Hurricane Sandy prompts two sharply divergent views on how society should respond
It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Occupy Wall Street, the group alleged to be the left’s answer to the tea party. But you might hear more about these messages yesterday from the group expressing apparent approval of the wrecked state of New York City post-Hurricane Sandy:
No subways. No electricity. No chains. #capitalism #sandy #nyc
I don’t think the person tweeting from the OWS account really believes things would be better in a world with so much physical destruction (although, in light of the way OWS treated the Manhattan park where it held its famous rallies last year, I may be giving him/her too much credit). I do, however, think these messages betray an astounding lack of recognition that free-market capitalism is the most accurate system mankind has yet devised to represent how members of a community want to interact with one another.
So, when OWS tweets,”Insurance is the capitalist answer to what should be an effort of mutual aid from the community. #sandy,” while philosophizing, “That community you’re experiencing, in the face of crisis? It’s always there. Think about what it is that usually obscures it. #sandy,” it’s missing the point that people usually don’t “experience” “community” in this way because they’d prefer to make other arrangements and not live like the world is collapsing around them. Arrangements such as insurance.
But whither government? After all, liberals like to say government is “simply the name we give to the things we choose to do together.” That sentiment, however, suggests everyone is always on board with what government takes from them and does on their behalf. The more government does, the less that’s true.
Back to the topic at hand: That doesn’t mean conservatives think government should be out of the disaster-relief business altogether — even if some of us think government should refrain from some other spending and set that money aside to make sure we don’t have to borrow money to cover these expenses, while others believe the more local and state governments can handle emergency management, the better it will be done. (Not to mention that the private sector is often quicker and more efficient in delivering aid than government agencies, as Wal-Mart famously demonstrated in post-Katrina New Orleans.)
This topic tends not to get the thoughtful treatment it deserves in the midst of a crisis, and then it’s usually forgotten once the crisis leaves the headlines. So, we get broad claims about Mitt Romney’s alleged heartlessness based on one brief segment of one interview in which he promoted a federalist approach to disaster relief. Which is about as fair as it would be for me now to point out that President Obama has said nice things in the past about OWS and argue he must necessarily subscribe to its anti-capitalist view of how the world works.
– By Kyle Wingfield
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331 comments Add your comment
Hillbilly D
October 31st, 2012
7:53 pm
I commend all(private) power companies who seem to be rushing to help wherever they are needed.
In one of my previous incarnations, I worked for a power company. Yes, they are good to help out areas in time of need but it’s not entirely private. Everybody gets disaster funds out of the deal.
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
October 31st, 2012
7:54 pm
My one (and possibly only) contribution to music posts, Bruno:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0thH3qnHTbI
Monster Mash!
Randy Ayn
October 31st, 2012
7:55 pm
Oh – and I love it when cons claim that a 30 year old law caused the meltdown. That’s really telling.
Bruno
October 31st, 2012
7:56 pm
Back at ya, Reporter:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKpEoRlcHfA
Buzzy
October 31st, 2012
7:56 pm
Didn’t Romney say he wanted to get rid of FEMA? The guy is completely irresponsible. He’s full of it.
Some disasters are so big, the government is needed. I support volunteer efforts, but it won’t solve all the problems in a large disater.
Also, please don’t ever tell me that the private sector is all that great. I get nothing but voice mail when I call most businesses, and my cable company runs my blood pressure up just thinking about them. As Clark Howard says: Customer No Service. The government is not great, but the private sector has certainly gone down hill as well.
Bruno
October 31st, 2012
7:57 pm
Alright, got Tibi into the action!! Good call.
Lil' Barry Bailout - Vote American
October 31st, 2012
7:58 pm
There’s no such thing as “predatory lending”. Loan terms are disclosed to the borrower and they either agree to them or they don’t. What you call “predatory lending” is more accurately called “being stupid”.
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
October 31st, 2012
7:58 pm
Oh, no, Randy, I’m not playing your game. I’m not the one blaming Bush. That’s YOUR forte.
