The Professor
		9.3.05
	It’s Times Like These When… There is a lot going wrong in New Orleans right now. It’s probably not even necessary to make a list, since it’s probably not even possible to avoid hearing, reading, or watching something related to what’s going on down there. There might even be something psychologically soothing not to type such a list, too – I get tense enough just reading about the events that are unfolding. The new Mixed Bag article addresses something that I’m sure has also caught the attention of many: the Blame Game, as he calls it. His frustration with this unseemly phenomenon of both the right and the left constitutes the brunt of his article, and I agree in principle that there are better and worse times for assigning blame – especially as the accusations relate to the cause of the disaster, whether in terms of the hurricane itself or the immediate and mid-term response to the destruction it brought about. But I want to focus on another kind of criticism that I’ve begun to hear in peeps, and I want to quash this criticism before it becomes quacks. Before that, a little background. The US is organized in general around the principle of federalism. For those unfamiliar with the term, federalism refers to a political arrangement that disperses governmental responsibilities as widely as feasible and practical. Thus, the federal government takes care of national defense, state governments deal with speeders on highways, county governments cope with high school keg parties in fields outside of town, and municipal police forces respond to cases of domestic abuse. In all cases, the problem is addressed by the level of government most capable of doing so, and the lines of responsibility are rarely crossed. In cases of overwhelming disorder brought about by civil unrest or natural disaster, the principle of federalism continues to obtain. All levels of government are brought to bear in order to restore order, security, and peace (I’m leaving out the enormous contributions of private charities and aid organizations, just to keep things simple). These forces are coordinated through FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency), now a part of Homeland Security. Stop and read that previous sentence, because it’s important. These forces are coordinated through FEMA. They do not become FEMA, and they are not replaced by FEMA. Even when levels of government work to solve the same problem, each part operates according to its relevant capacities, and the lines are rarely crossed. This brings me to the peeps I’ve been hearing in the media: Why are people raping and shooting one another? Why is the downtown convention center in a state of anarchy? Why are there dead bodies on interstate highways? The underlying question here, as I read it, is Why isn’t there more control over this situation? People are begging to know what to do. Why isn’t anyone telling them what to do? People are entering that Hobbsean state of nature in which individual security becomes top priority to the exclusion of others’. Why is civil order collapsing? These peeps are getting louder, and they are beginning to reverberate along the same frequency. Luxembourg’s Foreign Minister puts the matter quite clearly: You see in this example that even in the 21st century you need the state, a good functioning state, and I hope that for all these people, these poor people, that the Americans will do their best. This, good friends, is a veiled reference to something that goes deeper (much as the criticisms outlined above) than the frustration and anger felt in New Orleans: the dark side of federalism. On its good days, federalism keeps the state out of our daily affairs. It keeps government as local as possible in order to keep it as controllable as possible. And it allows us to live our lives in a way that is as compatible with our own aspirations as possible, without undue reliance on the state to dictate those aspirations for us. In other words, federalism works quite well for many of us 99.9 percent of the time – and precisely because it’s not really doing anything at all to many of us. Would we sacrifice that a federal political system for the 00.1 percent of the time when a different political arrangement might be better at controlling an out-of-control situation? Many people I know nod sagely that the police and military should be doing more to solve the crisis in New Orleans while there is criminal activity while they work to rescue victims while they try to transport people to Houston while they repair the levees while they rebuild the pumping system while they bring in food and water while they stop civil unrest at the convention center while they while they while they… …and would these people want this kind of a system (because you can’t change from a federal system to a non-federal system overnight) at all times and under all circumstances? Would it be better if police had the right to drag residents out of their homes before the flooding? Should we always have a police force (a single police force, mind you) that corresponds to the numbers of officials that are needed now, just in case? How about this one: Should Bush always have the kind of control that people are demanding he take now in order to bring some kind of resolution to this crisis? I’m not suggesting that there couldn’t have been better coordination. I’m not beginning to suggest that death is a desirable trade off in order to maintain an emergency response capability that is compatible with the governing philosophy of the United States. I am demanding the people who demand more from their government think clearly about what they are demanding … and what they are demanding. Louisiana Governor put the point nicely, even if she didn’t mean to: When the system goes down, this is pretty much what you get. We don't get into the blame game. We just work with what we got. Yes. We work with what we got. Because 99.9 percent of the time, it’s all we really want.
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