I hate to see reports like this, but unless I am mistaken, (and unless Glenn Reynolds and Julian Sanchez are mistaken) official state and federal policy in New Orleans appears to come very close to one of starving people out (by prohibiting the Red Cross and Salvation Army from entering New Orleans):

Digest this: government turned away one of the world's most skilled and experienced agencies from bringing relief to starving, thristy, dying New Orleanians. Why? Why? Why???

Judging from the Red Cross's explanation (above), government apparently feared that the Red Cross would deliver relief with too much success. Why else would people choose not to leave a destroyed city, and even want to return to it?

So, government decided that letting people die was a better course than risking any success that the Red Cross would likely have at providing disaster relief.

For some time, FEMA has been encouraging unhealthy dependency by cities on the federal government:

The Clinton team has stretched the concept of "major disaster" to cover routine mishaps. Snow, for example, accounts for a large share of the skyrocketing number of federal emergency proclamations.

Last year, Clinton sent federal aid to at least 16 states hit by snow. In many, FEMA reimbursed local governments for the cost of snow plowing. This implicitly assumes that any local or state government is automatically incapable of plowing the snow on any main highway after a big' storm. The effects can be perverse.

Consider Vernon, Conn. Last June, this town of 30,000 received a FEMA emergency relief grant of $40,023 to help cover the cost of the preceding winter's storms.

Now look at the town's budget. Its total costs for snow removal last winter were $258,000. That's just $8.60. per person—less than a 12-year-old charges to shovel out a driveway after a good snowfall.

So why the need for disaster relief? The town had only budgeted $104,516 for snow removal—and thus claimed to be overwhelmed by the heavy costs.

What lesson did the town managers draw? As the Hartford Courant reported, an "optimistic town council has already set the proposed 1996-97 snow-removal budget at $69,383, the lowest level in 15 years."

Why set aside money for a snowy day when you know Washington is glad to help?

Clinton treats FEMA as one of his top good-government achievements. He has even honored Witt, its director, with cabinet rank.

But, as the actions of the Vernon town council show, FEMA's growth may not really be good government at all. Instead, it may be one more cause of the decline of individual responsibility—or even a semblance of respect for such responsibility — in our political culture.

How much of New Orleans was built by FEMA or the federal government, anyway? It goes back to 1718, when not only was there no FEMA, or federal government, but when government consisted of people governing themselves.

I dreamed years ago of buying a bar in the French Quarter, and I was actually pretty close to moving there, but it just never happened. Sometimes I put myself in the position of what it would be like now to be a business owner in the French Quarter. I think I'd be outraged if the building was OK (most of them are) and I wasn't allowed to enter it. (Along the lines of "Who the hell is the government to decide what I can do with my property and when?")

What ever happened to entrepreneurism? To taking risks, even at your own risk? Or am I blaming people or being unnecessarily critical? I don't think so, because I can't blame anyone for things that really haven't happened yet. But I think it's fair to ask whether federalizing a city fixes problems caused by federalization. The more things are federalized, the more everything becomes the federal government's fault.

I know that I have a tendency to indulge in libertarian rantings, so I'd like to play Devil's Advocate here and test out what I'm sure would strike most people as a wild, impractical, and "irresponsible" theory. To do so, a little history may be helpful.

The French Quarter dates back to its founding (by Bienville) in 1718 as a French capital. It was actually Spanish from 1762-1800, and there were two great fires -- one in 1788, another in 1794 -- so most of the architecture is Spanish in style. After the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 it became part of the United States and most of what we associate with the charming French Quarter today dates from the post-fire Spanish period to the 1840s.

Nice overview, with beautiful, clickable pictures here.

I hate to wax romantically about things which might disgust modern readers, but I think a short history lesson is in order because modern Americans are so out of touch with the past. From New Orleans' founding in 1718 until 1895, New Orleans had no sewer system. No plumbing. No fresh water supply. There were hand dug pits for waste, and street gutters which often didn't carry anything away. From an 1871 report:

It is well known that canals which drain the thickly settled portions of our City, rapidly become obstructed and partially filled with the heavier and most offensive feculant and fecal portions of the city sewage, together with the garbage and dead animals thrown into them, and that during dry weather when there is not sufficient water passing through the canals to sweep away the accumulation, our canals or sewers are in their worst state. Heretofore, when the canals become thus too much obstructed to serve the purposes of drainage, the custom has been to excavate and cast out upon the margins of the canals to putrefy or dry up in the hot sun, the deposits from sewage in them [Board of Health 1871:6].

So did civilization.

Necessity, like news, it seems, is a relative thing.

How could people get by without bathrooms? one might ask. They had things called "chamberpots." During the 1862 military occupation of New Orleans, Yankee General Benjamin Butler was so detested that women lined their chamberpots with his picture, and took great pleasure in emptying the chamberpots out their windows and directly onto the Union soldiers -- a practice Butler did not like:

General Orders Number 28 - Headquarters Department of the Gulf issued on May 15, 1862 had sent a clear message across Louisiana. Major General Benjamin Butler was not going to tolerate citizenry abuse particularly from the women of New Orleans. The nasty insults and discharging of chamber pots upon the heads of his veteran troops was going to stop.

