We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Washington, Madison, Jefferson sweated it out in Philadelphia at Wigstock to put together the constitution for several reasons. One was to form a more perfect Union, because the confederacy wasn't working out so well. The other reasons for the constitution were the BASIC purposes of government: a system of justice, law and order, secure liberty, and to defend the citizens.
Government's most basic job is to protect its citizens. I'm not talking welfare or education. I'm talking protection. If government can't do that, then it's time to close up shop in DC and move to Montana with a shotgun.
Yes, government failed last week. And failed bigtime.
To say that government can never protect its citizens and to shift blame to poorly prepared citizens is ludicrous. I think that 9/11 was an excellent example of when government works properly during times of disaster.
In the coming months, I would like to see more comparing and contrasting of the two situations. I think that one key different (there are others) was that in NY, there was a mayor on the ball with an excellent team. Pataki followed Rudy's lead, instead of wilting like Blanco. The NY Senators did their job milking the federal government for money, instead of patting them on the back. They NY Senators got the help from DC, so that Rudy didn't have waste time screaming help into the TV camera like the New Orleans mayor. Every layer of our federal government did its job.
Government must defend and protect the public not only against looters, but against natural disasters and foreign terrorists. It has to be the first order of business to see what went wrong and rectify things. Has FEMA been devastated by Congressional pork and insufficient oversight? How do you manage disasters in a federal system of government? Who should do what? What do you do when a major player has a nervous breakdown in the midst of all this? These questions need answers.
If all this self-examination produces no results, if you are quite certain that the government is unable to improve its ability to protect its citizens, then I will take that one way ticket to Montana and a shotgun, please.