Interesting Article

[Tommy]

An Unnatural Disaster: A Hurricane Exposes the Man-Made Disaster of the Welfare State

by Robert Tracinski
Sep 02, 2005
by Robert Tracinski

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?

To give you an idea of the magnitude of what is going on, here is a description from a Washington Times story:

"Storm victims are raped and beaten; fights erupt with flying fists, knives and guns; fires are breaking out; corpses litter the streets; and police and rescue helicopters are repeatedly fired on.

"The plea from Mayor C. Ray Nagin came even as National Guardsmen poured in to restore order and stop the looting, carjackings and gunfire....

"Last night, Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said 300 Iraq-hardened Arkansas National Guard members were inside New Orleans with shoot-to-kill orders.

" 'These troops are...under my orders to restore order in the streets,' she said. 'They have M-16s, and they are locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot and kill and they are more than willing to do so if necessary and I expect they will.' "

The reference to Iraq is eerie. The photo that accompanies this article shows National Guard troops, with rifles and armored vests, riding on an armored vehicle through trash-strewn streets lined by a rabble of squalid, listless people, one of whom appears to be yelling at them. It looks exactly like a scene from Sadr City in Baghdad.

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. While watching the coverage last night on Fox News Channel, she told me that she was getting a familiar feeling. 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.

Source: TIA Daily -- September 2, 2005

[fishingpox]

That was a good read Tommy.

[frank lawhead]

TOMMY you wrote a very interestey article---some thing I have thought along those lines for years
my heart goes out to the people ,but like you I don,t see how it will ever go work out

[KARL]

..we supposed to have plan to protect us.....

http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/theme_home2.jsp

http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/interap...orial_0566.xml

http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/display...1&content=3423

....once again our elected officals have let us down... .........say what you will but this current administration continues to lead us astray... all bravado ....no substance......seem like they are always lost...except when it comes to excuses .... :rolleyes:

[Crappie Reaper]

Karl, 9/11 cost me a great job with benefits. I do not blame the Gov. I have lived in near poverty state since. I do not blame the Gov. The kind of pay I was making was great, but I have not found one thing compatible since. I had a house go into foreclosure, which I left on the market and sold finally, at a loss before the foreclosure was complete. I would have been better off letting the forclosure take place. I do not blame the Gov.
I have 6 children at home all in school (grammer) except for the three year old. I became self employed because the available jobs just would not cut it. I would have to work two jobs, 7 days a week to make up for what I had lost. I worry constantly about the "next" job. I have always been a Trim Carpenter and have done jobs on the side for over 20 years. The current prices are what I was making over 15 years ago.
I blame the Government for allowing illegals into the country. They make it harder for me to find work as they are so cheap. I would like to see everyone that is here WOP run out and seal the borders. If they want to live here, they can come in properly.
I would blame the Government if it allowed another country, or group to attack us, and not do anything about it.
Those who consistently blame the Government for every little problem should be ashamed. Whether there is a National Response Plan or not, every individual KNEW the storm was coming. No one knew the extent of damage it would bring. Stop blaming the Government for everything. I know I wouldn't count on them for my familys well being.

[Shellback]

Crappie Seeker, Your last 2 sentences say it all! When disaster strikes, I'm responsible for my family!

[Tommy]

Exactly what I have been saying shellback!

[Eager Beaver]

You people make it sound as though these people down there deserve this to have happened to them. Good Christian attitude, didn't expect any less.

[Crappie Reaper]

You're putting words into our mouths Mr. Beaver. Your above statement does not surprise me at all from reading your political views in other posts. I don't remember anyone saying that anyone deserved to have their lives destroyed by a natural disaster. You are also Judging us for our opinions, which is unfair. I would expect a moderator to remove or edit your post, as I feel it is a personal attack on my faith. Have a nice day, and may God Bless.

[gooch]

Beaver I say that some of them did deserve this as they could have gotten out if they wanted to. The others that couldnt, well thats another story and a sad one to boot. They played a bite the other night of the Mississippi gov before the storm. He said Please, Please, Please, Please 4x get out. Now they say that they couldnt have gotten out of the city but they do have the ability to move at will and steal after the storm. Ever heard the saying "you gota have enough sence to get out of the rain"?

I have buddys down there with the guard who are seeing things first hand and it is scary. Some of these animals are acutally finding ways to get back into the city to continue there criminal activitys. One guy they have caught has been lifted from a roof top 3x. He goes and steals and hides his loot then gets air lifted out fed and clothed then hes back to work stealing from those that have had there lives ruined.

I would be interested to know if Mr Beaver has donated to the Red Cross since the event. I know that I have.