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Interesting reading.....I don't necessarily agree with every point here, but some of them haven't been brought up in relation to this event. No flames please.
An Unnatural Disaster: A Hurricane Exposes the Man-Made Disaster of the Welfare State
An Objectivist Review
by Robert Tracinski | The Intellectual Activist
September 2, 2005
It has taken four long days for state and federal officials to figure out how to deal with the disaster in New Orleans. I can't blame them, because it has also taken me four long days to figure out what is going on there. The reason is that the events there make no sense if you think that we are confronting a natural disaster.
If this is just a natural disaster, the response for public officials is obvious: you bring in food, water, and doctors; you send transportation to evacuate refugees to temporary shelters; you send engineers to stop the flooding and rebuild the city's infrastructure. For journalists, natural disasters also have a familiar pattern: the heroism of ordinary people pulling together to survive; the hard work and dedication of doctors, nurses, and rescue workers; the steps being taken to clean up and rebuild.
Public officials did not expect that the first thing they would have to do is to send thousands of armed troops in armored vehicle, as if they are suppressing an enemy insurgency. And journalists--myself included--did not expect that the story would not be about rain, wind, and flooding, but about rape, murder, and looting.
But this is not a natural disaster. It is a man-made disaster.
The man-made disaster is not an inadequate or incompetent response by federal relief agencies, and it was not directly caused by Hurricane Katrina. This is where just about every newspaper and television channel has gotten the story wrong.
The man-made disaster we are now witnessing in New Orleans did not happen over the past four days. It happened over the past four decades. Hurricane Katrina merely exposed it to public view.
The man-made disaster is the welfare state.
For the past few days, I have found the news from New Orleans to be confusing. People were not behaving as you would expect them to behave in an emergency--indeed, they were not behaving as they have behaved in other emergencies. That is what has shocked so many people: they have been saying that this is not what we expect from America. In fact, it is not even what we expect from a Third World country.
When confronted with a disaster, people usually rise to the occasion. They work together to rescue people in danger, and they spontaneously organize to keep order and solve problems. This is especially true in America. We are an enterprising people, used to relying on our own initiative rather than waiting around for the government to take care of us. I have seen this a hundred times, in small examples (a small town whose main traffic light had gone out, causing ordinary citizens to get out of their cars and serve as impromptu traffic cops, directing cars through the intersection) and large ones (the spontaneous response of New Yorkers to September 11).
So what explains the chaos in New Orleans?
What explains bands of thugs using a natural disaster as an excuse for an orgy of looting, armed robbery, and rape? What causes unruly mobs to storm the very buses that have arrived to evacuate them, causing the drivers to drive away, frightened for their lives? What causes people to attack the doctors trying to treat patients at the Super Dome?
Why are people responding to natural destruction by causing further destruction? Why are they attacking the people who are trying to help them?
My wife, Sherri, figured it out first, and she figured it out on a sense-of-life level. She studied architecture at the Illinois Institute of Chicago, which is located in the South Side of Chicago just blocks away from the Robert Taylor Homes, one of the largest high-rise public housing projects in America. "The projects," as they were known, were infamous for uncontrollable crime and irremediable squalor. (They have since, mercifully, been demolished.)
What Sherri was getting from last night's television coverage was a whiff of the sense of life of "the projects." Then the "crawl"--the informational phrases flashed at the bottom of the screen on most news channels--gave some vital statistics to confirm this sense: 75% of the residents of New Orleans had already evacuated before the hurricane, and of the 300,000 or so who remained, a large number were from the city's public housing projects. Jack Wakeland then gave me an additional, crucial fact: early reports from CNN and Fox indicated that the city had no plan for evacuating all of the prisoners in the city's jails--so they just let many of them loose. There is no doubt a significant overlap between these two populations--that is, a large number of people in the jails used to live in the housing projects, and vice versa.
There were many decent, innocent people trapped in New Orleans when the deluge hit--but they were trapped alongside large numbers of people from two groups: criminals--and wards of the welfare state, people selected, over decades, for their lack of initiative and self-induced helplessness. The welfare wards were a mass of sheep--on whom the incompetent administration of New Orleans unleashed a pack of wolves.