Nor am I going to defend him, as I have little with which to defend him.
But I’m not the one who made the claim that Bush caused the recession of 2008 – YOU did.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
October 31st, 2012
7:59 pm
Walking side by side with death, The devil mocks their every step
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odY8nff3h0w
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
October 31st, 2012
7:59 pm
“Oh – and I love it when cons claim that a 30 year old law caused the meltdown.”
That’s because SOME of us understand the concept of “cause and effect”, Randy.
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
October 31st, 2012
8:01 pm
“Didn’t Romney say he wanted to get rid of FEMA?”
No. But don’t let those DNC talking points get you all flummoxed, Buzzy.
“Also, please don’t ever tell me that the private sector is all that great.”
Yeah, ’cause the greatest creator of jobs and wealth in the history of mankind sure shouldn’t be held up as something to emulate, now should it?
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
October 31st, 2012
8:02 pm
Ain’t got nobody waiting at home
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8DeO2pz2ug
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
October 31st, 2012
8:02 pm
“What you call “predatory lending” is more accurately called “being stupid”.”
Can’t disagree with you there, LBB.
Lil' Barry Bailout - Vote American
October 31st, 2012
8:07 pm
There would have been no financial meltdown had Democrats paid their bills.
Hillbilly D
October 31st, 2012
8:12 pm
Few people know this guy started his career as a fiddle player. Here he is playing a fiddle tune that most every fiddle player hates.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGIteyWb8hw
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
October 31st, 2012
8:13 pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i__LRINO2oI
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
October 31st, 2012
8:16 pm
LBB, it’s not that simple.
There likely wouldn’t have been a meltdown had bad paper mortgages not been circulated in investment portfolios through the repeal of Glass-Steagall decades before, and the increase in that bad paper due to government-mandated relaxed requirements for purchasing homes. In addition, if both Democrats AND Republicans had paid their bills, the recession likely wouldn’t have occurred. Add to that a government-created housing bubble which artificially heated up the building market, exposing smaller banks to poor lending practices, and you had a recipe for disaster waiting to happen. The fact that investment firms were encouraged through bad tax laws to misbehave didn’t help, either.
Lots of things contributed to this disaster, much of which was government caused.
@@
October 31st, 2012
8:17 pm
Kill what you eat as a political philosophy just doesn’t work.
We’re supposed to eat something while it’s still alive!!??!!
ew
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
October 31st, 2012
8:17 pm
Coming on like a hurricane
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Kjh9lQXLWk
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
October 31st, 2012
8:19 pm
Even as a New Englander I always liked Roger Miller, Hillbilly D.
But why do fiddlers hate that piece?
@@
October 31st, 2012
8:24 pm
No Angus?
Oblama
October 31st, 2012
8:26 pm
Obama is the leader of the NANNY state…. big bro gub’ment from the cradle to the grave ’cause you are to stupid and incompetent to take care of yourself.
Bruno
October 31st, 2012
8:26 pm
I Ain’t Superstitious:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYlWNb9tmtk
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
October 31st, 2012
8:28 pm
Angus and Bon Scott!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_5kv8QeBBc
Hillbilly D
October 31st, 2012
8:33 pm
But why do fiddlers hate that piece?
It’s a combination of things. First, they’re asked to play it constantly; and it’s not hard to play (although people think it is) so it offers no challenge to a good player. It’s basically just running through the changes.
It’s a tribute to any of these musicians who have long careers that they play a song, virtually every night for decades and manage to either not get sick or it or hide that fact from the audience. Imagine how many times Bill Monroe played “Blue Moon of Kentucky”, or B B King has played “The Thrill Is Gone”, Cab Calloway played “Minnie the Moocher”, etc., etc. They always gave the audience the impression they were playing it for the first time. That’s a talent in itself.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
October 31st, 2012
8:36 pm
I’m gonna parade around the neighborhood as the obamacreep, a freaking monster more interested in hooking women up with syphilis, gonorrhea, aids and other assorted genitalia related issues than it is about creating jobs or increasing the gross domestic product.
