March 16, 2011 06:36 PM UTC

At Least He's Not Your Survivalist Congressman

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• by: Colorado Pols

Raw Story’s Eric Dolan reports:

In the documentary Urban Danger, 84-year-old Republican Congressman Roscoe Bartlett, who is serving his tenth term as the representative of Maryland’s Sixth District, explains why US citizens should avoid living in cities.

“There are a number of events that could create a situation in our cities where civil unrest could be a very high probability,” Bartlett said in the film. “And I think that those who can and those who understand need to take advantage of this opportunity when the winds of strife are not blowing to move their families out of the city…”

“As a member of Congress, I’m concerned, I would like everybody to do this,” he continued. “I would like everybody to have a year’s supply a food. I’d like everybody to have some plans so that they can make do if any one of these emergencies occurred. It’s going to be easier to do that and you avoid the problems of civil unrest if you are out of the cities and in the country.”

A disaster plan for your family? Sure. Everybody ought to have one.

A United States Congressman telling people to flee the cities of America to avoid “a very high probability” of civil unrest? This, to put it mildly, does not strike us as responsible advice. And of course, if you’re fleeing “civil unrest,” not everybody has left the city. It doesn’t take long to understand what Roscoe Bartlett is really talking about here, “white flight” from the cities was actually underway for a long time. It’s only in recent decades that whites have moved back into economically revitalized and racially integrated urban areas.

You don’t suppose that’s Bartlett’s problem, is it?