James Brody
January 20th, 2009, 01:50 PM
On the other hand, SarahP and the State of Alaska did not seek federal money in order to manage -78 degree temperatures. Steyn also mentions here such things as chaos and order and tipping points...
JimB
"Inaugural Disaster
"We live in a permanent state of routine emergency, with taxpayers on the hook for the fix.
By Mark Steyn
"No, seriously. I'm not setting up some lame-o punchline here, like we used to do a decade back in the good old Monica days: "President Clinton today declared his pants a federal disaster area," etc. What happened last week was that the Bush administration formally declared a federal emergency in the District of Columbia.
"So what was it? An ice storm? A hurricane?
"No, it's the inauguration of his successor."
...
"I'm not worried about "change" so much as creep. The Obama administration doesn't have to do anything terribly transformative—overnight socialization of health care, etc. In fact, it doesn't have to do anything at all. It could just sit there, and America would still drift remorselessly, incrementally left, inch by inch. Eventually, you reach a tipping point: At some point in the next four years, we will reach a situation where the majority of Americans pay no federal income tax but are able to vote themselves more goodies from those who do. The most basic of conservative principles is that if you reward bad behavior you get more of it. We now have a government offering trillion-dollar rewards for bad behavior to the financial system, to the housing market, to the auto unions, and to individual voters. And the heirs to those Connecticut town meetings that Tocqueville regarded as the best form of government ever devised by man now underbudget their snow-removal costs secure in the knowledge that the Feds will pick up the tab."
More at http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZGFlMzQ2NDA2MWFmOTMwMjAxYzZhOWI4ZGU5NTAzNzU=
JimB
"Inaugural Disaster
"We live in a permanent state of routine emergency, with taxpayers on the hook for the fix.
By Mark Steyn
"No, seriously. I'm not setting up some lame-o punchline here, like we used to do a decade back in the good old Monica days: "President Clinton today declared his pants a federal disaster area," etc. What happened last week was that the Bush administration formally declared a federal emergency in the District of Columbia.
"So what was it? An ice storm? A hurricane?
"No, it's the inauguration of his successor."
...
"I'm not worried about "change" so much as creep. The Obama administration doesn't have to do anything terribly transformative—overnight socialization of health care, etc. In fact, it doesn't have to do anything at all. It could just sit there, and America would still drift remorselessly, incrementally left, inch by inch. Eventually, you reach a tipping point: At some point in the next four years, we will reach a situation where the majority of Americans pay no federal income tax but are able to vote themselves more goodies from those who do. The most basic of conservative principles is that if you reward bad behavior you get more of it. We now have a government offering trillion-dollar rewards for bad behavior to the financial system, to the housing market, to the auto unions, and to individual voters. And the heirs to those Connecticut town meetings that Tocqueville regarded as the best form of government ever devised by man now underbudget their snow-removal costs secure in the knowledge that the Feds will pick up the tab."
More at http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZGFlMzQ2NDA2MWFmOTMwMjAxYzZhOWI4ZGU5NTAzNzU=