James Taranto's on his "Best of the Web", in commenting on "climate change" , had the following:
"On the op-ed page of the New York Times , Matthew Algeo,
author of "The President Is a Sick Man," describes how severe the
weather has become. "On Tuesday, Aug. 22, in the Atlantic Ocean, four
hurricanes were swirling simultaneously, an event never before recorded.
. . . Wednesday night, one of the hurricanes slammed into New York
City. At least 30 people were killed." Four days later, an even more
powerful hurricane killed some 2,000 in and around Savannah, Ga.
What, you don't remember reading about those storms in the papers?
That's not because reporters are dropping the climate-change ball, but
because Algeo is writing history, not news. The hurricanes in question
occurred in 1893.
The 22nd and 24th president "Grover Cleveland did nothing," Algeo
writes. The 24th president, a Democrat, "opposed government intervention
in natural disasters," which he thought, as he once wrote in a veto
message, "encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the
government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character." But all's well that ends well. "Into the void stepped Clara Barton,
. . . who had founded the American Red Cross 12 years earlier," Algeo
writes. "Her heroic work, especially in the South, saved countless
thousands from disease and starvation".
Taranto was using the passage to make a point about the hoax of man-made "climate change", because history reveals that the weather was certainly as bad and unstable in the past as it is in modern days. I think his story makes a more salient point about who we have become as a people, because I cannot imagine a modern day politician that would have the political gumption to oppose intervention by the federal government in a natural disaster.
In the Christian worldview there are three social institutions ordained by God: the family, the church and government. These "spheres" have there unique and specific functions and if one "sphere" tries to usurp the functions of another, then the results are always less than optimal and sometimes disastrous.
Grover Cleveland seemed to instinctively know that if the federal government intruded on what was not it's "sphere", the results would be less than optimal. Government intrusion would certainly create an expectation of entitlement in a populace that over time would increasingly see themselves as victims and demand to be "saved".
We saw this born out in New Orleans during Katrina and we are seeing it in parts of New Jersey and New York where residents are increasingly giving voice, sometimes hysterically, that they are not only not receiving enough help, but are not receiving it immediately. Today's politicians are getting elected on the promise that they can solve any and all problems. They climate they have created is coming home to roost and it is increasingly clear that the federal government is ill equipped to respond effectively to local emergencies.
After Katrina, I made three mission trips to the Gulf coast and I can unequivocally state that it wasn't the federal government who put things back together, but the church and para-church organizations who provided material aide and spiritual comfort. Uncle Sam wasted billions of dollars in inefficieny on items ranging from FEMA trailers to credit cards that were used to purchase vacations and TV's.
The same is happening in New York and New Jersey in the aftermath of Sandy. The Red Cross, Samaritan's Purse, the Salvation Army, the Southern Baptists, who are providing over 400,000 meals a day, and a hosts of other church organizations are on the ground providing aid and comfort while the FEMA stumbles around with waste and inefficiency.
Grover Cleveland was exactly right. We have let the federal government assume a role which it was never intended to play and the result has been a weakening of our national character on two fronts: we have become a nation of victims and a nation who sits on our hands expecting the government to do what we should be doing.
