Houston's citizen's take care of themselves...
Mayor White's Amazement

In a press conference given this morning Houston's Mayor, Bill White, expressed amazement at the fact that people in some of Houston's neighborhoods had already come out of their homes to deal with the after-effects of hurricane Ike themselves.

Mayor White noted that in one neighborhood residents did not wait for city maintenance crews to come to their neighborhood to begin the clean-up process. Mayor White said that several neighbors had come out of their homes with chain saws, had cut up downed trees, gathered up scattered debris, and unblocked drainage culverts. They stacked the debris out of the way opening road access and as a result of unblocking the culverts the water levels in the neighborhood has already begun to drop.

Why is it that the Mayor would express amazement that these people would actually take matters into their own hands rather than to helplessly wait in their homes for their government rescuers to clear the roads and open the culverts? Could it be that the Mayor subscribes to the notion that only the government can take care of its otherwise helpless subjects? Such a personal subscription (people are dependent on government to take care of them), would account for the Mayor's amazement.

Though he seemed amazed that these residents would act for themselves, Mayor White seemed genuinely proud of these people. Though they seemed to be able to take care of themselves without government help Mayor White still thought that they needed a bit of government aid and reminded them that it might not be a good idea for them to cut up trees which had power lines entangled in them.

We saw just these sort of private citizen actions taken in Mississippi and Louisiana following the devastation of Katrina. Even as everyone was tossing scathing criticisms at the ineffectiveness of FEMA and local and state officials in coming to their aid, we saw private citizens, not public employees, making a difference in hard-hit communities. Not only were local residents taking matters into their own hands, but several private citizens from neighboring states came to help their fellows in time of need. Just as we see in Houston now, we saw private citizens then taking up chain saws and clearing neighborhoods of fallen trees and debris, which were blocking the roads.

It still seems that not all of the People are yet totally dependent on government in all areas of their lives; the People still retain the capacity to help themselves...to Mayor White's amazement.