There was a time when, through no fault of my own, I had to take refuge in a dilapidated mountain cabin or go from homeless shelter to homeless shelter. The cabin was 45 minutes from any help or sizeable community except for the small township 25 minutes away. I was living on $600 per month and I had a special needs son to care for.
The cabin did have electricity, well water, a septic holding tank, and a wood burning stove. It also had phone and internet - email was the only way to keep in touch with the outside world. I did not have a functional cook stove, a hot water heater, or a furnace. For almost the entire first year, we had to cook, bathe, and wash our dishes using the wood stove to pan-fry and heat water for washing.
It is a privilege to have a working stove, hot water, a dishwasher and a furnace.
Put any of these whining, spoiled people in the same predicament and I wouldn't expect them to survive.
Life has shifted into "fast forward". We could be a lot happier if, when our wonderful technology services are non-functional, we considered interruptions as a break and enjoyed a mini vacation.
Certainly expecting the government to make our lives perfect is a terrible concept!
One problem is that the average person doesn't have backup plans. They aren't prepared!
Don't just "look at the Amish." If people want to see real world and real time examples of "benevolent government intervention," just look down south of the border, and I don't mean Mexico. Look further south at what Venezuela, once the wealthiest nation on the South American Continent, has become in roughly 20 years. And look at what their neighbor Brazil is quickly morphing into. No thank you. I'll take self-governance every day over my supposed benevolent dictators every day of the week.
Someday a combination of geophysical factors (shifting magnetic poles coupled with extreme solar storms) plus the DEI bred incompetence of our infrastructural engineers may lead to a complete collapse of our internet based communications. Then we will have to return to using printed encyclopedia and card files to do research again.
It's true that by any standard in the world, the poorest Americans are filthy rich compared to say Burundi, Madagascar, or even Russia. Government involvement in just about anything in the USA tends to make whatever issue worse. The more attention the government invests, the worse the problem gets. Anything the US government declares "war" on gets worse by orders of magnitude. The "war on drugs", the "war on poverty", and so on, have made those issues immeasurably worse. Let's not even mention the "war on terror".
Now it may be the conspiracy theorist in me, but as far as government, driven very hard by "the Deep State", has never had alleviating said problems as a goal, but rather used these "opportunities" as a means to expand control. If government actually solved any of these problems, well, they'd put themselves out of business.. Each of these... problems, have grown exponentially in direct correlation to the amount of attention and resources applied to whatever it is.
The privilege you spoke of is a great indicator of just how wealthy the US is. We have the time and money to involve ourselves to "remedy" self inflicted maladies. Look at the southern border as an example. The "problem" of countless aliens flooding illegally into the US is a problem, even as it's denied by those allowing it and even enabling it. It will continue to be a problem with all sorts of aggravating circumstances creating problems on local and even personal scales. then the government in all its 'benevolence' will step in and declare "war" on criminal aliens and somehow, the issue will get worse. Yes, I know it seems hard to believe, but don't underestimate government's ability to totally screw something up and taking even a minor annoyance and turning it into a full blown crisis.
Power generation is a great example of government's ability to screw things up. The federal government does NOT have any means to generate power, yet they never miss an opportunity to insert themselves into a situation and create all sorts of mayhem and shortfalls. The DOE, Department Of Energy, not to be confused with the DOE, department Of Education, another issue the government's involvement has made so much worse, but no, the DOE, former, creates mandates, red laws, that make everything involved in power generation, harder and more expensive. The shutting down of coal plants and mines in favor of the misnomer, "renewable" energy has only made cheap and efficient power delivery harder, more expensive, and rapidly less reliable. Solar farms, windmills cannot and likely never will, replace as in return on investment, Coal, LNG, nuclear, geothermal, and hydroelectric are all proven and reliable energy production capabilities, yet the federal government is restricting, eliminating, and ignoring these proven methods in favor of things that will never approach he consistency, efficiency, a cost effective means we've trusted for generations.
The examples of wind and solar not even coming close to the requirements our way of life depends upon are myriad, yet to point out that fact gets you labeled an extremist, racist, denier of - (insert current manufactured outrage here). We suffer the privilege of having the wealth to let mental midgets and unaccountable bureaucracies, (deep state) mandate methods that will only lead to hardship and death. Left unaddressed, these policies will destroy the American way of life and though that may be the goal for those supporting these inane strategies, I've got to believe that the rank and file cheerleaders of this insanity don't realize that they too will be negatively affected by these insae methods. They suffer the privilege of ignorance.
I still marvel at the privilege of having information at my fingertips! I want to know something? Google it. I'm 70 and did all of that in the way you described for about half of my life.
