Government takes too much authority and not enough responsibility.

Peggy Noonan wrote in OpinionJournal .... David Brooks on "Meet the Press" Sunday said he thought Katrina had given rise to a greater public desire for "authority" and "order." I found what he was saying typically thoughtful, but I differ with him. That difference gives rise to this piece.

I don't think Americans are or have been, by nature, lovers of authority. When we think of the old America we think of house-raisings on the prairie and teeming cities full of immigrants, but a big part of the American nature can also be found in the story of Jeremiah Johnson, the mountain man who just wanted to live off by himself, unbothered and unmolested by people and their churches and clubs and rules. He didn't like authority. He wanted to be left alone.

I agree. And the Republican party used to stand for those ideas.

We live in the age of emergency, however, and in that age we hunger for someone to take responsibility. Not authority, but a sense of "I'll lead you out of this." On 9/11 the firemen took responsibility: I will go into the fire. So did the mayor: This is how we'll get through, this is how we'll triumph.

In New Orleans, by contrast, the mayor seemed panicked, the governor seemed medicated,

The First Responders, and the Mayor and the Governor certainly did a better job on 9/11 than they did with Katrina. But on Katrina I think it was just Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin that were at fault. The Governor of Mississippi seemed to do a good job, and both the Mayor of Houston, and the Governor of Texas did a very good job with Rita.

and the airborne wasn't there until it was there and peace was restored. Until then no one took responsibility. There was a vacuum. But nature abhors a vacuum, so rumors and chaos came in to fill it. Which made things worse. No one took charge. Thus the postgame commentary in which everyone blamed someone else: The mayor fumbled the ball, the governor didn't call the play, the president didn't have a ground game.

No one took responsibility, but there was plenty of authority. People in authority sent the lost to the Superdome and the Convention Center.

But they did not have food and water for them there, or the 600 buses ready to take them to safety.

People in authority blocked the bridges out of town. People in authority tried to confiscate guns after the looting was over..... Government has real duties in disaster. Maintaining the peace is a primary one. But if we demand that our government protect us from all the weather all the time, if we demand that it protect us from rain and hail, if we make government and politicians pay a terrible price for not getting us out of every flood zone and rescuing us from every wave, we're going to lose a lot more than we gain. If we give government all authority then we are giving them all power..... It is the government's job to warn and inform. That's what we have the National Weather Service for. It is not government's job to command and control and make microdecisions about the lives of people who want to do it their own way.