You get infected, I pay for it, booowahahahaha
rwcole
October 31st, 2012
8:37 pm
So just because Romney said we can’t afford disaster relief and that he would essentially outsource disaster relief to the private sector, that doesn’t mean he’ll actually do anything. He’s just running for office. Is that what you’re trying to say, Kyle?
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
October 31st, 2012
8:39 pm
Whoops and here’s my wife as the nasty pelosi monster, you wanna live in abject poverty, we got a program for that, boohoohoo.
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right
October 31st, 2012
8:43 pm
Except Romney never said any of those things,rwcole, but thanks for playing!
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
October 31st, 2012
8:47 pm
Abort your syphilis infected, crack addicted baby, we care, grrrrrrrrrr, I’m the obamacreep!
obamacreep
October 31st, 2012
8:53 pm
Has your daughter reached puberty? Are you not letting her wander the neighborhood unattended on this most solemn of occasions, halloween? Are you some kind of pervert? Let her out and us dummycrats, we’ll take care of her. We got a program especially for her. Protection, rejection, molestation, infestation, abortion, prevention, all covered under our watch. Don’t be a woman hater. Git her out here and you’ll be a honored prog. Mwaauuah, boohoo.
fair and balanced
October 31st, 2012
9:16 pm
I agree with Mitt – get Bain and other private entities to run disaster relief like Halliburton did in Iraq. Let them fix the infrastructiure, hand out food and rebuild houses and get the taxpayers cough up the money plus a healthy profit. Anybody who lost their house can get a free can of food and some diapers from Mitt.
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
October 31st, 2012
9:23 pm
“I agree with Mitt – get Bain and other private entities to run disaster relief like Halliburton did in Iraq.”
Strange, but I never read where Mitt said anything like this, unfair and unbalanced. Can you provide a cite, please?
JDW
October 31st, 2012
10:08 pm
@Tiberius…”Your points would be better made if you refrained from terms such as “halfrican”.”
Finally, common ground!
Jiggle the Handle
October 31st, 2012
11:06 pm
Master @ 7:25 pm
“POPULIST? Have you not paid attention? A populist is one who tries to do what he thinks people want him to do or more importantly say what people want him to say. That is the OPPOSITE of what Christie usually does!”
Master, I beg to differ—take a look at Webster’s or at least Wikipedia…
Populism is generally defined as :
“as an ideology that “pits a virtuous and homogeneous people against a set of elites and dangerous ‘others’ who were together depicted as depriving (or attempting to deprive) the sovereign people of their rights, values, prosperity, identity, and voice”
Describing Christie as a populist means he would put his allegiance toward the masses and the common good over the elites and in so doing, cut across common divisions such as political parties, social class and economic station. It was grudgingly meant as a compliment and most politicians would kill to be labeled as such. Unless they are running in a Republican primary.
In the end, you and I are trying to reasonably converse in the middle of a fraternity kegger–I don’t know why I bother with these comment sections…
Goody Three Shoes
October 31st, 2012
11:10 pm
“Color me shocked”
You need new material. After 1000 times it gets a little old.
Goody Three Shoes
October 31st, 2012
11:11 pm
I report @ 8:37
That hate is who you are. Live it, breath it, admit it.
Goody Three Shoes
October 31st, 2012
11:14 pm
Where is the talk about the Romney surge that was so prevalent in the last several weeks?
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
October 31st, 2012
11:22 pm
Shifting to Benghazi (you know, the story where our ambassador and three other Americans were murdered this past 9/11 and nobody but Fox News and occasionally CBS bothers to report on it), Catherine Herridge reports tonight that a classified cable from the ambassador himself was sent directly to Hillary Clinton and distributed to State Dept. security and National Security contacts which detailed the deteriorating situation in Benghazi.
The ambassador specifically mentions that the consulate was incapable of withstanding an attack by local forces – those forces which included Al Qaeda and other militant or terrorist groups (up to 10 different ones). It also speculated that the Libyan forces detailed to guard the consulate had been infiltrated by these groups and were no longer considered reliable.