Electricity? Yes, I hate it when it goes out, but I've had it turned off for months at a time where I live (my poor self's fault), and survived. And know I can do it if I have to. But then, I can drive a stick shift, write in cursive, and so on.
The LAST thing I want is the federal government in control of anything that belongs to the state; the state government in control of anything that belongs to my town; and my town in control of anything that should be personal to me. Unfortunately with privilege comes dependency, and with dependency comes wanting someone outside of ourselves in control.
That Texas power regulatory agency indirectly caused the deaths of over 700 Texans who froze to death by refusing to accept electricity off of the national grid. So much for the benevolent power of government.
I don’t think that’s true. If I remember correctly I believe my son (he lives there) said Texas is on it’s own power grid and could not tap into the national grid if they wanted. Of course a democrat president offers it up and when it isn’t even possible to do it tells the world that Texas refused the help. My son is a power guy. PE in Texas and has worked on design and build of power plants. The grid are divided up into sections and you can’t just tap into another section so easily. The only truth to that statement is that TX like everyone else put too much trust in alternative energy programs and people died.
I can see why having an independent grid by each state would be a prudent measure lest a natural event or terrorist attack took out a key node for the national power grid.
My point too is that that "grid" should not in any way be under the control or regulation of government. CenterPoint Energy owns most of the lines/delivery infrastructure in Texas (or, at least, in Southeast Texas). They are responsible. People, of course, want it to be reliable, therefore, it is in CenterPoint's best interest to keep it so if they want to get paid. Other companies (only a few really - many who sell power in Texas, since power was deregulated, are just brokers/resellers) generate the power, and again, it is in their best interest to make power generation reliable so that they can get paid. Keep the government out of the way, and chances are, it will be cheaper, more efficient, and more reliable. Get government involved...well, you know how that works out.
Yes but being in a separate power was and is a CHOICE by Texas officials so they still bear responsibility for the lives and health of people dependent on that power grid.
Well my point was it was a democrat show boating offer that there was no infrastructure to support and they knew it when they offered it. Then they condemned Texas for not accepting it publicly to make Abbot look bad. And. Granted an ice storm of that magnitude is rare in that area but there are other type of storms there that could take out power for extended periods of time. Most people know their area and prepare for these problems in their homes. How many of these 700 people died because they were in a car traveling, got in an accident, went outside against better judgement, couldn’t get medical emergency care in a medical event or just didn’t have enough blankets and a hurricane lamp to ride it out. You can put yourself in the smallest room in your house with enough warm clothing and blankets and a hurricane lamp or two and survive. Prepare yourself, many of those death were no doubt lack of preparedness. The Democrat party would give peanuts to a starving Republican peanuts would kill and then say the stubborn Republican refused to eat them and starved because it was from Democrats. They knew they had no way to link into another grid and even trying to do so would have just taken away work on the repairs needed to get back on line. The offer was political grandstanding.
One more survival tip. If you have a gas or propane stove (which Dems want to take away from you) in your kitchen you can light burners with a match even when the power is out to warm the area up. We’ve done that in a blizzard mostly so temps wouldn’t drop near plumping to the point of pipes bursting.
I agree with you Rebecca. And you touched on what really is, IMO, the primary issue: personal preparedness. There is nothing in the Constitution that states that any level of government is responsible for making sure you have electricity, that you have access to medical care, that you have heat, or anything else of that nature. Government's primary purpose is to protect your rights and your liberty. How you use your rights and liberty is up to you (so long as you're not infringing upon another's). Government does not exist to help you recover from a disaster, or to even protect you from one. They have neither the ability nor the authority.
Since I know people look to FEMA for assistance after natural disasters, I encourage everyone to read the story "Not Yours to Give": https://fee.org/resources/not-your-to-give/
No disputing the accuracy of what both of you have said about personal responsibility and preparedness.
That said, there were other complications and constraints that existed when it came to preparedness. Specifically at that time, “supply chain issues,” coming out of the pandemic which, despite all efforts at preparedness for over a year to get a generator, were unsuccessful.
And because of the unprecedented nature of that 2021 great freeze, there was the issue of simple cluelessness.
For us, even having grown up in the north and knowing measures to take to prepare did not help. When the power goes out, *AND* The cluster-&$€£ Response of the water authority was to reduce water pressure by 90%, even the efforts of residents to keep water flowing failed.
For those fortunate enough to have fireplaces in homes built for staying cool in 100°+ temps, trying to access enough wood in advance to keep warm was not possible for everyone, on short notice. And who “should have” anticipated being without power for six or seven days. And what of those who don’t have gas stoves?
