The US is still a federal system with states acting as sovereign entities with powers and responsibilities. One of those responsibilities is for disaster relief. FEMA is there to provide guidance and resources, but disaster relief is supposed to be deployed at the state level. This is one of reasons why the National Guard has responsibilities to individual states.
Of course there should be preparations to counter climate change as it continues to aggravate situations like this, but I don’t like the excuse where the feds can blame the states and the states can blame the feds when shit hits the fan. It has become an excuse for inaction. Hurricane Katrina, Texas ice storms, California wildfires, the Kentucky floods, this could have been sorted out looonng ago.
Why do we make the choice to keep things this way when they always lead to disasters?
Don’t you know? It’s far more important to toss the blame football around than to actually prevent or alleviate disasters. Helping people? Bah! Far more important that we can blame someone else for the problem.
I guess the problem then is I care about having a government that doesn’t want to kill me or leave me to die, then. Excuse me, I should have been caring about civility within our decaying governing structure while people roast alive on the street! Oh you’ve made me see the light, you sure have.
I’m not trying to convince you this is correct, just explaining the politics behind why the situation exists. Or maybe you want a strongman who will protect you until they don’t.
It’s the responsibility of the larger government entity to step in in some cases. Like in the cases of natural (or semi-natural) disasters or if the local governance shits the bed to the extent that people are dying. We’re not dealing with free imperial cities of the Holy Roman Empire here, cities aren’t sovereign entities they’re administrative regions for the government.
But how long does it take to figure that out? A few days?
This isn’t the Holy Roman Empire, but the bureaucracy isn’t as fast as people think it is and the initial response is still expected to be lead by the state. By the time it becomes apparent the federal government should step in, the response has already failed.
I’d rather be protected “until they don’t” than not protected at all.
But maybe you don’t need a “strongman” to do that, but a robust system designed to deal with disasters. Doesn’t matter how strong an individual man is, he can’t fight wildfires alone.
Maybe just coldly explaining why the system doesn’t help people isn’t actually the “gotcha” argument you think it is. Maybe you should be demanding the system should help people, instead of just shrugging and saying that it doesn’t because of reasons.
But in the end, there needs to be a specific authority to answer to disasters. Right now, and for a while, it is state governments as making the federal government responsible erodes state sovereignty.
Outside of Trump, the federal government is there to help when asked, but it is still the responsibility of the states to manage response efforts.
Just FYI, I’m not American, and our state and federal governments have no problem co-operating when it comes to disaster relief, regardless of who is in charge. Our states will send firefighters around the country to where they’re needed, no questions asked, or hand-wringing about budgets or finger pointing at shitty politicians.
This idea about “states rights” is monstrous. A state is an intangible, it is just lines drawn on a map. You know what’s more important than that? Saving people’s lives. You guys are so worried about imagined tyranny that you’ll literally subject yourselves to far worse fates just in the name of some abject “freedom.” What freedom does a dead person have?
Just because something happens in America doesn’t mean it happens in the rest of the world. We look at your state of affairs with abject horror most of the time.
Our state and federal governments also don’t have issues working together outside of a Trump led administration, but the first emergency response is expected to be led by local and state governments that the disaster happens in.
My state routinely lends state disaster response units around the country to make sure that they are up to speed on different methods of disaster response in disasters that my state expects to see. However, it isn’t all disasters as my state doesn’t get all disasters.
And I’m explaining the American thinking as the disaster is occurring in the United States of America.
It depends on which government.
The US is still a federal system with states acting as sovereign entities with powers and responsibilities. One of those responsibilities is for disaster relief. FEMA is there to provide guidance and resources, but disaster relief is supposed to be deployed at the state level. This is one of reasons why the National Guard has responsibilities to individual states.
Hawaii has never seen any wildfire or wildfire conditions like this before: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/10/climate/hawaii-fires-climate-change.html
Of course there should be preparations to counter climate change as it continues to aggravate situations like this, but I don’t like the excuse where the feds can blame the states and the states can blame the feds when shit hits the fan. It has become an excuse for inaction. Hurricane Katrina, Texas ice storms, California wildfires, the Kentucky floods, this could have been sorted out looonng ago.
Why do we make the choice to keep things this way when they always lead to disasters?
Don’t you know? It’s far more important to toss the blame football around than to actually prevent or alleviate disasters. Helping people? Bah! Far more important that we can blame someone else for the problem.
The problem is that the alternative is having the federal government immediately intervene in any emergency, which states would likely complain about.
I guess the problem then is I care about having a government that doesn’t want to kill me or leave me to die, then. Excuse me, I should have been caring about civility within our decaying governing structure while people roast alive on the street! Oh you’ve made me see the light, you sure have.
I’m not trying to convince you this is correct, just explaining the politics behind why the situation exists. Or maybe you want a strongman who will protect you until they don’t.
Are you seriously doing the Tough Independent Rugged Real American LARP here?
Did you build your own home? Do you repair your own roads? Do you check your own food for botulism?
I was noting that the failure of the disaster response seems to be due to local government officials failing in their job.
What is the responsibility of a larger government entity for the governance of cities?
It’s the responsibility of the larger government entity to step in in some cases. Like in the cases of natural (or semi-natural) disasters or if the local governance shits the bed to the extent that people are dying. We’re not dealing with free imperial cities of the Holy Roman Empire here, cities aren’t sovereign entities they’re administrative regions for the government.
But how long does it take to figure that out? A few days?
This isn’t the Holy Roman Empire, but the bureaucracy isn’t as fast as people think it is and the initial response is still expected to be lead by the state. By the time it becomes apparent the federal government should step in, the response has already failed.
Presenting a oh-so-large-its-scary government entity assisting locally during a disaster as a bad thing is certainly a take.
The federal government can assist, it just needs local permission to do so.
I’d rather be protected “until they don’t” than not protected at all.
But maybe you don’t need a “strongman” to do that, but a robust system designed to deal with disasters. Doesn’t matter how strong an individual man is, he can’t fight wildfires alone.
Maybe just coldly explaining why the system doesn’t help people isn’t actually the “gotcha” argument you think it is. Maybe you should be demanding the system should help people, instead of just shrugging and saying that it doesn’t because of reasons.
But in the end, there needs to be a specific authority to answer to disasters. Right now, and for a while, it is state governments as making the federal government responsible erodes state sovereignty.
Outside of Trump, the federal government is there to help when asked, but it is still the responsibility of the states to manage response efforts.
Just FYI, I’m not American, and our state and federal governments have no problem co-operating when it comes to disaster relief, regardless of who is in charge. Our states will send firefighters around the country to where they’re needed, no questions asked, or hand-wringing about budgets or finger pointing at shitty politicians.
This idea about “states rights” is monstrous. A state is an intangible, it is just lines drawn on a map. You know what’s more important than that? Saving people’s lives. You guys are so worried about imagined tyranny that you’ll literally subject yourselves to far worse fates just in the name of some abject “freedom.” What freedom does a dead person have?
Just because something happens in America doesn’t mean it happens in the rest of the world. We look at your state of affairs with abject horror most of the time.
Our state and federal governments also don’t have issues working together outside of a Trump led administration, but the first emergency response is expected to be led by local and state governments that the disaster happens in.
My state routinely lends state disaster response units around the country to make sure that they are up to speed on different methods of disaster response in disasters that my state expects to see. However, it isn’t all disasters as my state doesn’t get all disasters.
And I’m explaining the American thinking as the disaster is occurring in the United States of America.
Then let the states complain or, better yet, dissolve the fuckers