All of this is related, incidentally, to the apparent incompetence of the city government, which failed to plan for a total evacuation of the city, despite the knowledge that this might be necessary. But in a city corrupted by the welfare state, the job of city officials is to ensure the flow of handouts to welfare recipients and patronage to political supporters--not to ensure a lawful, orderly evacuation in case of emergency.
No one has really reported this story, as far as I can tell. In fact, some are already actively distorting it, blaming President Bush, for example, for failing to personally ensure that the Mayor of New Orleans had drafted an adequate evacuation plan. The worst example is an execrable piece from the Toronto Globe and Mail, by a supercilious Canadian who blames the chaos on American "individualism." But the truth is precisely the opposite: the chaos was caused by a system that was the exact opposite of individualism.
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. They don't use the chaos of a disaster as an opportunity to prey on their fellow men.
But what about criminals and welfare parasites? Do they worry about saving their houses and property? They don't, because they don't own anything. Do they worry about what is going to happen to their businesses or how they are going to make a living? They never worried about those things before. Do they worry about crime and looting? But living off of stolen wealth is a way of life for them.
The welfare state--and the brutish, uncivilized mentality it sustains and encourages--is the man-made disaster that explains the moral ugliness that has swamped New Orleans. And that is the story that no one is reporting.
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Last edited by Speed-ER doc; 09-06-2005 at 02:17 PM.
I would loot food and drinking water if I were in that situation. I would not loot designer clothes, booze and electronics, as so many people did.
OTOH, if I lived in a city that is below sea level, I would have already stocked up on at least a week's supply of food and water, plus batteries, etc.
There was no excuse for an American city to turn into Rwanda and Burundi.
There is no meaningful connection between the problems in N.O. and the welfare state in that article.
Quote:
in a city corrupted by the welfare state, the job of city officials is to ensure the flow of handouts to welfare recipients and patronage to political supporters--not to ensure a lawful, orderly evacuation in case of emergency
This is the only connection, and the same could be said of any function that city hall performs.
I think (some) people just like to complain about the welfare state, and are taking advantage of this tragedy to do so.
Well, like Speed-ER Doc said...I might not agree with everything but I'll tell you this. When I went through Hurricane Andrew in Miami, then last year the 3 Hurricanes that came into FL hitting my area...
…I NEVER EVER SAW anything like what is happening in New Orleans.
Yeah, some people looted but the majority where helping each other and cleaning up their neighborhoods. We had people before the hurricane came come by in a truck and take to the city dump all the lose heavy objects out of the neighborhood.
I personally don't understand how anyone could shoot at people trying to help them. Sure, the government seemed to react slowly but the people who are fighting, attacking, etc are the main people to blame.
I feel so bad for the good people caught up with the criminals out there. They are stuck dealing with not only losing all they have but defending their lives from these cowards taking advantage of the situation.
This city (in part) has acted like NO OTHER city I have ever seen after a disaster...what does that tell us? Is only the government to blame?
That’s the problem now a days, everyone blames EVERYTHING other than themselves.
While the writer above might not have it all right...there is some truth to what he is saying...in my opinion.
I would not loot designer clothes, booze and electronics, as so many people did.
Yup, that was pathetic...asking for food and water is understandable, and looting to get it I can understand...but looting for TV's, Jeans, etc....just pathetic
Quote:
OTOH, if I lived in a city that is below sea level, I would have already stocked up on at least a week's supply of food and water, plus batteries, etc.
There was no excuse for an American city to turn into Rwanda and Burundi.
There is no meaningful connection between the problems in N.O. and the welfare state in that article.
The author is just creating a hypothesis, based on observations:
1) The people who stayed in NO when the levees broke were primarily welfare recipients
2) There were more criminal actions and fewer heroic actions than one would have expected after such a disaster
I don't think either of these points is in dispute by anyone. The question is, are they in any way related? Obviously the author hasn't proven that here, he just tied together some observations and presented one possible cause for the problems we all have wondered about.
Believe it or not. But to just immediately discard the hypothesis without consideration isn't any better than just blindly believing it.
The author is just creating a hypothesis, based on observations:
1) The people who stayed in NO when the levees broke were primarily welfare recipients
2) There were more criminal actions and fewer heroic actions than one would have expected after such a disaster
I don't think either of these points is in dispute by anyone. The question is, are they in any way related? Obviously the author hasn't proven that here, he just tied together some observations and presented one possible cause for the problems we all have wondered about.