There are limits to how much and how well masses of people can prepare on short notice.
I’m from hurricane country. There are a few things I have always had in every home I rented of purchased. I alway have oil lamps and a few gallons of oil. I always rented or bought homes with natural/lp gas stoves and furnaces. I will not have an electric stove like I won’t have an automatic transmission. I have always from childhood canned and prepared food as I grew up in a family of nine in hurricane country. We were poor but didn’t know it.
I was raised a prepper. I understand there are people who weren’t. I got threw no toilet paper with my household supply and picking up my generous allotment when it was available from the grocery store. Had there not been food we would have been fine. Not a Mormon just the way I was raise. We were poor but didn’t know it.
Yep. We lived through that, too. 6+ days with no heat OR water in 9° temps, in a house built for 100° + .
The day came when we seriously feared we wouldn’t live through the night. There are only so many blankets you can pile on.
Couldn’t even melt snow by bringing it in, to give our dogs water to drink.
Walking from house to house hoping any neighbor had running water so we could fill a bucket.
And in a comical reverse of intuition, instead of taking food OUT of refrigerators that had no power and putting it outside to keep it cold, we were instead putting it back into refrigerators to keep it from freezing.
Having been smack dab in the middle of those Beryl outages (just got power back, “moments” ago), I’ll confess some gnashing of teeth over lack of access to the live feeds of my favorite flavor of info, but happy to say never for a second did I wish GOVT. controlled it.
Conversely, I was blaming govt. for the mess that has become of our ingenuity and ability to instantly respond to and innovate out of such messes.
For all of our technological progress in the past 40 years, huge storm preparedness and response lags even worse. It’s not like these storms are our first rodeo. But with increasingly oppressive regulations of every kind, our Dear govt. certainly suffocates progress.
So glad to "see" you back!!!
There was a time when, through no fault of my own, I had to take refuge in a dilapidated mountain cabin or go from homeless shelter to homeless shelter. The cabin was 45 minutes from any help or sizeable community except for the small township 25 minutes away. I was living on $600 per month and I had a special needs son to care for.
The cabin did have electricity, well water, a septic holding tank, and a wood burning stove. It also had phone and internet - email was the only way to keep in touch with the outside world. I did not have a functional cook stove, a hot water heater, or a furnace. For almost the entire first year, we had to cook, bathe, and wash our dishes using the wood stove to pan-fry and heat water for washing.
It is a privilege to have a working stove, hot water, a dishwasher and a furnace.
Put any of these whining, spoiled people in the same predicament and I wouldn't expect them to survive.
That's an inspiring story ebezeebee! So glad you were able to make it!
Life has shifted into "fast forward". We could be a lot happier if, when our wonderful technology services are non-functional, we considered interruptions as a break and enjoyed a mini vacation.
Certainly expecting the government to make our lives perfect is a terrible concept!
One problem is that the average person doesn't have backup plans. They aren't prepared!
Don't just "look at the Amish." If people want to see real world and real time examples of "benevolent government intervention," just look down south of the border, and I don't mean Mexico. Look further south at what Venezuela, once the wealthiest nation on the South American Continent, has become in roughly 20 years. And look at what their neighbor Brazil is quickly morphing into. No thank you. I'll take self-governance every day over my supposed benevolent dictators every day of the week.
And I like the Dewey Decimal System just fine!
Someday a combination of geophysical factors (shifting magnetic poles coupled with extreme solar storms) plus the DEI bred incompetence of our infrastructural engineers may lead to a complete collapse of our internet based communications. Then we will have to return to using printed encyclopedia and card files to do research again.
I, and probably others of my generation, could likely survive. How about others?
It's true that by any standard in the world, the poorest Americans are filthy rich compared to say Burundi, Madagascar, or even Russia. Government involvement in just about anything in the USA tends to make whatever issue worse. The more attention the government invests, the worse the problem gets. Anything the US government declares "war" on gets worse by orders of magnitude. The "war on drugs", the "war on poverty", and so on, have made those issues immeasurably worse. Let's not even mention the "war on terror".
Now it may be the conspiracy theorist in me, but as far as government, driven very hard by "the Deep State", has never had alleviating said problems as a goal, but rather used these "opportunities" as a means to expand control. If government actually solved any of these problems, well, they'd put themselves out of business.. Each of these... problems, have grown exponentially in direct correlation to the amount of attention and resources applied to whatever it is.
