The standard government response to exigent circumstances takes one of two forms:



1) In order to prevent A, we must do A.

2) In order to accomplish B, we must do not-B.



Both responses are clearly contradictory, but go largely unchallenged. The seeming presumption is that, faced with an emergency, humans reject their uniquely-defining morals, ethics, subjective values, and, especially, deductive reasoning. Therefore, emergency government actions may also reject these human concepts and the contradictions become moot.



But, as these characteristics define a human and give his frail body a comparative advantage over the hostile environment of nature, the human response to emergency should be a magnification of the importance of these inputs to decision making, not rejection.



That is not to say that human reasoning is infallible and will always triumph against nature. The curse of reason is that we are born with very little innate knowledge. Without instruction or prior experience, a man's wits are his only protection in an unfamiliar environment. Also, charitably, humans are optimistic when it comes to judging risk and therefore tend to underestimate the benefits of emergency preparedness and planning.



The assumptions behind having government do anything in an emergency situation now lie naked before you:



A) People who underestimate preparedness and planning elect people to appoint people to undertake emergency preparedness and planning. The standard government response to exigent circumstances takes one of two forms:1) In order to prevent A, we must do A.2) In order to accomplish B, we must do not-B.Both responses are clearly contradictory, but go largely unchallenged. The seeming presumption is that, faced with an emergency, humans reject their uniquely-defining morals, ethics, subjective values, and, especially, deductive reasoning. Therefore, emergency government actions may also reject these human concepts and the contradictions become moot.But, as these characteristics define a human and give his frail body a comparative advantage over the hostile environment of nature, the human response to emergency should be a magnification of the importance of these inputs to decision making, not rejection.That is not to say that human reasoning is infallible and will always triumph against nature. The curse of reason is that we are born with very little innate knowledge. Without instruction or prior experience, a man's wits are his only protection in an unfamiliar environment. Also, charitably, humans are optimistic when it comes to judging risk and therefore tend to underestimate the benefits of emergency preparedness and planning.The assumptions behind having government do anything in an emergency situation now lie naked before you:A) People who underestimate preparedness and planning elect people to appoint people to undertake emergency preparedness and planning.

B) Those people do not underestimate preparedness and planning.

C) In an emergency, those people will retain reasoning behavior while everyone else reverts to animalism.

D) By virtue of their experience and instruction they have received, those people are qualified to supplant their morals, ethics, subjective values, and especially deductive reasoning for the unnamed populace.



No honest evaluation of assumptions A-C could possibly conclude that they could be true. The idea that there exist among us superhuman beings and that, as if by magic, they are all currently appointed or elected government emergency planners is ludicrous. However, a government emergency planner could be more experienced and/or learned in emergency planning and operations than, say, the owner of the corner gas station, so we must take a closer look at assumption D.



Imagine Government Emergency Evacuation Plan I, written, edited, vetted, and exercised in non-exigent circumstances. The goals of Plan I would be continuity of government, protection of human life, and protection of property, in that order. To those ends, Plan I would list the actions to be undertaken by various agencies and personnel upon plan activation.



As an emergency plan, Plan I would have, as one of its tenants, reliance on in-place stocks for initial operations. As an evacuation plan, one of the in-place stocks necessary to execution would be fuel for evacuating vehicles. Rather than stockpile millions of gallons of gasoline for every family truckster leaving the evacuation area, Plan I would, sensibly, rely on commercial gas stations and private stocks to fuel non-government vehicles.



Not surprisingly, with all the local families needing fuel for their minivans to leave the evacuation area, and fuel trucks prevented from entering the evacuation area, fuel is in high demand and supplies are limited. The basic law of supply and demand predicts an increase in fuel prices, therefore, also unsurprising. Invariably, government enacts response #1, preventing A by doing A.



To prevent Mr. Jones from undervaluing his dollars with respect to gasoline, in the name of preventing price gouging the government forces Mr. Smith to undervalue his gasoline with respect to dollars. With no incentive for Mr. Jones to conservatively purchase fuel, and no incentive for Mr. Smith to sell gasoline that will cost him more to replace, government response #1 guarantees a quick and lasting shortage of gasoline in the evacuation area.



By failing to properly account for the subjective valuations of Mr. Jones and Mr. Smith, Government Plan I fails in its reliance on in-place stocks. This failure is evident at the moment government response #1 is enacted.



Oh, but it's worse than that. As high demand and limited supply of gasoline are wholly unsurprising, Government Plan I likely includes, as one of its agency actions, government response #1 as part of its reliance on in-place stocks. In other words, to ensure the availability of gasoline, Plan I calls for an action ensuring a shortage of gasoline (government response #2).



Our not-so-imaginary Government Evacuation Plan I, developed in non-exigent circumstances by our supposed learned and/or experienced government emergency planners, is a plan to fail*. Since they cannot even plan reasonably, there is no reason to believe that, in an actual emergency, they will discover their senses and thus have some moral, ethical, reasoned superiority over other individuals responding to emergency conditions in their own way.



