I'm Supposed To Feel Sorry For Texas Again?
Let me begin by acknowledging that any loss of life is sad. I extend my sympathies, on an individual basis, to people who survived the floods and to family and friends who lost someone.
The larger, collective point is this - A private, exclusive, fundamentalist-Christian camp built and rebuilt cabins in a flood plain. A county (its people and its elected politicians) chose to keep taxes low instead of investing in flood warning technology (river gauges and sirens or other alerting mechanisms). The state also chose to keep taxes low, to minimize government services, and to minimize regulation, ergo, the state also refused to fund a flood warning system, to mandate one, and to regulate (forbid) construction of sleeping quarters in a flood plain.
People at large and, apparently, camp authorities, missed or ignored repeated heavy rain and flood warnings issued by weather authorities in the hours before the flood.
And since these were devout, fundamentalist Christians - their god did not, for whatever reason, save them. Perhaps there was rampant sin, not among the young people, who lack capacity for discernment, but among their parents. Perhaps their god is not real. Perhaps they chose the wrong faith. Who can say?
Again and again, we have disasters (power grid, heat wave, flood, etc., etc.) in anti-tax, anti-regulation, anti-government, pro-religion, anti-science states!
Again and again, these people want us to feel sorry for them. And the kicker? Again and again, though they dislike taxes and government, they want the federal government to step in and help them (with tax money and scientific expertise from high-tax, high-GDP coastal states like California and New York.
It makes no sense.
You don't want tragedies like this? Learn some science (maybe start by ending library book censorship in your state), stop building in dangerous spots, and start investing in shared, governmental services like warning systems!
Or, you want to go it alone, and be the maverick state? Be my guest!