Is anybody going to defend this administration’s actions after this?
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
October 31st, 2012
11:30 pm
“Where is the talk about the Romney surge that was so prevalent in the last several weeks?”
Surges come and go, Goody.
Right now the race is frozen. Latest NYT/CBS poll has Obama with slight leads in FL, OH and VA, HOWEVER, they oversampled Democrats by more than the 2008 turnout differentials in each state which in reality shows a likely Romney lead in all of them. In OH, 185k less Democrats have early voted / absentee voted than in 2008 at this same time, while 75k more Republicans have done so. Since Obama only won OH by 265k votes in 2008, this put them in a virtual dead heat. With many more Republicans going to the polls traditionally on Election day than Democrats, this could be a huge win for Romney.
All this is to say that objectively, the dynamics of this last week still slightly favor Romney in many states, and OH is still in play but not as dire as Democrats would like you to believe it is for Romney.
Randy Ayn
October 31st, 2012
11:42 pm
Mitt gets credit for calling off his campaign rally in Ohio out of respect for those affected by the hurricane. Instead of having a campaign ralley in Ohio, he had a campaign rally in Ohio (you’d understand this type of double speak if you spoke Romnish). He even bought some canned goods to send to “he guesses” New Jersey. .
Randy Ayn
October 31st, 2012
11:48 pm
Good call, fair and balanced. Haliburton can help rebuild NY and NJ. You don’t want to touch the plumbing in the bathrooms, however, as we were losing soldiers to electrocution in the showers left and right. But, hey, shareholders got a nice return on their investment in getting Bush elected.
Goody Three Shoes
October 31st, 2012
11:58 pm
Tiberius
You make it sound good for Romney, however I do not want you to be surprised.
He is not going to win. It isn’t in the cards for him.
Goody Three Shoes
November 1st, 2012
12:02 am
Tiberius
Not an Obama fan, however somethings are what they are.
Randy Ayn
November 1st, 2012
12:03 am
Tib – here’s a youtube clip of Romney clearly saying that we need to send FEMA back to the states and look into having it privatized. Rather than just say things you haven’t researched or shoot off questions for other people to look things up for you, why don’t you try studying up on the issues and then come back and post. If you read enough, you may even change sides. The internet can be your friend,.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTSHxR_4rc8
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
November 1st, 2012
12:13 am
“You make it sound good for Romney, however I do not want you to be surprised. ”
Goody, I won’t be surprised either way. I have consistently predicted this race as being a less than 20 Electoral Vote margin from day one. However, the polls are being manipulated by organizations to show something that isn’t really happening. Don’t know why; I’ll leave that speculation to the conspiracy theorists.
Goody Three Shoes
November 1st, 2012
12:16 am
Manipulated to imply that Romney has a chance, yes.
Sad we have the two we have to chose from.
Thanks for the exchange. Have a great night.
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
November 1st, 2012
12:17 am
“here’s a youtube clip of Romney clearly saying that we need to send FEMA back to the states and look into having it privatized.”
And yet strangely, Romney never mentions FEMA at all in that clip, Randy.
Go figure.
When you speak about a $1.6 trillion deficit, you’re speaking in generalities, not specifics.
Another epic fail on your part, son.
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
November 1st, 2012
12:28 am
“Manipulated to imply that Romney has a chance, yes.”
Sorry, but not so, Goody.
If you build in a 6 point Democrat advantage in a given state into your poll, when the Democrat advantage in 2008 was only 2 points (when everybody was so hyped on Obama), you’re skewing the poll towards a narrative that is patently false.
Goody Three Shoes
November 1st, 2012
12:33 am
Tiberius
You make a great case, however I am seeing through the spin of both campaigns. Something stinks for sure.
It is all a charade. Obama is going to win. I am not impressed with him nor Romney, but something is fishy as you indicated. I just see the slight of hand coming from a different direction.
Either way; have to run.
Thanks again