Really? You think Tea Party nuts (of whom quite a few live on Staten Island) are making rational critiques of FEMA administration, and have some sensible complaints about distributing federal aid efficiently? If so, and I’ve never heard this from any of them in my life, then I must apologize for mischaracterizing them as well. (Boy, that’s a whole lot of imaginary people I’m apologizing to in this thread.) All of the TP nuts I’ve heard enjoy railing against freeloaders, lazy welfare recipients, their tax dollars, run the country on a local level. goddamned cheaters, never worked a day in their lives," and so on, never actually completing a sentence mind you, just full of bilious resentment against “them.” (And guess what color “they” are?)
You were seriously up until 2:30am? Doing this?
Oh. So you’re the one still giving Tea Partiers an audience. Stop it, it only encourages them.
If you want to pit the tea party I’m right there with you. I’m trying to focus on your rant.
A group of people (per you) say FEMA isn’t the best option because it isn’t effective. An emergency happens and they don’t seem to get any aid and are complaining that FEMA doesn’t seem to be the best option. I just don’t follow your logic here.
They would get aid far less effectively if FEMA’s budget were to be cut, as they demand, or far less less reliably if its functions were turned over to the states, as they alternatively demand. The only way for them to get aid more effectively and reliably would be to increase FEMA’s budget, which they’re dead-set against, except when they need the aid themselves in which case they’re bitching and pissing and moaning.
I’d like to see a poll of Staten Islanders about how FEMA’s resources were used in Hurricane Katrina. I’d guess that you had the largest incidence of “Those freeloaders in New Orleans should just be proud that President Bush gave them anything at all, the lazy idiots who choose to live in a hurricane zone anyway.”
And you know this as a fact how? Or, as we like to say “Cite?”
Well, this is perhaps for a whole nother thread, but I think it’s safe to say that just slashing the budget for disaster relief means there are fewer resources available and few workers to distrubute them.
The question of federal vs. state funding is more complicated, assuming the funding stays at the same level, but I think most observers agree that in a situation like Sandy (which is typical of most disasters) the problem is spread across numerous states, and if the disaster is extreme enough (as Sandy was) the individual states may not have the resources on hand. Or some states might have an excess on hand, yet be reluctant to give their surplus supplies to neighboring states until they’re sure that they themselves are going to be absolutely fine, which you never are in the early stages. If there are political issues, NY being run by Democrats and NJ by Republicans, for example, there may be a perception or even a reality of states refusing to cooperate on coordinating resources for political reasons. I don’t see where there’s much of an advantage doing multi-state disaster relief by the states rather than a central source, and I haven’t heard a single good argument for it, other than “Bush fucked up Katrina” which was a competence issue most of all.
Yes, I’m pretty sure everyone understands that this is your opinion… not everyone shares it though.
Hey, attention whores gotta stick together.
Can you make a convincing case that local control over disaster relief would be more efficient and cheaper than FEMA? I’d like to understand what you’re arguing here.
You started this thread… you prove to me that things are working just fine for the people in Staten Island.
Actually, I can and quite possibly will. But not in this section of the forum.
[Moderating]Please remember that saying “fuck you” to another poster is against the rules.
No warning issued.
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[Moderating]
Junior modding is also against the rules. Don’t do this either.
No warning issued, albeit, somewhat reluctantly.
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Okay, the timing is bad and the target is misplaced (actual people which we cannot confirm hold the views prr assigns to them).
However, it’s fairly clear that most conservatives are opportunists when it comes to issues such as these, always seeking to externalise costs. For instance, when Romney was a State Governor, he was of the opinion that the Federal Government should cover costs. Then for a while he was against it, with some audacious and consistent conservatives supporting him. You see, it’s entirely consistent. People afflicted by hurricanes in some other part of the country should take the personal responsibility of dealing with it (and always get someone else to pay for it). When it afflicts me, the great individualist, I would have surely had to foresight and abstinence necessary to cover it with private insurance, had it not been for the onerous taxes and regulations from various levels of governments. So I thus demand the just reward of precisely the amount of tax money I spent on it. Otherwise that’d be from each according to ability, to each according to need, like those Occupy Sandy people believe.
I did find this site for Tea Party Staten Island, but it seems to be run by one individual and he doesn’t mention FEMA at all.