Voluntarism in Houston and 20 Trillion Dollars
Hello there again readers and welcome back to Coffee Break Liberty, a blog where we tackle books, news and many other things under the sun where liberty is a guiding principle. If this is your first time here we would like to extend a special warm welcome to you and hope you enjoy yourself while you’re here.
We would all like to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for the thoughts and prayers from all of you for those in the Houston and Florida area. Some of the readers of this blog are in affected areas my parents included. By the grace of God they are all safe and are in the process repairing damages.
Houston has seen it’s fair share of hurricanes in history but a couple things about Harvey made the situation in Houston much worse. The very short warning they got in Houston, the hurricane wasn’t supposed to head up there, made preparing at the last minute for Harvey very difficult to do. When Harvey did hit Houston it stopped moving for days and just sat on top of the area. Houston got more rain in 4 days then they usually would in a given year, had the storm kept moving there would most likely have been far less flooding. Everyone out there has seen the destruction from this storm which has caused billions of dollars in damage and at last count taken 71 lives. Many even now, at the time of this writing are still without powers and clean drinking water in their homes.
For all this destruction though Americans seem to have been able to look at Houstonians come together and help each other regardless of how the other person looks or lives their life. The voluntarism in the area is at an all time high with thousands of people coming from all over the nation to lend a hand in the rescue and relif efforts. It was the civilians that came to the aid first of other civilians, I don’t mean to discredit the efforts made by the state but the civilian effort has been what is noticed most and very impactful. The ability for the civilian relief effort be it through food distribution or rescue efforts along with other projects, have far surpassed what the local and federal governments have been able to pull off. The private sector responded to the crisis in Houston and we should all take note of how effective it has been. When the government is unable to do what it claims, sadly more often than not, it is left up to us, the people to fill in where the government has lied to us. Charities have worked before and they continue to show us how they work so well now. Volunteering and being charitable is a pillar, if you will, for a society that is guided by principles of liberty to function.
The federal government though did make a response and of course, President Trump showed us how much of a liberal he always has been. The debt ceiling was raised again this past week and now he have passed the $20 trillion dollar mark in debt. Attached to this debt ceiling being raised was also $15 billion in aid to the Houston area with federal money. President Trump took little time to sign this of course while not at all trying to at least save $15 billion else where in the budget. So what has been said for some time now, “Trump is a liberal.”, is once again proving to be true.
Finally in closing I want to encourage you all, if you have the means, to find a way to help those impacted by Harvey and now Irma. If you are looking for a way to do so I would like to suggest donating via DonorSee. DonorSee is a donation service that tries to focus on small campaigns in certain areas. For example DonorSee is working closely with one of the volunteer groups in Houston and is trying to raise money to purchase fuel for them so they can continue to assist in the rescue efforts. When you do donate DonorSee works with the group to have a personalized thank you video response to you! No not some blanket thank you but one where someone is thanking you by name and often able to show you in the video how your donation helped these people. DonorSee is a great way to get involved if you want to help and see how your donated funds are making a difference in these areas.
Thank you for reading and please don’t forget to like and share!
Keep that coffee warm for us.
LWS
