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September 4, 2005
Placing the Blame
Posted by Dave Blount at September 4, 2005 12:36 PM
It should be obvious where to place the immediate blame for the debacle that followed Katrina: squarely on the shoulders of the appallingly inept local government of Mayor C. Ray Nagin and Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco. Local government, for obvious reasons, has the responsibility to be first responder in a local crisis.
Nagin's useless sniveling stands in stark contrast to Rudy Giuliani's take-charge response to 9/11. Although any able-bodied person could have gotten out of New Orleans with the notice they were given, there were others who required a competent local government to be evacuated. It's Nagin's fault that New Orleans had no such government.
Previously Governor Blanco admitted that Bush had had to call her and personally appeal for a mandatory evacuation as the storm approached. Now she is blubbering to the cameras that Bush let her down, although behind the scenes, she prevented the Federal Government from taking over the evacuation.
But what about the "root causes" liberals love so much? Unsurprisingly, they look at the Katrina aftermath and manage to see the same root causes they see for everything else.
Dimwitted demagogue Michael Moore claims racism is to blame. In an open letter to President Bush, he croaks, "Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh!" Someone might write an open letter to Moore pointing out to this idiot that not everyone stranded by the hurricane was black. Or is he claiming that the National Guard flew around rescuing only white people? Anything to whip up racial tension. It might help him sell a few more tickets to his next schlocumentary on the evils of America.
Similarly true to form, the New York Times blames low taxes.
Much as I hate to be as predictable as Mickey Moore and the Old Gray Hag, when I look for root causes, I see — what else? — moonbattery.
One of the prime goals of moonbattery is to take away our adulthood, to reduce us to whining children at the complete mercy of the all-powerful Federal Government. Those who blame Washington for post-Katrina misery are exploiting the hurricane to advance moonbattery's cause. But if moonbattery hadn't been all too advanced to begin with, the problem would not have been nearly so severe. An ingrained habit of sitting passively with open mouths, like baby birds waiting to be fed, rendered some people helpless in a situation that required personal initiative.
Katrina didn't hit New Orleans as hard as was expected in the last days before the storm. Residents were told days in advance that their city could be under 30 feet of water. Yet many could not work up the initiative to leave, despite facing what would have been certain death for many of them if the hurricane had struck full force.
The Left seems to find vindication for their ideology in the fact that those who stayed behind were poor. But did they stay behind because they were poor? Or do their poverty and their decision to stay behind share a common cause — the moonbattery that has persuaded many that they can evade responsibility for their own lives?
With thanks to V the K.
