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Notes From the Blackout
by Gene Callahan


Having just moved to Brooklyn, I was center stage for the "Blackout of '03." The most salient feature of the event here was how calm New York City was. People were wandering the streets of my neighborhood well after dark (and no, not in order to mug other people). Spontaneous street parties arose in a number of places. Everyone was talking to everyone else. Strangers would gather around someone on her stoop with a transistor radio or sitting in his car listening to the news. In Brooklyn, even traffic flowed smoothly. At busy intersections cars pulled to a stop on their own. One driver would wave the other through. People stopped for pedestrians at crosswalks without a traffic light or the threat of a ticket to make them do so. I heard of two minor incidents of looting, both in the worst neighborhood in the borough. One person in the city died as a result of the blackout… from a heart attack.

...Civil society, given a chance, works far better on its own than statists can conceive. The government sits atop it like a parasite, and is most often a major threat to its smooth functioning....