Garrison Keillor asks: "How is being struck by a hurricane so different from being hit by cancer?"

[kpete]

The Republic of Texas believes in self-reliance and is suspicious of Washington sticking its big nose in your business. “Government is not the answer. You are not doing anyone a favor by creating dependency, destroying individual responsibility.” So said Sen. Ted Cruz (R), though not last week. Sunday on Fox News, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said Texas would need upward of $150?billion in federal aid for damage inflicted by Harvey. The stories out of Houston have all been about neighborliness and helping hands and people donating to relief funds, but you don’t raise $150?billion by holding bake sales. This is almost as much as the annual budget of the U.S. Army. I’m just saying.

I’m all in favor of pouring money into Texas, but I am a bleeding-heart liberal who favors single-payer health care. How is being struck by a hurricane so different from being hit by cancer? I’m only asking.

Houstonians chose to settle on a swampy flood plain barely 50 ?feet above sea level. The risks of doing so are fairly clear. If you chose to live in a tree and the branch your hammock was attached to fell down, you wouldn’t ask for a government subsidy to hang your hammock in a different tree.

…. Similarly, if a desert state such as Arizona expects the feds to solve its water shortage, as Sen. Jeff Flake (R) suggested recently, by guaranteeing Arizona first dibs on Lake Mead, this strikes me as a departure from conservative principles. Lake Mead, and Boulder Dam, which created it, were not built by Lake Mead Inc., but by the federal government. The residents of Phoenix decided freely to settle in an arid valley, and they have used federal water supplies to keep their lawns green. Why should we Minnesotans, who chose to live near water, subsidize golf courses on the desert? You like sunshine? Fine. Take responsibility for your decision and work out a deal with Perrier to keep yourselves hydrated.

Arizona is populated by folks who dread winter and hate having to shovel snow. In Minnesota, we recognize that snow is a form of water and that it’s snowmelt that replenishes the aquifers. So we make a rational decision to live here. A warm, dry winter is a sort of disaster for us, but we don’t apply to Washington for hankies. If we made a decision to live underwater on a coral reef off Hawaii, we wouldn’t expect the feds to provide us with Aqua-Lungs. If we chose to fly to the moon and play among the stars and spend spring on Jupiter and Mars and we got lost out there, we wouldn’t expect NASA to come rescue us. Get my drift here?



https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/when-a-red-state-gets-the-blues/2017/09/05/57a5461a-9254-11e7-aace-04b862b2b3f3_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-c%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.5d9b2a76a84e#comments

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. I am so tired of trying to reason with idiots. Thanks to Garrison for trying, though.

[dalton99a]

2. Great piece.

[pbmus]

3. The majority of the burden of responsibility for Houston

Last edited Tue Sep 5, 2017, 10:25 PM - Edit history (4)

Should be borne by those who bent over and took it from Bigly Oily Fucks...

And Bigly Oily Fuckers should be bailing Houston Out...

.on the other hand, reads the inscription, do unto others, what you want done to yourself..

So, when Minnesota gets buried in 10 ft of snow and ice, bridges and roads impassable, the nation will come to the rescue...

[spanone]

4. K&R...

[phylny]

5. I asked the same question here last week.

Of course, few people paid attention to my post because, well, I'm not Garrison Keillor.

[ck4829]

24. It was a good question too

[treestar]

6. Exactly

The responsibility thing is so stupid - the macro level of large disasters is not like one person not taking responsibility for some mistake.

[frazzled]

9. ??

Are you saying people are responsible for their cancers because they made mistakes? Or am I reading your post incorrectly?

Good luck with your prostate, or your breast. Should have been more careful, I guess. My husband came down with lymphoma, which spread throughout his entire body like wildfire. He hadn't done anything wrong, to my knowledge. Indeed, he'd never even been sick. He was lucky. Because we had good insurance he was able to get top-notch medical treatment, and it was paid for. Otherwise, he most certainly would have died ( it wasn't certain he wouldn't anyway, even with a year's worth of surgeries, scans, chemos, etc.)

We don't make moral judgments about people's illnesses--and everyone deserves good care. Just like hurricane victims.

[treestar]

11. Yes you are reading it incorrectly

why are people on DU so willing to jump to the conclusion they are being insulted.

I was referring to Cruz's statements on how federal aid gets in the way of "personal responsibility" as if personal responsibility of people for small mistakes applied to large populations in a large disaster.

[frazzled]

13. Well, I'm relieved.

And I apologize for reading you incorrectly. But you have a responsibility, as well to make yourself clear.

[Hekate]

19. It was quite clear to me. But then I started from a presumption of good will in the part of...

...that poster.

Best of luck.

[shadowmayor]

7. Ted Cruz don't neighbor.

He's not a real Texan.

Shame on people who don’t neighbor. Shame on both of our Senators. And shame on those who don’t care about others. And the thing of it is, even if you won’t help us, we will help you when you need it. Because that’s how we’re raised in Texas and that’s how you neighbor.

[demigoddess]

21. when we lived in Texas we were driving somewhere and saw a texas

Congressman mowing his lawn. Henry Gonzalez I believe. That was the days when Texas was run by Democrats, not republicans.

[northoftheborder]

26. Henry Gonzales - one of the greats from Texas

[DLevine]

8. K&R. nt

[dlk]

10. Victim Blaming Absolves the Blamer from Taking Responsibility for Any Solutions

[ancianita]

12. Yeah I'm not feelin' it, either. That ol' crank's forgotten one of the rules of Lake Wobegon.

[yorkie77]

14. Perfect comment Garrison.

None of us can control the weather or some of the awful things that happen to us (despite our good behavioral practices). Bad stuff happens, and we, as a country of people who care about each other (hopefully) need to be there for each other. I hope the rest of the USA gets this.

[zentrum]

15. Thank you Garrison.

[Honeycombe8]

16. Excellent article. He's right. nt

[martigras]

17. Why isn't Texas using its own "rainy day fund"?

Texas has 10 billion tucked away in a rainy day fund but has no plans to use it. They already get more money back from the govt than they pay in. Shouldn't they have to draw down their own money before getting more from the Federal government. Thought they hated the govt?

[mountain grammy]

18. Thanks for posting.

and thanks to Garrison Keillor! We might want to remember that all but one Texas Congressperson voted against funds for Sandy victims in 2012.

[dsc]

22. Correction

All but one Republican congressperson

[Pepsidog]

20. Dems should insist No funds for Houston without DACA protection

Just like Repugs want money for border security in return for DACA protections, so should the Dems demand no money for Houston without DACA guaranteees.

[Duppers]

23. K & R

[ck4829]

25. K&R