The privilege you spoke of is a great indicator of just how wealthy the US is. We have the time and money to involve ourselves to "remedy" self inflicted maladies. Look at the southern border as an example. The "problem" of countless aliens flooding illegally into the US is a problem, even as it's denied by those allowing it and even enabling it. It will continue to be a problem with all sorts of aggravating circumstances creating problems on local and even personal scales. then the government in all its 'benevolence' will step in and declare "war" on criminal aliens and somehow, the issue will get worse. Yes, I know it seems hard to believe, but don't underestimate government's ability to totally screw something up and taking even a minor annoyance and turning it into a full blown crisis.
Power generation is a great example of government's ability to screw things up. The federal government does NOT have any means to generate power, yet they never miss an opportunity to insert themselves into a situation and create all sorts of mayhem and shortfalls. The DOE, Department Of Energy, not to be confused with the DOE, department Of Education, another issue the government's involvement has made so much worse, but no, the DOE, former, creates mandates, red laws, that make everything involved in power generation, harder and more expensive. The shutting down of coal plants and mines in favor of the misnomer, "renewable" energy has only made cheap and efficient power delivery harder, more expensive, and rapidly less reliable. Solar farms, windmills cannot and likely never will, replace as in return on investment, Coal, LNG, nuclear, geothermal, and hydroelectric are all proven and reliable energy production capabilities, yet the federal government is restricting, eliminating, and ignoring these proven methods in favor of things that will never approach he consistency, efficiency, a cost effective means we've trusted for generations.
The examples of wind and solar not even coming close to the requirements our way of life depends upon are myriad, yet to point out that fact gets you labeled an extremist, racist, denier of - (insert current manufactured outrage here). We suffer the privilege of having the wealth to let mental midgets and unaccountable bureaucracies, (deep state) mandate methods that will only lead to hardship and death. Left unaddressed, these policies will destroy the American way of life and though that may be the goal for those supporting these inane strategies, I've got to believe that the rank and file cheerleaders of this insanity don't realize that they too will be negatively affected by these insae methods. They suffer the privilege of ignorance.
Spot on, every word.
I still marvel at the privilege of having information at my fingertips! I want to know something? Google it. I'm 70 and did all of that in the way you described for about half of my life.
Electricity? Yes, I hate it when it goes out, but I've had it turned off for months at a time where I live (my poor self's fault), and survived. And know I can do it if I have to. But then, I can drive a stick shift, write in cursive, and so on.
The LAST thing I want is the federal government in control of anything that belongs to the state; the state government in control of anything that belongs to my town; and my town in control of anything that should be personal to me. Unfortunately with privilege comes dependency, and with dependency comes wanting someone outside of ourselves in control.
That Texas power regulatory agency indirectly caused the deaths of over 700 Texans who froze to death by refusing to accept electricity off of the national grid. So much for the benevolent power of government.
I don’t think that’s true. If I remember correctly I believe my son (he lives there) said Texas is on it’s own power grid and could not tap into the national grid if they wanted. Of course a democrat president offers it up and when it isn’t even possible to do it tells the world that Texas refused the help. My son is a power guy. PE in Texas and has worked on design and build of power plants. The grid are divided up into sections and you can’t just tap into another section so easily. The only truth to that statement is that TX like everyone else put too much trust in alternative energy programs and people died.
It's not so much that TX put too much trust in alternative energy programs so much as it's been forced (whether by state or federal government).
I can see why having an independent grid by each state would be a prudent measure lest a natural event or terrorist attack took out a key node for the national power grid.
My point too is that that "grid" should not in any way be under the control or regulation of government. CenterPoint Energy owns most of the lines/delivery infrastructure in Texas (or, at least, in Southeast Texas). They are responsible. People, of course, want it to be reliable, therefore, it is in CenterPoint's best interest to keep it so if they want to get paid. Other companies (only a few really - many who sell power in Texas, since power was deregulated, are just brokers/resellers) generate the power, and again, it is in their best interest to make power generation reliable so that they can get paid. Keep the government out of the way, and chances are, it will be cheaper, more efficient, and more reliable. Get government involved...well, you know how that works out.
Yes but being in a separate power was and is a CHOICE by Texas officials so they still bear responsibility for the lives and health of people dependent on that power grid.
