Small Government – Small Hearts: The GOP Response To Hurricane Irene

There is a storm advancing on the east coast of the United States of historic proportions. Hurricane Irene has resulted in the first ever mandatory evacuation of New York City due to a natural disaster. It is expected to cause billions of dollars of damage from North Carolina to Maine, but the human toll will not be known until the storm has passed. And the response by Republican leaders typically expresses their disdain for the unfortunates who not are a part of their elitist, country club caste.

Small Government

The GOP has long had an obsession with dismantling government. Grover Norquist famously stated that he wanted to “reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” More recently, Eric Cantor, the Republican Leader of the House, said that he would only support federal disaster aid if the expense was offset by cuts elsewhere in the budget. In effect, he is holding emergency relief hostage to partisan deficit reduction.

Right-wing icon Ron Paul goes even further. In an interview with NBC News he essentially advocated repealing a century of progress in critical response to national tragedies saying, literally, that “We should be like 1900.”

Paul cited as an example the response to a devastating hurricane in Galveston, TX, in 1900. It is still the worst natural disaster in U.S. history, taking the lives of between 10,000 and 12,000 people. Paul proudly boasted that the community did not require federal aid to rebuild the city. That, however, is patently false. Galveston did request and receive federal aid, without which it could not have rebuilt. Glenn Beck also falsely cited Galveston in an attempt to argue that the federal government’s role in disaster relief was unnecessary.

The modern Republican Party is making a predictable progression from George Bush’s phony “compassionate conservatism” to the heartlessness of the Tea Pity Party. At this foreboding time, when American lives and property are at risk, we should take care to remember the results of the anti-federalist policies that produced the cataclysm of Katrina and resolve to never allow that to happen again.

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8 thoughts on “Small Government – Small Hearts: The GOP Response To Hurricane Irene

  1. “…NOT patently false” in the second-to-last paragraph? Obviously a simple misspeak but I used to be a proof reader.

    • Yeah, helping people who get caught up in natural disasters is such a bad decision. I mean, if my house in Vermont got destroyed by some freak disaster, you know, something that happens every few centuries or several decades, I know I would be ok with the fact that the wealthiest, most powerful, most advanced and arguably the most morally conscious when it comes to human suffering (especially of its own people) nation in existence says ‘Lost absolutely everything huh? No hope of recovering a normal life? Family members killed? Friends killed? Ah, well, hazards of living on planet earth!!’, then I would be lifted up by freedom and self boot strap lifting. Make decisions with your hearts? You don’t get it man. There’s an Everlast song you should hear (someone else always said it better), its called What It’s Like. GOD FORBID you EVER have to be in any position of NEEDING help and not getting it anywhere but from the govt. My heart? Nah man. My brain; helping people recover helps us more than not. Besides, you would rather they pay for tax breaks to billionaires. I just don’t understand how you think that was an intelligent thing to say. My heart?…..God forbid you ever have to walk a mile in their shoes man, then you might really know what it’s like.

  2. Steve would probably agree that he and others who think like him should therefore never accept any help, as that would be against their principles.

    • You are absolutely right Gina. My partner’s mother gave herself a huge gash in the head. She bled profusely all over the kitchen floor. She never called us about her injury; she only asked if we were coming home.

      Well we returned to find her wounded. We told her she needs medical attention. She fought us! Yelled primarily at my partner and pinched her! It was forty minutes of histrionics.

      She is a big time fan of Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. She loves Fox News, too. She claims to be independent but leans to the far-right.

      She is extremely childish and petty. I would go as far to say she is the quintessential character for the right-wing thinker. Even if her life depended on it, and it did, she would never admit she needed help; she would even claim abuse if one tried to help.

      • Sappho,
        I hear you. Every time I visit my parents’ house, FOX News is on their over sized TV, blabbing out the endless psycho talk. It saddens me that they are being fed a total line of crap every minute of every day. They can’t help being misinformed, because all they are being fed every day is “junk food.”

  3. While I was waiting at the hospital, some folks had the TV set to Fox New. I could not directly see the television. My senses are well tuned to ascertaining news reporting to slander. What I heard on the television was slander.

    Fox News Anchor, “Hurricane Irene is just pummeling the East Coast. President Obama refers to this storm as an historical one. Meanwhile, while this storm is creating billions of dollars in damage, vice president Biden is playing golf. That is right, folks. Lives are being destroyed, and vice president Biden is playing golf.” This, of course, is paraphrasing. The anchor took a chance and turned a natural disaster into a podium to slander the vice president.

    From that instant, I knew what station my ears burned from. Unmistakable mudslinging, it could only come from Fox News.

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