Once again the federal government has shown itself to be completely inept in the face of disaster. After hurricane Rita hit Texas, the FEMA reaction in Houston has once again been terrible, to the point of even obstructing local efforts at relief.

The good news is that the local authorities are fighting back. The Houston Chronicle reports: "County Judge Carl Griffith has become so frustrated with the federal relief effort that he has instructed all local officials to use police force if they have to to take supplies from the Federal Emergency Management Agency." Added Judge Griffith, "If you have enough policemen to take it from them, take it."

Apparently FEMA has learned nothing after Katrina, and continues not only to fail at providing relief, but is once again actually making the situation worse. Thankfully local officials in Houston are responding appropriately to the worthless agency, by taking control of the situation and refusing to defer to inefficient, ineffective federal bureaucracy.

If only this sort of contempt for the federal stooges was displayed by every local government in the face of all the other forms of federal bureaucratic bungling that cripple our country every day. Imagine how much better everyone's lives would be if every federal official who attempted to trample the rights of citizens and throw their weight around was repelled with force by accountable, limited local governments. If state and local governments did this kind of thing enough, people would probably start to realize that their lives would be much better if the feds stayed completely out of the picture.