What is a government good for?

Why does it take an op-ed piece in the N.Y. Times to remind them of what should be blindingly obvious?

This is a wild unstable world we live in, and civilization exists so that we can help protect each other from it.

Disasterous earthquakes aren't just isolated to the Pacific Rim. Nor are they unpredictable. You might chose to ignore it, but geologists have been warning of a disaster poised to devastate the entire East Coast for some time now.

And it's not only primed for a natural disaster. This particular volcano is riddled with mine shafts going through the fault line. Why should a potential terrorist struggle with trying to import a nuke into an American city, when it would be much easier to smuggle into this semitropical island and imbed into the base of this fault?

Try to defend against that, office of Homeland Security.

And they don't think it's passed across anyone's mind? Before now?

Exactly what do they think we're up against? Perhaps it all really is a Great Game being played within the Carlyle Group members. But sometimes games get out of hand, to produce unintended consequences.

I keep on hearing calls from idiots to shrink government.

Some of these idiots are very powerful. And it's not just one or two. It's the whole Bu$hCo Administration , with both elected and unelected members.

But without science, without regulatory oversight, you get "lifesaving" drugs that kill . Without government support, we can't even monitor , much less predict, the weather. One can only hope the near misses extend indefinitely.

And even if they didn't you couldn't trust this bunch to do more than take care of their own- and possibly play the market ahead of time.

So shrink away, evil secular government. Dump the secular sinners from the Institutions created to serve and protect Americans. God loves the Child who's got his own.