[aways]

Originally posted by Ed Bighi
I think I am going to ruffle a few feathers here. Not that a give a fuch, but oh well. A think another big part of the problem is every american's love of structure. From the bottom to the top of the command chain, along with the end recipient who loves that all-enveloping and comforting plan. It makes them feel safe. A love of following the plan. Ah, the plan. The structure. The love of complexity. Even when the problem is evolving as an organic entity, the plan stays the same and fails to evolve and keep up. We are obesessed with taking account or filling out form G7RZ-76-A-65A or whatever. Or situations like "first we must contact this person so that person contacts this person, than the third person has to come over and contact another person, and so on." It's more than bureocracy, it's the american way. At least as of late.

Want to see how it works in small scale. Cut your finger by accident. In Mexico. Yes, Mexico. Been in that situation. You go walk into a hospital or even a pharmacy, they sew you on the spot and you are out the door for a few pesos. Over here? Walk in, fill some huge form asking your grandfather's penis size, your aunt's inseam size, whey your insurance carrier was founded, then wait, wait, wait. We suffer from anal retention over here. Great when there is order. Not so great when there is chaos. What you saw in NO was a large scale of things getting too big for efficiency. Look at the Tsunami in Asia for example. Why did it get handled better. Because it was in a third world country. Not that third world countries handle things better because they don't. But there isn't red tape even for ourselves when helping over there.

Over there every country just threw everything they could at it as quickly as possible with no plan other than how quick can we load a plane. Every country went over there without a care about jurisdiction, bureocratic red tape or anything of the kind. Nobody gave a damn about stepping on anybody's toes. That was for later. Nobody waited for help to be called. They just assumed those folks were in a world of trouble and just sent everything over there. It was a situation where you just sent over a *****load of doctors water and food and then sent the surplus doctors back. Besides, as far as Thailand, nobody minded a bunch of Marines showing up. Have a bunch of Legionnaires and Bundeswehr show up over here the next day and see what happens. Sure, the victims would be happy, but how about the doplomatic bull*****. The "structure." The ******* structure. Well fuch the structure. People died exactly because of it. Regardless of the failures by state and local. Our system failed us as well. Thank god I didn't get flooded when I went through Andrew.

Almost every time I say this to somebody else this week, they answer with some other complexity as a solution to this complexity. I give up. I think people here can't help it. It's ingrained.

I can't say I disagree with you. Much of the overwhelming rigidity in the system is the result of the insane amount of litigation in this country. Trial lawyers have made people afraid to ***** without a permit. The fact that trial lawyers donate more to Democrat politicians than any other group (with the possible exception of teacher's unions)is probably the best single reason I can think of to vote Republican.