Jerry and Don write about...

Echoes in the Night

Don,

I don’t think we’d have a problem talking politics. I found NOTHING in your addendum to my editorial that I disagree with. SO THERE Thppp...

FEMA was created by Jimmy Carter. It has been marginal since then, but truly marginalized by being put under the management of Homeland Security (by the way, when I visualize “Homeland Security” I see SS guards. I hate the whole concept).

Homeland Security took a feeble reed and crushed it.

I hold no brief for Bush and Co.

I may be slightly to the right of you in some ways, but I think that I can’t be properly placed on a right-left spectrum.

Do I think the poor need help? Yes, certainly. Do I think the federal government should be the ones to help? No, because they are liars, frauds, and cheats and most of the money goes to build a bureaucracy.

Sigh.

Jerry

* * *

Now there you go, Jerry: I still think we wouldn’t talk politics; all we’d do is repeat each other. I think we’d find a lot more novelty in talking science fiction instead. Everything you say here I agree with. We even have the same nightmares!

Thomas R. has gently tweaked me on occasion for being as pink as lemonade. Well, I suppose I am when it comes to human and civil rights. However, on the subject of empire-building bureaucracies of any kind, I might qualify as a classic conservative; I wouldn’t know. What are “left” and “right” any more? They ain’t what they used to be many long years ago.

In an agrarian society, land is wealth, and the most powerful are those who own the most defendable fortresses. In a post-industrial society, money is wealth, and the most powerful are those who have the influence to protect it and acquire more of it. That leads to the abuse of seeing property or money as having value in itself. In the Middle Ages, accident of birth conferred ownership and became “divine right” for some people. In a money society, the “bottom line” and political power become for some people — whether they have a lot of money or simply would like to — a measure of moral worth. And that’s “divine right” déjà vu all over again. Such misconceptions give free reign to the bad people you mention.

Let’s make no mistake: bad people are not only in government; they’re everywhere. The exposés of corruption in recent years have made the public so suspicious that honest corporate CEO’s have passed as paint salesmen while traveling, and honorable priests now have to be chaperoned whenever they’re with their parishioners’ children.

The federal government is supposed to do what the states can’t — or won’t — do individually when it needs to be done. That includes, for starters, such things as the Civil Rights Act and helping rescue the victims of major disasters. Is there more? Yes indeed, and that’s what political debate is supposed to determine. Okay, where is Teddy Roosevelt now that the economy and environment need him again?

Even if you wanted to debate any of this, Jerry, I’d have the strange feeling I’d be debating with myself. I’m convinced that you and I may qualify as each other’s double in a way. Maybe I should update my bio...

Don