Believe it or not. But to just immediately discard the hypothesis without consideration isn't any better than just blindly believing it.
And a hypothesis that ignored facts is just a wasted piece of paper...
Like zoom44 posted above, there are many instances of heroic actions in the face of Katrina's aftermath. What do you call the thousands of police officers who, while themselves are victims of this tragedy, nevertheless worked tirelessly and without outside help for the first few crucial days? Or the people who got in their boats and helped haul out stranded people from their flooded homes?
Its unfair to compare this tragedy to 9/11. While 9/11 is horrific the affected area is so much smaller and therefore easier to respond to. Compared that to a citywide (even a region-wide) cataclysm and you are in a whole order of magnitude in scope of rescue and avoiding chaos.
While it can never be discarded that certain elements in the society tends to just sit it out and wait for dole-outs instead of taking the initiative, I find it very disturbing for an American to simplify the problem by putting the blame solely on his so-called "welfare state".
And a hypothesis that ignored facts is just a wasted piece of paper...
Like zoom44 posted above, there are many instances of heroic actions in the face of Katrina's aftermath. What do you call the thousands of police officers who, while themselves are victims of this tragedy, nevertheless worked tirelessly and without outside help for the first few crucial days? Or the people who got in their boats and helped haul out stranded people from their flooded homes?
Well, if they had a boat or a home, they weren't welfare recipients most likely. Nor were the police officers getting handouts for not working.
In any disaster, leaders typically come to the forefront and take charge. The article suggests that when a large percentage of the victims are those who are not used to taking initiative and acting as leaders, then chaos ensues. I think it is an interesting and valid hypothesis, but one that is difficult to prove.
It just seems that the fact that we've not had looting in other emergenices and disasters speaks for itself. What you have in N.O. is self selection - a bunch of people chose not to leave. True, some could not physically leave, but those who were physically unable to leave their homes are also physically unable to steal and shoot at people as they walk out of hospitals.
In the recent New York city blackout, there was no looting, no shooting.
So lets go back to self-selection - a segment of people chose not to leave and are choosing to cause trouble. Its very, very sad. There's a variety of factors that lead to such low aspirations that people have to turn to crime and don't know any other way to get around in the world. But you can't argue that there are tons of people who are a product of the welfare system who become criminal. Obviously any family's offspring can become criminal, but specifically to New Orleans, its obvious that most of the people causing trouble are not lawyers and doctors.
I just wish someone would speak up and tell the people that the government can't afford to and isn't in the business of solving all their problems, nor can it force them to act proactively to protect themselves. It can't even force them reactively to protect themselves as the news is showing us today. At some point, the people have to help themselves or they end up in poverty and despair. One can't argue that a heavy concentration of people who refuse to help themselves were in New Orleans prior to the hurricane.
The author is just creating a hypothesis, based on observations:
1) The people who stayed in NO when the levees broke were primarily welfare recipients
2) There were more criminal actions and fewer heroic actions than one would have expected after such a disaster
I don't think either of these points is in dispute by anyone. The question is, are they in any way related? Obviously the author hasn't proven that here, he just tied together some observations and presented one possible cause for the problems we all have wondered about.
Believe it or not. But to just immediately discard the hypothesis without consideration isn't any better than just blindly believing it.
Okay,
1 : You have people recieving welfare
2 : You have people who were left behind in N.O.
The only correlation drawn between those two in the article is that, APPARENTLY, city officials were too busy handing out welfare checks to evacuate the city.
That's the only hypothesis that is given... and it's laughable.
Pointing out that 1 and 2 include (some of) the same people is NOT a hypothesis. Just an observation.
The article mentions Chicago's "Robert Taylor Homes, one of the largest high-rise public housing projects in America. "The projects," as they were known, were infamous for uncontrollable crime and irremediable squalor." You could also add other Chicago projects like Cabrini Green. These welfare projects were rife with violence, gangs, drugs and chaos. Units left vacant for the shortest time would be stripped of everything, including the plumbing to be sold for scrap metal. Looting, in other words.