Governor Thomas O. Moore was outraged himself. No where in the annals of modern history has the commander of an occupying army allowed his soldiers and sailors a free hand with the occupied territory's women for any such rebellious acts. The governor didn't feel occupation was enough for the present military authority but rather by seeking amusement and taking vengeance against unarmed men and helpless women would round out their victory.

In the order, General Butler had labeled the feminine rebels as "women of the town" and if caught openly disrespecting the federal occupational force, they would be considered as "plying their avocation." The seriousness of the order alarmed the governor. Any federal soldier or sailor exercising his own judgment regarding one's disloyalty could very well be subjecting the women to rape and brutalizing passions.

My point is that people routinely survived things that might be unthinkable by today's standards. Perhaps they still can.

From today's Philadelphia Inquirer:

Yesterday, many of the final stranded New Orleanians had been plucked from their flooded homes and sent to refugee centers in Baton Rouge and Lafayette, La., Houston and San Antonio, Texas, and other far-flung cities. But for those who were reluctant to leave the city to begin with, the rescue efforts seemed less like salvation than banishment.

The Rev. Denzil Berera sat out the storm in the rectory of his church, Our Lady of Rosalie, near the New Orleans Fairgrounds. Several parishioners had joined him in his sanctuary until they were forced to leave.

"Nobody wanted to go," said Berera, 74. "But the servicemen came with their guns and told them, if you don't go, we will carry you away in handcuffs."

Berera said that it was convenience and not obstinacy that motivated his parishioners to stay.

"Their homes were under water, no doubt," he said. "But they felt secure. They wanted to be closer to home... . A lot of these people don't know when they will come back. Some say a month, some say two or three months... . There is a lot of uncertainty."

Even as city residents were being told to leave, homeowners who live just a few miles from the airport in suburban Kenner and Metairie were filtering back into their neighborhoods yesterday, eager to assess the damage from broken shingles, fallen branches and uprooted trees, and start rebuilding.

Officials in Jefferson Parish - New Orleans' more affluent suburban neighbor - have told residents that they can come back today at 6 a.m. to check on their homes. After what is expected to be a long wait, cars will be admitted through barricades and only those bearing a Jefferson Parish address will be allowed in.

All residents are then asked to re-evacuate by Thursday so workers can rebuild the infrastructure.

But a drive through Jefferson Parish neighborhoods, most of which were not flooded, showed that many residents ignored pleas to stay away and have already resettled in homes without power, sewerage or phone lines. Although business owners have been told to stay away until Thursday, a crew of 100 workers bused in from around the country were already readying a Home Depot.

Anthony Montelaro, 73, returned to his Kenner neighborhood on Thursday, after a brief stay in Memphis. With his house in good shape, stores starting to open and a neighborhood bar serving drinks, he sees no reason to leave and doubts that few will willingly vacate their homes after this week's ordeal.

"If you have patience, you'll get through it," he said.

How could they ever hope to survive?

I'd be willing to bet that if the federal government simply walked away from New Orleans after it was pumped out, the enterprising merchants who own the expensive real estate in the French Quarter (the city's economic and romantic heart) would have it cleaned up and ready in time for Mardi Gras.

But no. FEMA and the other alphabet soup bureaucrats want to play a grotesque, wholly unprecedented game of completely emptying and federalizing an entire city, and they can't wait to move in with their tinker toys for at least nine months (maybe longer) doing God-knows what. I'm sure they'll be testing for lead, oil, mercury, formaldehyde from dead bodies which never needed formaldehyde, and other things that might affect some theoretical guinea pig in concentrations of one part per million.

Of course, the merchants want to make money, and people want to party. We can't have that, can we?

Is it so outrageous to propose allowing modern people to take the kind of risks once considered part of the risks of life? In an emergency?

There used to be a doctrine at law called "assumption of the risk." It has been substantially weakened and even abolished, because of the enlightened view that people should not be allowed to take risks. I don't see anything wrong with allowing people to assume risks during an emergency.

I'd be willing to bet that a lot of New Orleanians would be willing to sign full waivers and releases in exchange for being allowed to re-enter their homes and businesses.

I doubt it will be allowed to happen, though. That's because things have reached the point where concepts like freedom, independence, and the entrepreneurial spirit are considered dangerous.

And yes, these things are dangerous, because they carry risks. Americans managed to survive an unsafe past, where the idea of eliminating risk would have been unimaginable.

Forgive me for saying this, but it does seem that the closer we get to eliminating risk, the less safe we truly are.

UPDATE: I apologize for any spelling errors, but I'll have to check them later.

My dog Coco needs to empty her bowels in the yard.

MORE: In the French Quarter, stubborn holdouts have formed "tribes" and yesterday they staged the "Southern Decadence Parade" (link has pictures!) some thought had been canceled by God.

(Pssst! Don't say anthing to FEMA, OK? I wouldn't want them to get ideas about messing with cool things that God was gracious enough to save.....)

AFTERTHOUGHT: I realize that my proposal to allow people to take risks might appear callused, inhumane -- even insane -- to some people. So, in the interest of full disclosure, I think it's fair to point out that I am the descendant of a survivor of the cruel methods I defend:

Somehow, I managed to be born despite my father's dangerous life, and I still am alive today. But I feel more threatened by the dangers of the ever-growing safety net than I do of having to revert temporarily to life without it.

MORE: The American spirit lives on.