Liberty Minute September 19 2013

Government is the only human enterprise that profits through failure. This would explain why bureaucracies established for the supposed purpose of crisis management routinely impede solutions. Leading the roster of such aggressively useless entities is the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA.

As Boulder, Colorado was devastated by catastrophic floods, a local company called Falcon UAV, which manufactures drones for the federal government, deployed its unmanned aircraft to conduct damage assessments and make maps for rescue operations. Despite the fact that the company had FAA clearance to operate the drones, FEMA ordered the craft to be grounded ? and threatened to arrest company officials if they didn?t comply.

A similarly skewed set of priorities was displayed in the official response to the killing spree at the Washington Navy Yard. A SWAT team from the Capitol Police was dispatched in response to the shooting ? but was reportedly ordered to stand down, rather than intervene in an attempt to save the victims. Twelve people were killed before the shooter was stopped.

There are roughly 200 SWAT deployments each day in this country ? almost none of which involve the protection of innocent people. Apparently, SWAT teams are reserved for low-risk drug raids and killing 107-year-old men armed with pistols, rather than for responding to actual danger.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.