‘Emergencies’ have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded. - F. Hayek
I am writing this from a shelter I have used in the past when I have had a need. It provides some of the basics and I have found it to be hospitable in the past, but at times I have been made to feel very childish by the care takers. It is called: my parents’ house.
As we retreated from my ice covered homestead, my wife was listening to a local radio station to hear the news. What she heard disgusted me instead. A caller to the show asked, “Have you heard anything from FEMA?” As if that wasn’t bad enough, he went ahead and asked, “Are they gonna pay for generators for those who can’t afford them?”
Thus the final nail has been driven into the coffin that holds an original all-American trait: rugged individualism.
There are times when you can’t handle a situation on your own. It happens. When those situations occur, a person’s first thought should not be that the federal government needs to do something to care for me. It should be the last. It’s just my opinion, but a person should turn to the following, in the following order:
- Family
- Friends
- Churches
- Charities
When you have exhausted those options, then turn to the local government, then the state. If that has left you high and dry, then, and only then, should you turn to George Bush and Company.
In this situation, I have no electricity to my house. When I heard that it might be a week to ten days before it returned, I decided that I needed to find either a way to provide heat for my family in this house, or move them to a place that has heat.
I drove to town and found that all the local stores were sold out of both kerosene and propane heaters. I then wondered if I should go another 60 miles to a larger city and see what they had. It’s a good thing I didn’t. Ninety percent of the people of St. Joseph, MO are without power. They have drained the city of heaters also.
So, seeing that it was really unlikely that I could drag the wood burning stove from my garage to my house and get it set up in a way that would not burn the house down or kill anyone, I turned to my family. My dad said that he had a propane-power turkey cooker set up in the house (yes, he’s that kind of old school) and it was keeping it warm. He told us to come over. So we packed up about ten blankets, and other necessities and are now staying with them for a while.
But what if you don’t have family that will do that? Then turn to friends. No friends? Before you do anything else, you need to take a good, hard look at your self and ask, “Why don’t I have any family or friends that will help me?”
Then, you can turn to the churches. The churches will usually provide shelter for you or direct you to a charity that will.
But the attitude that the federal government should be buying generators for folks who don’t have the money is really what is driving this country further down the road to serfdom. In fact, it will encourage them to not only make the help available, but then they can come in and make things mandatory. It is a dangerous road to go down, and while it is harder to provide for yourself, it is a better, freer, more gratifying life.
And in answer to the caller’s questions: No, there has been no word from FEMA. And no, FEMA is not going to be buying generators for people who can’t afford them. Nor should they. In fact, FEMA shouldn’t even exist. But that is an article unto itself.