The projects were a failure. The welfare state did not become a stepping stone, a safety net, for people to improve themselves and move on. Instead they fostered generations of welfare-dependent people, broken families, and a breakdown of order, rife with a concentration of people who saw crime as a normal and acceptable part of life. So the original hypothesis is not at all far-fetched.
It just seems that the fact that we've not had looting in other emergenices and disasters speaks for itself. What you have in N.O. is self selection - a bunch of people chose not to leave. True, some could not physically leave, but those who were physically unable to leave their homes are also physically unable to steal and shoot at people as they walk out of hospitals.
In the recent New York city blackout, there was no looting, no shooting.
I beg to differ... New Yorkers please feel free to correct me but I have read it that THERE was a higher rate of crimes in the northeast US during the prolonged blackout. Another case, there was also a higher rate of crimes during the aftermath of 9/11 because so many police officer died and the rest are involved in the search/rescue.
Quote:
Originally Posted by myfuncar
I just wish someone would speak up and tell the people that the government can't afford to and isn't in the business of solving all their problems, nor can it force them to act proactively to protect themselves. It can't even force them reactively to protect themselves as the news is showing us today. At some point, the people have to help themselves or they end up in poverty and despair.
I agree that it isn't the government's job to provide welfare INDEFINITELY, without an exit strategy to get this people rehabilitated and back to being productive to society. However, using the hurricane aftermath as a podium to bash welfare is disgusting. People are suffering and this author has the gall to say "its your fault because you're in welfare".
Quote:
Originally Posted by myfuncar
One can't argue that a heavy concentration of people who refuse to help themselves were in New Orleans prior to the hurricane.
Have you got any idea the magnitude of trying to evacuate every single person out of New Orleans? Where are you going to get all the buses? Ambulances to transfer the sick off the local hospitals? where are you going to take them? People, in case you have not notice most if not all people that can drive themselves have evacuated. Those that are left are people that rely on public transportation, people that are home-bound due to sickness or people who are taking care of the elderlies.
It is so easy to say "you should have evacuated, this shouldn't have happened if you did" but we are not there so when somebody say something like this it just p!sses me off. Sorry for the rant, I'm putting away my soapbox now... :o
Idealogues on both sides (left and right) are trying to make political hay out of this, but what else is new. It's news, so it puts them and their premises in the limelight.
Personally, I must say that I was initially struck by the attitudes of some of the victims. I'd like to think that in a similar situation I have enough of an understanding of the difficulties to not condemn those that were trying to help me, and to have nothing but gratitude for their efforts. This is not what some of the people in N.O. displayed. It was more of a sense of entitlement and indignant condemnation of their saviors because they didn't show up on the victims' timetable. Whether that's an effect of the welfare state, cultural/regional differences, or simply selective reporting, I can't say. I do think that if you put any major city core under water the way N.O. is under water you are going to have some looting and violence. The important thing now is the healing, cleanup and rebuilding.
Well, now that a lot of the victims have moved to Texas and our welfare system, we'll try to spread them out a bit so that if another disaster occurs, they won't be the only ones involved.
Maybe it's a good idea they didn't agree to move to that cruise ship after all. If this author is correct, and they were ordered to man their lifeboats or put their vests on, they would just start randomly attacking each other instead. :p
Can't vouch for the accuracy of this, but I thought it was interesting too:
Posted from one of the member on Fullsizechevy.com
I am a Sheriff's Deputy who is part of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness in the New Orleans MSA.
Mayor Nagin has been speaking furiously about the lack of everything from the State and Federal Government. Here is some info:
1. There are two States here. Louisiana and the City of New Orleans/Orleans Parish. Always has been and always will be. When a State Law passes, Law Makers ALWAYS write whether Orleans Parish wil allow the Law or not.
2. When the MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area) meets for Disater Planning and Equipment Purchases (6 times a year for the last 15 years), we all agree how we will spend the Federal Money as a team since we are in this together. Orleans DEMANDS they will choose how they will spend their portion.
3. During Communication Infrastructure Planning we ALL (N.O. MSA) purchased Satellite Phones. We all pay several hundred dollars a month as a "Just In Case Measure". Orleans said their Infrastructure was TOP NOTCH and the money would be better spent on Ford F-150 Pickup Trucks. I dunno what they bought, but it wasn't sat phones.
