How is this "poor support on the part of the VA"? Yes, clearly his pain was not being adequately addressed, but he got an extreme surgery at a private hospital without relief of his symptoms. In my opinion, the VA doctors did the right thing by not operating without knowing that it would improve his pain. Now he is in pain without bowel function, worse off than he was before. I don't know the details of his injuries, but some spinal cord injury and traumatic brain injury patients have neurogenic pain that is unrelieved by any intervention let alone surgery.

Tempted to anthropomorphize too but it could be something less fun.. relief from parasites or such..

Of all the many descriptions of introversion I've heard, this is the closest to describing me. It's almost perfect.

When I was young, I faked being extrovert and mostly made an ass out of myself and came off like a try-hard (which I guess I was). When someone close to me pointed out that I was actually an introvert, it was a relief that it could be OK not to talk all the time. Every aspect of my life improved. I'm quiet and I own it.

THANKS SIFTY

What a relief!

It's like Bad Lip Reading.>> ^mikeydamonster:

Alright, the captions for this are so funny it's ridiculous. Some choice "quotes":
"who uh... praise them significant not mit romney yesterday it was an ohio, who's got a new campaign event, but he can't anymore does it doesn't look good so, they totally genius idea, to instead call it, icestorm relief event well all day on install e_l_(?!) gag. now solo."
"i'd love that okay. so let's figure out a way to be created an opportunistic without looking like, and that's all they did so they it's racist signs around they put away the campaign signs Edison long tables."
I pity any deaf person who can't read lips.

Alright, the captions for this are so funny it's ridiculous. Some choice "quotes":

"who uh... praise them significant not mit romney yesterday it was an ohio, who's got a new campaign event, but he can't anymore does it doesn't look good so, they totally genius idea, to instead call it, icestorm relief event well all day on install e_l_(?!) gag. now solo."

"i'd love that okay. so let's figure out a way to be created an opportunistic without looking like, and that's all they did so they it's racist signs around they put away the campaign signs Edison long tables."

I pity any deaf person who can't read lips.

@enoch let me see, charity = helping people (preferably) in need. Disaster relief = helping people in need (due to some disaster). Help me understand why I can't compare the two.

@dgandhi did FEMA do such an amazing job after Katrina that I don't know about? Because there's a very long article on Wikipedia detailing all the criticisms, somebody should remove it.

Government is not wasteful just for being large, it's wasteful for being a monopoly. It's so easy to conceive of the evils of a single corporation becoming a monopoly, but when it comes to government, the issue strangely never comes up.

I understand that's most likely because we can't avoid government being a monopoly, it's the nature of the beast, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to make it smaller.

You bring up good points about division of labor. What about competition, does that matter in modern society or will that also be overlooked?

If we use this $35B figure, which is allegedly what government needs to do disaster relief work poorly, can't we bring it down by subtracting all the money wasted, or will the private corporations have to operate at the same level of exorbitance?

Does it have to be a single gigantic institution, why can't smaller organizations be triggered in unison by a big disaster?

Also, why does it have to be entirely non-profit, what about the insurance business, doesn't it revolve around risk management and dealing with unlikely events like disasters?

Yes, we pay for a disaster relief infrastructure, but we don't have a choice in the matter, and that knowledge is what makes FEMA a disaster. In our moment of most dire need, we can only count on FEMA and nothing else. They abuse their privilege by being wasteful and inefficient.

Governments are not the only organizations capable of preparing and dealing with disasters, and they're very far from being the best at it.

>> ^renatojj:

@Kofi if 200 billion is not enough, wouldn't that amount increase if government didn't take away so much from it? If people were allowed to keep more of their money, I think they would have more to likely donate to charity.


Well if you look at "charity" breakdown, it's only about $35B that goes to anything like disaster relief.

So let's use that real number. And then let's pretend that it's not already spent on ongoing everyday problems, and then let's pretend the ~$60B in tax revenue that these "charities" are exempted from costs nothing.

Are you seriously claiming that you could put together a lean-mean non-profit relief org that could manage to be prepared for, and provide aid in any arbitrary situation like hurricane Sandy for $35B a year? What about the next thing? What if you go a Katrina instead?

