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Every intellectual Leftist is well aware of the faults of their government. The
endless whining and bitching about what the government should
and could do features highly over the morning latte. But like a bitter
wife complaining about a dead-beat hubby who she refuses to divorce: all would
be better if only hubby was nicer to her and had more money and power. The
answer to government failure is always the same: bigger and more powerful
government will solve the problem. There are two recent laughable examples of this belief. And while they don't
actually involve the four riders of the Apocalypse (pestilence, plague, famine
and war), they do involve plague and fire. The first example was the political stumble from Queensland's Premier, Anna Bligh. On
the threshold of a swine-flu epidemic she suggested that people might like to
stock up on food. Common sense suggests that a few extra tins of soup and some
dried milk powder might be a good thing to keep in the back of the pantry. But there was an immediate outcry at the mere suggestion. Apparently people
would panic. And in the panic they would buy, well .. food. And then the shops
would run low on food, and then that would cause even more panic and then
people would stock up on even more food, and then the children would starve
(apparently because there was so much food about), and the dead would walk the
earth, and .. well .. it would be better just to make people feel safe. Of course if she had stuck to her guns and there had been mass scale food buying,
several things would have actually happened.
- People would have ended up with a stock-pile of food, and be more prepared for an emergency.
- People would have realized how fragile supply mechanisms are in the short term.
- People would have realized how robust supply mechanisms are in the longer term.
- People would have realized how helpless The Gummint is to do anything about it.
All of which would have undermined people's confidence in the Gummint. So she
'clarified' her statement to say that she had only meant 'a day or two worth of
food'. Right. The second example was the number of calls which were ignored during the
Victorian bush fires. Some 80% of calls to the 000 emergency number went
unanswered on the day. Apparently people who's houses were being engulfed in
flame were ringing 000 emergency in the belief that the Gummint would (or even
could) come and rescue them. Why would anyone think, as their homes and all
their neighbours' bush homes burned, that the Gummint fairy God mother type
force .. er .. thing would magically appear and protect them from Mother
Nature's fury? Apparently they believed that spending 20 minutes on hold to the
Gummint was better than spending 20 minutes protecting themselves and
their families from dying. And die they did. Clearly the Gummint is a more powerful force than Mother Nature. Or it would be
- all they need to do is to create a new law. Right? Well actually, people's faith in the government kills them.
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