4. The looting, Rape (Newly Wedded European Woman who was raped and beaten as well as MANY others), etc. That is life in New Orleans. Why people find New Orleans a romantic, cherishable place is beyond 90% of all Louisianians. It is Hot, it Stinks, Non of us even go into New Orleans without a sidearm and we prefer to leave our women at home. Rape's, thefts, and murder in New Orleans are as common as a High Speed pursuit in California.
5. When we enter New Orleans to issue an arrest warrant, the SCAT (Street Crime Arrest Team) is ALWAYS present. Me and/or other officers have been part of 18 arrests in New Orleans and been shot at 17 times. 11 of those were with AK-47's and 3 of those 11 had two 40-round clips taped together.
6. Even before Mayor Naggin took office the Fed's and State were never allowed to do anything to improve New Orleans. New Orleans ALWAYS wanted the cash to do their own improvements, their way.
7. There was no way in Hell the State was gonna make a move until New Orleans asked for help. There was No way in Hell the Fed's were gonna make a move until the Governor asked for help. That is Law.
8. The people looting and shooting have it better than ever. Those areas are known for people living in crappy homes without electricity. Now they have some flood water in their home. They stole guns, ammo and food. They have never had it so good and don't want to leave.
9. The people whining the loudest about racisim are the same people who always whined about racisim.
10. Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard declared martial law Monday Night. Mayor Ray Naggin didn't want to alienate any refugees and allowed all this to happen. We sent officers in to help. As a report of an officer being shot and supplies and boat stolen we BEGGED Mayor Naggin to pass Martial Law. NOPE!!!!!!!!!!!!! After 2 days, Our department left New Orleans to die, then Mayor Naggin decided to declare Martial Law.
In our own Parish, we have arrest several refugees. We have recovered stolen Corvettes, Escalades, Mercedes Benz, BMW's, etc. A young black female ran over one of our officers. She was driving a Nissan with a VIN from an Oldsmobile 88 and a Plate from Alabama registered to a Ford Van. An elderly white man died because our Hospital was unable to fill his Oxygen Bottle. Refugees have stolen an EMS Generator at the Mobile Command Center. Refugees have stolen an Entergy Truck trying to restore power. Most Parishes are out of gas at all stations and most of us cannot drive to work. All gas stations have a 15-20 minute wait for gas. Some stations are selling only 2 gallons per customer. One station raised prices to $5.64 a gallon. The owner refused to lower prices, we promptly hooked him in the cuffs and dumped him in jail. There is tons more.
Mayor Haggin had years and so did his predessessor's to prepare, but they refused and they refused everyone elses help. Now he is bitching because no one is coming and everything is falling apart.
The media is asking why was the State and Fed's not prepared, New Orleans NEVER allowed us to hold drills. All other Parishes and Baton Rouge have drills just for this. The media is asking why no help is coming for the dead. Their Dead, we are only worried about the living. We are tying the dead to a tree or pushing them aside in an attempt to save the living.
I say, if you want out, we'll get you out. You wanna stay, then stay. I think we should let New Orleans die and REBUILD the National Infrastructure somewhere other than a damn Bowl.
I read about the chain of responsibility for New Orleans a couple days ago. It, apparently, goes something like this:
The chain of responsibility for the protection of the citizens in New
Orleans is:
1. Mayor of NO
2. The NO director of Homeland Security (a political appointee
of the Governor who reports to the Governor)
3. The Governor
4. The Head of Homeland Security
5. The President
This thread is also sort of a test to see if we can discuss social issues without flaming each other, and to see what types of things we are going to be allowed to discuss with the new lounge rules. So far, I think it's going OK.
Since I see zoom44 looking at the thread, I wanted to make that clear in case I get banned again for some reason and can't tell you later.
If it's too much, just close or delete it, I won't mind. I just want to know the boundaries.
I read about the chain of responsibility for New Orleans a couple days ago. It, apparently, goes something like this:
The chain of responsibility for the protection of the citizens in New
Orleans is:
1. Mayor of NO
2. The NO director of Homeland Security (a political appointee
of the Governor who reports to the Governor)
3. The Governor
4. The Head of Homeland Security
5. The President
Can anyone verify this?
I can't officially verify but based on my understanding that's pretty accurate.
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