Here's another article on the chaos of New Orleans. This time the main culprate of the troubles is our country's out of control welfare system.
"What Hurricane Katrina exposed was the psychological consequences of the welfare state. What we consider "normal" behavior in an emergency is behavior that is normal for people who have values and take the responsibility to pursue and protect them. People with values respond to a disaster by fighting against it and doing whatever it takes to overcome the difficulties they face. They don't sit around and complain that the government hasn't taken care of them. And they don't use the chaos of a disaster as an opportunity to prey on their fellow men."
7 comments:
I'm with you totally on the welfare part, and people who constantly ask during election time what government is going to "do for them" to solve their problems.
But I do think the government has done a piss-poor job here, and it comes as no surprise, because it's GOVERNMENT, the most inefficient
thing ever created. It can't keep its own water levies from breaking, can't enforce the law, can't keep itself from stealing our own retirement money, can't keep discipline in our public schools, keeps people in poverty by putting them on welfare, can't finish the Truman Parkway on time, can't conduct wars the right way, all the while imposing its control over all of these areas while extending its powers in other areas, taking more and more of our money and spending more and more of it, and wasting/screwing everything up that it spends our money on.
Not only is it immoral to rely on the government for everything, it's just plain stupid.
I also like how everyone points their fingers at The President and the federal government. The local and state governments are crying for help from them. How about the city and state getting some of the blame for this for having a piss poor plan. You live on the Gulf Coast. Some of the warmest waters in the world are in the Gulf Coast. They act like it never occured to them that a hurricane would hit.
Pat, I think you are on the money about people asking what the government is going to do for them. It is kind of ironic that a democrat said, "Ask not what your country can do for you...".
Even though I'm probably one of the few self-proclaimed liberals who reads this blog, I couldn't agree more on these issues concerning race.
I had the fortune (misfortune?) of spending my formative years in a predominately minority (read: black) county and high school. I feel like what I experienced every day in high school, from a student resource officer sleeping with students and faculty to requiring extra police officers to curb fights during football games is just a microcosm of everything that has happened in New Orleans. I'm getting off topic. Basically what I mean by divulging all of this is that I'm not surprised one bit by the goings-on in New Orleans.
I guess what I want to say is I agree with Pat concerning the pointlessness of relying on The Government for anything.
On a related note, I'm sure you've all heard about Kanye West's outburst during the nationally-televised "A Concert for Hurricane Relief" touting that "George Bush doesn't care about black people." Whether that may or may not be the case, surely he could have picked a better forum and/or time to get on his soapbox. You should be able to watch a clip of it here (as they edited his tirade out for the west coast airing). If nothing else, watch it for the incredibly awkward moment it creates for Mike Myers.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/09/02.html#a4763
Also, just to echo what we've said here so far, I wanted to add this story about how the government kept the Red Cross, a private charity organization much better quipped at dealing with disasters like these, out of New Orleans for five straight days.
I mention this because I didn't want to come across as some heartless bastard who thinks people should just "deal" with natural disasters on their own; I'm all for private charity, as it is private charity and private initiatives that will bring NOLA back to what it once was. I'm just saying don't EVER bet on politicians to solve your problems, even when they promise to. To us this is common sense, but to many others it unfortunately is not.
You guys should try to watch the Bill Maher show every once and a while. I watched some of it last night and decided that it is the antithesis of this blog.
Bill Maher sucks.
No shit.
Post a Comment