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Ok, let's play a little game. Imagine you are poor. Not just low on money and can't make it to the ATM today, but actually dirt poor. You have a [censored] minimum-wage job with which you have a hard time making ends meet from day-to-day, and are not always sure you will be able to afford a place to stay or to eat tomorrow. You have no car because cars cost a lot of money, no extra money to pay for a hotel someplace, no out-of-town family to stay with. I know it's hard to do, but imagine it.

Ok, now they order you to evacuate. You have 50 bucks in your pocket. What are you going to do? How are you going to get out? Where are you going to stay? What the hell are you going to do. Let's hear your options.


It's very tragic and they don't deserve to face such a disaster, but you must remember that you reap what you sow. Here's an article that sums it up very well in my opinion: tiadaily.com/php-bin/news/showArticle.php?id=1026

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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.


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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.


Maybe Springer should ask "if this happened in Idaho, would armed gangs be looting, murdering, raping, and attacking search and rescue teams?" Face it, this anarchy wouldn't happen in a 'red' county, and Orleans parish looks to be solidly 'blue': http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/LA/P/00/map.html

Billy