>> ^renatojj:


Also, I'm sure you'll agree that just throwing money at a problem is not a solution, whether it's 200 billion or 2 trillion, the amount isn't everything. Just look at how much more money government takes and how poorly it does its job. Wouldn't charity, without the wasteful middle man of government, improve the situation?
Besides, wasting money is the opposite of charity, because it's money that won't go into productive employment, goods, services, and investments. So society is worse off, and while most of us can still go on with our lives, those who are needy and poor are the most affected by any amount of wasted resources.


Large Organizations are wasteful, if they are for-profit, charity, or government, having a large enough infrastructure to address large problems is costly, that is not a government problem.

We live in a high infrastructure technological society. We don't form bucket brigades when someone's house catches on fire, we have professionals, with effective equipment, who show up and solve this problem more quickly and efficiently, and at a lower aggregate cost to society.

The same is true of disaster relief, we pay for the maintenance of a professional disaster relief infrastructure, and it's cheaper than either doing it ad-hoc, or not having anything in place at all.

Kindness and charity are good and real human impulses, but they are not preparedness, we have organizations for that, we call them governments.

@renatojj
what you are alluding to is the basic fundamental argument of politics,or more aptly put:"what IS the role of government".

but to suggest that emergency disaster relief is somehow charity is stretching the logic beyond operating parameters.

now we could argue,
in regards to emergency disaster relief:
1.the size of the department.
2.the yearly funds allocated.
3.responsibilities and duties.
and a myriad of other details,but to suggest that emergency disaster relief is somehow forced charity is just patently false.

because even the most extreme political ideologies recognize that the protection of citizens is paramount and is a "fundamental" role of government.

we are not talking about food stamps or section 8 housing.
we are talking about natural disasters which wipe out whole communities of our fellow citizens,through no fault of their own,who have lost everything and are in desperate need of the very basics of life.

the argument is not the "role" but rather the "degree" of that role.

>> ^renatojj:

We don't need government for emergency relief, because society doesn't need to be forced into taking care and being charitable towards each other.
Those who think otherwise don't understand the nature of charity at all, they act as if only they have the noblest of goals, while doubting anyone else is capable of being charitable out of their own free will and means.


I think when my paying taxes goes to helping the old widow down the way get food, or help the kids at their school I feel very good about that. I would agree as would most Americans would to giving more of my money to schools and the poor.

The problem is that you don't know anything.

>> ^renatojj:

We don't need government for emergency relief, because society doesn't need to be forced into taking care and being charitable towards each other.
Those who think otherwise don't understand the nature of charity at all, they act as if only they have the noblest of goals, while doubting anyone else is capable of being charitable out of their own free will and means.


i think it is you who do not understand the basic,fundamental role of government in regards to "emergency disaster relief".

We don't need government for emergency relief, because society doesn't need to be forced into taking care and being charitable towards each other.

Those who think otherwise don't understand the nature of charity at all, they act as if only they have the noblest of goals, while doubting anyone else is capable of being charitable out of their own free will and means.

>> ^Kofi:

What does he mean by "back to the private sector"? I thought he was against picking winners and losers.


In my experiences as an outside party, I've noticed Romney tends to be against lot of things that he's in favor of.

>> ^Kofi:

What does he mean by "back to the private sector"? I thought he was against picking winners and losers.
He doesn't seem to understand the idea of government as providing that which the private sector cannot provide because it necessarily has to run at a loss, you know, like emergency services etc. If there's a dollar to be made you can be sure the private sector is already there unless legislation prohibits it.

I think the idea is that you buy insurance against natural disaster.


Of course if you have any pre-existing conditions, say your house is built near a fault line, next to the sea or in hurricane alley then your premiums are probably going to be extortionate.

To be fair. He didn't quite say that federal disaster relief should be privatised, just that it should be moved to the state level - and then you could argue he went off on a tangent about how you should privatise as much as possible and that large federal spending was "immoral". I think whats interesting is what he considers to be a waste of federal money, and what isn't - say a bloated defence budget. Maybe if you build enough tanks you can shoot the next Katrina to pieces?