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« Back to Opinion & Analysis
People not Government Responsible for Houston's Recovery
Editorial for the Houston Community Newspaper
Steven F. Hotze, M.D.
September 18, 2008
"In every adversity there is a seed of equal or greater benefit." - Napoleon Hill
Houston has been battered by Hurricane Ike. It is common for people to initially feel hopeless and helpless in a natural disaster.
What can the common man do in the face of a hurricane and its aftermath?
Government cannot put a city back in order any more than it can stop a hurricane. By the way, if government cannot stop a hurricane, then how will it stop global warming?
The government did provide emergency services and the advanced planning needed to determine who should evacuate. What an improvement this was over the highway debacle and hysteria created by the government during hurricane Rita! Kudos to our mayor who learned from his previous error. County Judge Emmett had the good sense to tell Houstonians to hunker down and weather the storm, and we did.
Houstonians have gone to work and begun the task of putting our city and lives back together. Despite the politicians' bows, the government is not responsible for the dramatic clean up that has occurred. No one that I know expected the government to saw up their felled trees, clean their yards, repair their roofs or fix the downed power lines. Private individuals did this without being ordered by some government official. The government did not organize the cleanup. People did. This is a key lesson about personal initiative and free enterprise.
Three days after the storm nearly every yard on the west side of Houston had been cleaned and crews from yard care companies were hauling off the debris. Center Point Energy had recruited and organized 11,000 linemen from across the country to restore electrical power to five million people, an enormous task. By the time you read this most Houstonians will have their lights back on. Center Point is a private business that has taken care of its customers in the worst of situations better than FEMA or any other government agency could ever dream of doing, which they wouldn't.
Each family and small business assumed personal responsibility for their own care and the care of their customers during and after the storm.
Dennis William & Company supplies large trash containers for construction sites. On Saturday afternoon immediately after the storm had passed, Dennis and his 23 employees assembled at his business site and began delivering trash containers to customers. When I ordered one for my home on Tuesday, Dennis told me that his office still did not have electricity, phone or water, but all his people had their mobile phones charged and were hard at it. His eleven trucks had already delivered 192 containers across the city. What a great example of the benefits of the free enterprise system!
Free enterprise allows individuals to provide goods and services that improve the quality of the lives of their customers. It is a win win situation for both parties. Houston's recovery has taken place without government coercion or control. That's the way it should be.
About Conservative Republicans of Texas
Steven F. Hotze, M.D. is president of Conservative Republicans of Texas and founder of Hotze Health & Wellness Center in Houston, Texas.
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