Fucktards Unite!
I don't usually link to Fox News. Usually, they're full-of-shitness is so absurd as to hardly merit a glance. Yesterday, however, Fox had an unusually full-of-shit-head on Your World with Neal Cavuto. The gues, Jack Chambliss, wasn't completely full of shit, mind you. He made some good points. However, his starting point, a point I should add, which relates hardly or not at all to the larger theme of his appearance, was so off-base, so patently wrong that I hardly know how to respond to it.
Mr. Chambliss began his appearance by stating that Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution was never intended to give Congress the power to provide disaster relief in places like New Orleans, LA. That's quite a claim. This is the section of the Constitution, you may recall, that says that "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes...and provide for the...general welfare of the United States." It is, of course, a familiar conservative trope that any reference to something as broad as "general welfare" cannot be read literally and that the phrase is modified and limited by the ennumerated powers that follow. (Mind you, these same people will also argue "the right to keep and bear arms" is a specific and well-delineated concept and that "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state" is a phrase which in no way limits or modifies it. That, however, is a topic for a different place and time.) Conservative complaints about the "general welfare" clause of Article I typically focus on the many government functions (roads, education, environmental regulations, etc.) which they believe to be unconstitutional and symptomatic of an overly-agressive nanny state. They may be right in some instances. However, what, may I ask, does the "general welfare" mean if it doesn't mean the ability to LIVE?
There are people in New Orleans right now who are dying for a lack of food, clean water, shelter. Regardless of why they are there or how they got to be where they are, those people's welfare, their very lives, rest in the hands of the federal government. Like it or not, providing these people with a means to survive the next few weeks falls pretty clearly within the ambit of the phrase "general welfare". To argue otherwise is, I would assert, a clear sign not only of one's inhumanity but also of a disturbing willingness to place abstraction on a higher plane than harsh and obvious reality. So, from the very get-go, Mr. Chambliss proves himself to rank high on the fucktard ladder.
And that, my friends, is a shame. Because I think Mr. Chambliss has a decent point to make. Namely, why does the federal government still subsidize insurance that allows people to live in highly sensitive ecological zones, many of which are subject to profound natural forces (flood, fire, wind, etc.)? New Orleans may have been built 250 years ago when people didn't know any better, but how about the countless golf and country clubs that you see around New Orleans and Lake Ponchartrain? How about the wealthy suburbs that are built, burned and rebuilt periodically in the fire zone in Malibu in California? Why are we building new communities in lahar zones around Mt. Rainier?
Experience shows us that the risk in each of these instances is high. Was it any great surprise that a giant hurricane hit New Orleans? Or Biloxi? Or Gulfport? Or Mobile. No, no, no and no. Is any great surprise that houses built in a dry, mediterranean-type climate burn at the slightest provocation in Malibu? No. Will it be any surprise when sulfuric acid finally eats through one side of Rainier and Puyallup is buried under 35 feet of boiling mud? No. Yeah, it's difficult to predict when these will happen. But that they WILL happen is a certainty. We don't bet on sure losses, so why do we develop on them? As Mr. Chambliss rightly points out, because the federal government assumes much of the risk that the individual used to have to bear.
I, for one, fully support the idea that the federal government and society at large should help absorb some of the risk that life entails. There are risks, like those related to economic downturns, catastrophic accidents and health crises that are both unforeseeable and unavoidable. Government should be there to help. There are risks, like fire in Topanga Canyon that are foreseeable and avoidable. Government should stay the hell away. More importantly, government shouldn't be actively promoting policies that increase the number of people and entities who take such avoidable, foreseeable risks.
Thus, I kind of agree with Mr. Chambliss on the deleterious role of federal policies that promote risky behavior. I completely disagree that providing disaster relief to starving, homeless people is one of those policies.
Mr. Chambliss began his appearance by stating that Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution was never intended to give Congress the power to provide disaster relief in places like New Orleans, LA. That's quite a claim. This is the section of the Constitution, you may recall, that says that "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes...and provide for the...general welfare of the United States." It is, of course, a familiar conservative trope that any reference to something as broad as "general welfare" cannot be read literally and that the phrase is modified and limited by the ennumerated powers that follow. (Mind you, these same people will also argue "the right to keep and bear arms" is a specific and well-delineated concept and that "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state" is a phrase which in no way limits or modifies it. That, however, is a topic for a different place and time.) Conservative complaints about the "general welfare" clause of Article I typically focus on the many government functions (roads, education, environmental regulations, etc.) which they believe to be unconstitutional and symptomatic of an overly-agressive nanny state. They may be right in some instances. However, what, may I ask, does the "general welfare" mean if it doesn't mean the ability to LIVE?
There are people in New Orleans right now who are dying for a lack of food, clean water, shelter. Regardless of why they are there or how they got to be where they are, those people's welfare, their very lives, rest in the hands of the federal government. Like it or not, providing these people with a means to survive the next few weeks falls pretty clearly within the ambit of the phrase "general welfare". To argue otherwise is, I would assert, a clear sign not only of one's inhumanity but also of a disturbing willingness to place abstraction on a higher plane than harsh and obvious reality. So, from the very get-go, Mr. Chambliss proves himself to rank high on the fucktard ladder.
And that, my friends, is a shame. Because I think Mr. Chambliss has a decent point to make. Namely, why does the federal government still subsidize insurance that allows people to live in highly sensitive ecological zones, many of which are subject to profound natural forces (flood, fire, wind, etc.)? New Orleans may have been built 250 years ago when people didn't know any better, but how about the countless golf and country clubs that you see around New Orleans and Lake Ponchartrain? How about the wealthy suburbs that are built, burned and rebuilt periodically in the fire zone in Malibu in California? Why are we building new communities in lahar zones around Mt. Rainier?
Experience shows us that the risk in each of these instances is high. Was it any great surprise that a giant hurricane hit New Orleans? Or Biloxi? Or Gulfport? Or Mobile. No, no, no and no. Is any great surprise that houses built in a dry, mediterranean-type climate burn at the slightest provocation in Malibu? No. Will it be any surprise when sulfuric acid finally eats through one side of Rainier and Puyallup is buried under 35 feet of boiling mud? No. Yeah, it's difficult to predict when these will happen. But that they WILL happen is a certainty. We don't bet on sure losses, so why do we develop on them? As Mr. Chambliss rightly points out, because the federal government assumes much of the risk that the individual used to have to bear.
I, for one, fully support the idea that the federal government and society at large should help absorb some of the risk that life entails. There are risks, like those related to economic downturns, catastrophic accidents and health crises that are both unforeseeable and unavoidable. Government should be there to help. There are risks, like fire in Topanga Canyon that are foreseeable and avoidable. Government should stay the hell away. More importantly, government shouldn't be actively promoting policies that increase the number of people and entities who take such avoidable, foreseeable risks.
Thus, I kind of agree with Mr. Chambliss on the deleterious role of federal policies that promote risky behavior. I completely disagree that providing disaster relief to starving, homeless people is one of those policies.
posted by Drogon Saurischian at 8/31/2005 09:28:00 PM
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