Well my point was it was a democrat show boating offer that there was no infrastructure to support and they knew it when they offered it. Then they condemned Texas for not accepting it publicly to make Abbot look bad. And. Granted an ice storm of that magnitude is rare in that area but there are other type of storms there that could take out power for extended periods of time. Most people know their area and prepare for these problems in their homes. How many of these 700 people died because they were in a car traveling, got in an accident, went outside against better judgement, couldn’t get medical emergency care in a medical event or just didn’t have enough blankets and a hurricane lamp to ride it out. You can put yourself in the smallest room in your house with enough warm clothing and blankets and a hurricane lamp or two and survive. Prepare yourself, many of those death were no doubt lack of preparedness. The Democrat party would give peanuts to a starving Republican peanuts would kill and then say the stubborn Republican refused to eat them and starved because it was from Democrats. They knew they had no way to link into another grid and even trying to do so would have just taken away work on the repairs needed to get back on line. The offer was political grandstanding.
One more survival tip. If you have a gas or propane stove (which Dems want to take away from you) in your kitchen you can light burners with a match even when the power is out to warm the area up. We’ve done that in a blizzard mostly so temps wouldn’t drop near plumping to the point of pipes bursting.
I agree with you Rebecca. And you touched on what really is, IMO, the primary issue: personal preparedness. There is nothing in the Constitution that states that any level of government is responsible for making sure you have electricity, that you have access to medical care, that you have heat, or anything else of that nature. Government's primary purpose is to protect your rights and your liberty. How you use your rights and liberty is up to you (so long as you're not infringing upon another's). Government does not exist to help you recover from a disaster, or to even protect you from one. They have neither the ability nor the authority.
Since I know people look to FEMA for assistance after natural disasters, I encourage everyone to read the story "Not Yours to Give": https://fee.org/resources/not-your-to-give/
No disputing the accuracy of what both of you have said about personal responsibility and preparedness.
That said, there were other complications and constraints that existed when it came to preparedness. Specifically at that time, “supply chain issues,” coming out of the pandemic which, despite all efforts at preparedness for over a year to get a generator, were unsuccessful.
And because of the unprecedented nature of that 2021 great freeze, there was the issue of simple cluelessness.
For us, even having grown up in the north and knowing measures to take to prepare did not help. When the power goes out, *AND* The cluster-&$€£ Response of the water authority was to reduce water pressure by 90%, even the efforts of residents to keep water flowing failed.
For those fortunate enough to have fireplaces in homes built for staying cool in 100°+ temps, trying to access enough wood in advance to keep warm was not possible for everyone, on short notice. And who “should have” anticipated being without power for six or seven days. And what of those who don’t have gas stoves?
There are limits to how much and how well masses of people can prepare on short notice.
I’m from hurricane country. There are a few things I have always had in every home I rented of purchased. I alway have oil lamps and a few gallons of oil. I always rented or bought homes with natural/lp gas stoves and furnaces. I will not have an electric stove like I won’t have an automatic transmission. I have always from childhood canned and prepared food as I grew up in a family of nine in hurricane country. We were poor but didn’t know it.
I was raised a prepper. I understand there are people who weren’t. I got threw no toilet paper with my household supply and picking up my generous allotment when it was available from the grocery store. Had there not been food we would have been fine. Not a Mormon just the way I was raise. We were poor but didn’t know it.
I have read that before but I read the whole thing again. Everyone should read it.
Thank you Rebecca.
Yep. We lived through that, too. 6+ days with no heat OR water in 9° temps, in a house built for 100° + .
The day came when we seriously feared we wouldn’t live through the night. There are only so many blankets you can pile on.
Couldn’t even melt snow by bringing it in, to give our dogs water to drink.
Walking from house to house hoping any neighbor had running water so we could fill a bucket.
And in a comical reverse of intuition, instead of taking food OUT of refrigerators that had no power and putting it outside to keep it cold, we were instead putting it back into refrigerators to keep it from freezing.
Never a dull moment in Texas.
Excellent perspective.
Having been smack dab in the middle of those Beryl outages (just got power back, “moments” ago), I’ll confess some gnashing of teeth over lack of access to the live feeds of my favorite flavor of info, but happy to say never for a second did I wish GOVT. controlled it.
Conversely, I was blaming govt. for the mess that has become of our ingenuity and ability to instantly respond to and innovate out of such messes.
For all of our technological progress in the past 40 years, huge storm preparedness and response lags even worse. It’s not like these storms are our first rodeo. But with increasingly oppressive regulations of every kind, our Dear govt. certainly suffocates progress.
Really enjoyed reading your perspective!
I agree with you Denise. The government gets in the way of innovation and, in many cases, ability to respond to all sorts of emergencies and issues.
Thank you for your comment (and compliment)!
Amen!
I have a 30/30 rule.
If the grid goes down, 30% of Americans will be dead in 30 days.
You think it will be that few and take that long?
It will probably be worse. Anywhere in the northern US during January and anywhere in the southern US during July.