I was listening to the news today and I heard that people who were hit by Wilma were grousing and the feds came in and brought them free food, free water, free ice. I have a question. Since when should the government use my money, your money, to buy groceries for folks who weren’t forethoughtful enough to buy groceries for themselves when they decided to stay within the path of a hurricane.
When we were going to stay in Rita’s path, when it was going to hit us dead on, we had water and food for a week. We weren’t expecting the government to come in and feed us.
When did this expectation that the government should buy us food and water happen? Why did it happen? And how can we make it stop?
The nation that was founded and created by people who thought that everyone should help themselves… has become a nation of people who think that everyone else should help them.
And, no, I’m not opposed to the government helping in extreme emergencies, even if the people were stupid unprepared, but I don’t think we should all be counting on the government to buy us dinner every time a wind comes… even a heavy wind.
Boudicca’s Voice has an entry that is quite as much a rant as mine. And she was in South Floriday, so you can’t get away with saying it’s not fair to say that if I wasn’t in the situation. She was in that situation particularly.
We chose to stay for Katrina. And although things got rough (we needed food for more than a week) we managed nicely by being very community minded. Our community shared and bartered (literally) during the trials following Katrina. I only picked up water from a POD once a few weeks after the storm when I saw some very bored National Guard men sitting out and no one coming for their water!
My parents were here during Camille. There was not nearly the government involvement at that time for that storm (at least not where they were 30 miles from the coast). They just managed. No Red Cross money. No disater EBT cards, just their community.
It’s actually quite interesting how different things were….considering the similiarties in the two storms.