Conservatives: some get it, most don't

Ah, the conservatives, and their reaction to the Katrina disaster. Yes, we've all seen the horror, and we've all been dismayed and outraged at the reactions of some of the victims: looting of non-essential items (e. g., plasma TV's), assaults and rapes, and stealing from each other (e. g., at the Astrodome, it is common for someone taking a shower to have their clothes stolen).

Naturally, many conservatives exclaim: "things would be ok if only they all believed the way that *I* do". An example of this comes from a Thomas Sowell column:
" During good times or bad, the police cannot police everybody. They can at best control a small segment of society. The vast majority of people have to control themselves.

That is where the great moral traditions of a society come in -- those moral traditions that it is so hip to sneer at, so cute to violate, and that our very schools undermine among the young, telling them that they have to evolve their own standards, rather than following what old fuddy duddies like their parents tell them.

Now we see what those do-it-yourself standards amount to in the ugliness and anarchy of New Orleans."

See? If only we sent our desperately poor to church, all would be well!!!!!!!

Don't get me wrong: morals are valuable. But the moral bankruptacy starts at the top: going to war under false pretenses, fatting the rich at the expense of the poor, rewarding one's cronies with fat "no-bid" contracts.

But, there are some conservatives who actually "get it"; one of these is Jack Kemp:
"As we think about the government's role in assisting people get back on their feet after Katrina, we should be thinking about how to expand private property rights, business ownership and create rational incentives to build a new Gulf Coast and Delta Region unencumbered by bureaucratic rules and strictures. We have an enormous opportunity to replace outmoded government programs and bureaucracies with public-private partnerships and new private institutions that are built upon the foundation of individual ownership, private property rights, personal responsibility and social justice that an ownership society brings.
There are a few simple things Congress could do immediately to facilitate the rebuilding effort in the private sector. For example, the entire storm region could be turned into an enterprise zone, suspending burdensome federal regulations, such as the Davis-Bacon Act and the Jones Act. Also, onerous regulations imposed by the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communication Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency could be suspended.
Certain taxes, such as gasoline taxes, telephone taxes and others could be suspended for the duration of the emergency. Individuals living in the storm-affected region and companies doing business there could be relieved of the outrageously complex and economically destructive federal tax code.
For example, the individual income tax and the death tax could be suspended for people living in the storm region. Rules relating to retirement accounts could be relaxed to give people access to capital.
Small businesses could be relieved of payroll taxes, and companies in the region subject to the corporate income tax could be relieved of the most economically damaging features of the current corporate tax code. They could, for example be allowed to write off all investment spending (e.g. spending on plant, equipment, structures, machinery and technology) immediately rather than having to depreciate it over a period of years. In fact, now would be an ideal time to allow companies to choose to be taxed under a simplified reformed system of taxation, the blueprints of which are well developed and could be enacted into law in short time. To further increase access to capital, the capital gains tax could be eliminated.

Displaced individuals could be given education vouchers they could use to enroll their children in schools anywhere in the country. Similarly, vouchers might be used to transform low-income and public housing to give people property rights and pride of ownership in their dwellings. Housing vouchers, for example, could be used not only for homeowners whose houses were destroyed but also for renters and Section 8 housing residents to make a down payment on a house anywhere in the country. And beyond the present emergency, I am working with Urban League President Marc H. Morial, former mayor of New Orleans, to extend and expand such an emergency innovation into a 21st century homesteading act.

Permitting processes could be streamlined and expedited to allow private investors to purchase rights of ways and other property to rebuild infrastructure, including not only roads and bridges but also sewage treatment plants and other utilities, which could be privately owned and operated on a fee/toll basis. The Federal government could pay to rebuild the levies under the condition that they were rebuilt by private contractors and with the understanding that the federal government no longer would provide federal flood insurance for any newly constructed structures, requiring all new building to be economically rational and privately insurable."

I think that Kemp's proposed solution might depend too much on the blind faith that the "free market" will solve all ills, but he seems to get the real problem. He is someone that we can work with as his heart appears to be in the right place.