.
...if you believe the individual is sovereign.
...if you believe the free market is working better than government ever did in Somalia.
...if you believe people own themselves.
...if you believe in private property.
...if you believe common law is better than civil law and ad hoc (e.g. party dictated) law.
...if you've ever used the terms "natural law" or "individual rights" in a non-mocking manner.
...if you believe government is unnecessary and wasteful.
...if you've ever used the term "free market anarchist" in a positive way, especially self-descriptively.
...if you believe the "individual good" is more important than the "common good".
...if you believe selfishness is a virtue.
...if you believe altruism is a vice.
...if you believe police, courts, and military services can and should be privatized.
...if you believe anything should be privatized.
...if you believe the only wild parts of the old American west were the parts with government, instead of a free market for law enforcement and courts, as much of the old west had prior to it being invaded by the Union Army in the late 1860s.
...if you've ever praised the Icelandic Commonwealth (circa 10th-13th centuries CE) and held it up as a positive example of a social system, while recognizing it as a long-lived, functional, and prosperous free market anarchy.
...if you believe that market value is based entirely on individual choice, which is itself based on subjective criteria, thus making the market unpredictable and thereby impossible to correctly centrally plan, ever.
...if you've ever claimed that the term "economics" historically, and correctly, refers solely to the scientific tradition from which the classically liberal political tradition was borne, thus implying free market advocacy and that Marx and Keynes were not "economists".
...if you believe that, when used by a socialist, the parade of horribles is still a logical fallacy.
...if you believe property predates government.
...if you, like a good little drone of the Collective, say the Citizen's Creed regularly, but do so only to mock those who clearly follow it religiously.
...if you believe governments are created by individuals and that, thus, they have no more legitimate authority than their creators and maintainers.
...if you believe the use of proxies for criminal action doesn't shield you from responsibility/liability for the crimes committed.
...if you believe slapping the label of "government" on a criminal organization, which survives on regular mass muggings called taxation, doesn't magically transmogrify said organization into something to be respected and worshipped.
...if you believe all "market failures" were/are really the result of government, and that free markets don't fail.
...if you believe competing self-interests balance each other out, leading to a civil and cooperative society.
This message was brought to you by the Ministry of Truth (Minitrue) - We Think, So You Don't Have To.
Enter Sister Massively Opiated:
... If you think Michael Brown is a useless pussy for emailing:
- "Thanks for the update. Anything specific I need to do or tweak?" in response to Marty Bahamonde, one of the only FEMA employees in New Orleans, wrote to Brown that "the situation is past critical" and listed problems including many people near death and food and water running out at the Superdome.
- nothing... but only forwarding emails from Robert Fenton, a FEMA regional response official reporting severe shortages of ice and water in Mississippi. They were to receive 60 trucks of ice and 26 trucks of water the next day, even though they needed 450 trucks of each and predicting "serious riots" if insufficient supplies arrive... and otherwise completely failing to follow through.
- “I'm being told here water over not a breach." when he received reports from his people on the ground that “New Orleans FD is reporting a 20 foot wide breach on the lake ponchatrian levy. The area is lakeshore Blvd and 17th street.”. “Report that the levee in Arabi has failed next to the industrial canal.”, “A LEVEE BREACH OCCURRED ALONG THE INDUSTRIAL CANAL AT TENNESSE[E] STREET. 3 TO 8 FEET OF WATER IS EXPECTED DUE TO THE BREACH ... LOCATIONS IN THE WARNING INCLUDE BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO ARABI AND 9TH WARD OF NEW ORLEANS” (caps not mine)... and my personal favourite, from Marty Bahamonde in the New Orleans EOC (next to the superdome)
"- Severe flooding on the St. Bernard/Orleans parish line. Police report water level
up to second floor of two story houses. People are trapped in attics.
- Pumps starting to fail. The city has now confirmed four pumps are off line.
- Windows and parts of the east side of the Amaco building blown out.
- New Orleans shopping center (next to superdome) destroyed.
- Windows and parts of the East side of the Hyatt Hotel have been blown out. Furniture is blowing out of the hotel.
- Top floors of the Entergy building have been blown out
- Area around the Superdome is beginning to flood. We should have pictures shortly"
He's got FEMA people on the ground sending him these reports, and he responds, “I'm being told here water over not a breach."...
- Cindy Taylor, FEMA's deputy director of public affairs, the morning of the hurricane "Can I quit now? Can I come home?"
- to an acquaintance, "I'm trapped now, please rescue me.", a few days later
- about problems finding a dog-sitter, while pictures of corpses abandoned in New Orleans were shown over and over and over again on CNN
- to his press secretary, Sharon Worthy, about his attire, asking: "Tie or not for tonight? Button-down blue shirt?" A few days later, Worthy advised Brown: "Please roll up the sleeves of your shirt, all shirts. Even the president rolled his sleeves to just below the elbow. In this [crisis] and on TV you just need to look more hard-working."
- "I got it at Nordstroms. ... Are you proud of me?" when Taylor wrote to him "You look fabulous." ... oh come on!... he's clearly gay... ... An hour later, Brown added: "If you'll look at my lovely FEMA attire, you'll really vomit. I am a fashion god." ... as well as deluded
- nothing... for four days to an email with the subject line "medical help.", and then only forwarded the original e-mail to FEMA Deputy Chief of Staff Brooks Altshuler and Deputy Director of Response Michael Lowder, asking, "Can we use these people?" At the time, thousands of patients were being transported to the New Orleans airport, which had been converted to a makeshift hospital. Because of a lack of ventilators, medical personnel had to ventilate patients by hand for as long as 35 hours. The original email read, "Mike, Mickey and other medical equipment people have a 42-foot trailer full of beds, wheelchairs, oxygen concentrators, etc. They are wanting to take them where they can be used but need direction. Mickey specializes in ventilator patients so can be very helpful with acute care patients. If you could have someone contact him and let him know if he can be of service, he would appreciate it. Know you are busy but they really want to help." ... AND HE WAITED 4 (FOUR) DAYS TO ASK HIS UNDERLINGS, "Can we use these people?" ?!?!?
Yeah... I know I may catch some shit for this one, but as I'm alread guilty of many of the thought crimes listed by other members, it hardly matters... and I challenge anyone to argue that the guy isn't a useless boob who never should have had the job and made a complete fiasco of the entire thing until they shit-canned him (with pay - YOUR tax dollars in action). Before joining the Bush administration, Brown spent a decade as the stewards and judges commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association... and now that he's back in the private sector, Arabian horses everywhere are trembling in their stalls. Yes... I know the emails were released by Rep. Charlie Melancon, a Democrat, but come on... Michael Brown should be jailed for mass negligent homicide, if such a charge exists.
Waiting to be purged,
S.M.O.
(Wrote the brown-eyed, brown-haired, gentile mutt.)