Emotional Extortion and Mandatory Evacuations
In response to Eric Berger's question Will Crescent City's residents evacuate the next time?, I wrote the following:
The evacuation certainly should not have been mandatory. Threatening individuals with the law cannot be anything but an additional and unnecessary burden during a time when those individuals need to most carefully weight that which they value. Tell them the facts and explain what you know. They will make up their own minds and be responsible for their (in)actions.Let's also be clear that the rains haven't stopped and the winds haven't receded. Super-saturated grounds will lead to flooded and rushing creeks and streams that feed into larger rivers. Those kinds of secondary effects haven't even begun.
However, I was taken in by the catastrophe hype...greatly due to the near-unanimous reporting, hypothesizing, and speculating by every "official" and "authority" who had a wide-eyed interviewer in front of them. Unless the locals get better info than the rest of us nationally, I probably would have bailed out early Saturday. Predictions of future paths simply take too long to wait out when facing something so powerful.
Matt Bramanti then replied:
Charles, the libertarian in me agrees with you.However, we've seen time and time again that people refuse to be responsible for their (in)actions. How many times have we seen cops and rescue crews put their lives at risk rescuing some knucklehead who insisted on staying in a flooding house? The guy could've walked out the door when there was a foot of water, but he ended up on his roof as the waters crept up, waiting for a dangerous and costly helicopter rescue.
Just think of the backlash if officials declined to rescue those folks, saying "hey, we told them how bad it was going to be; they're on their own."
And that elicited the following from me:
How many times have we seen cops and rescue crews put their lives at risk rescuing some knucklehead who insisted on staying in a flooding house? The guy could've walked out the door when there was a foot of water, but he ended up on his roof as the waters crept up, waiting for a dangerous and costly helicopter rescue.Mr. Bramanti, we see that all too often. I'd have it ended tomorrow if possible. I applaud those courageous folks who venture out there to help the stranded, the infirm, and the stupid.
But the stragglers made their choices and when the consequences of those choices scare reality back into them with a rainy 140MPH blast of wind, they try to make others physically and fiscally responsible for the consequences of those choices, squealing loudly for someone to help. Your argument amounts to emotional extortion and it is outrageous it gets ignored every time a disaster hits.
Regarding a backlash: so what? I think it's abhorrent that somewhere along the line Americans have just assumed government officials are the folks who should do their thinking for them.
You admit it right out in the open: they've rejected responsibility. So by what stretch of logic does it fall to another, let alone to be financed by wealth forced out of the hands of others?
Mr. Berger, if someone brought up that hypothetical argument when discussing a evacuation from a future hurricane, I'd point them to the fundamental dangers of remaining in NOLA when flooding is a real possibility. Reprinting a few of the "whew, the real nasty part missed us!" news articles should be reminder enough. But, again, if you can't convince them to leave after they've evaluated the situation, I say leave them to themselves and wish them safety.
UPDATED 8/30/2005 10:40pm
The discussion continues.
"Chris" replied to my previous comment:
The situation that is being revealed to us in Gulfport and Biloxi is exactly why mandatory evacuations are necessary.While I agree with the argument that it would be appropriate for the government to warn us and then let us decide, in reality, very few folks would probably heed such a warning. And yes, my libertarian side would have them take care of themselves if they want to make a sorry decision.
But read about the newly orphaned children in Gulfport and Biloxi, and those badly injured. They probably didn't have the smarts or the guts to stand up to "ride-the-storm-out" dad. And truth be told, Dad probably thought that holding out in a cinder block building on a patch of high ground was a prudent, and reasonable decision. No matter what the so-called government experts told him. And if he'd been 60 miles to the east, or to the west, he would have made a good decision. He could have laughed at and mocked the big-government types who tried to interfere in his life.
But now dad and some other family members are dead. And since our country has (no matter what political persuasion you are) enough moral value left in it to take care of his orphaned children, his terribly injured relatives, and maybe a few of his (yes) idiot friends... they will. They (read: US) will work madly to put together a storm damaged emergency room, risk their lives getting them there, and maybe take care of his surviving family for a while.
Yes, it would be great if we could all make well informed decisions in times of extraordinary crisis, and then take total responsibility for our action. Trouble is: a lot of people who think they're smarter than everyone on the block --aren't, and more importantly: a lot of folks who say they will take that responsibility -- don't. Or when it's too late, absolutely can't. And city governments and emergency service workers, and law enforcement have to act to force us into taking that responsibility.
And before you remind me what idiots "the goverment" is, beleive me, I'm with you. Do they make bad calls? yep. Does the media love the hype and wading through water screaming, "please don't be here, don't do this," oh sure, they got soap to sell. Is it easy to armchair quarterback? sure. But there are some emergency service personnel trying to find a home for some kids, trying to treat some unbelievable injuries tonight under absurd conditions, all because folks acted irresponsibly. And we're going to pay for it. Sure it would have been expensive and inconvenient for a family to pack up and get out. Certainly in the hundreds of dollars. Now we'll pay tens of thousands for the ones that didn't.
So it is that we ask our government to take into account the kids, the elderly, the infirm, and yes, the idiots. 'Cause we're still a country that tries to care about our neighbors, even the stupid ones. I'd rather force them to act responsibly now, than be forced to pay for it later.
Rejoinder:
Chris, "we" wouldn't have to bear the price of taking care of these people if "we" stopped assuming "we" had the responsibility to do so. As I said previously, this is emotional extortion and I won't accept it.Unfortunately, since we are under threat of fines, property seizure, and jail time if we don't "pay our share," my desire to avoid those punishments means I'm coerced into paying for the damages caused by a force with which I had utterly nothing to do and the reconstruction of lives that I had no hand in destroying. There is zero justice in this, it in fact being the opposite.
My sympathy and concern for a victim does not extend beyond the point where I demand other people sacrifice for their sake under penalty of law.
You cannot force people to act responsibly. Responsibility is irrevocably tied to being free to take that responsibility for actions done by your free will.