Absolutely, because no one has demanded the government save these remarkably uninformed souls, right? I'll be the first to drum the government out of my house, but as long as the other 300 million of you are screaming at them to save my sorry behind, I don't have a chance.
Excellent point! This whole thing is ridiculous to begin with. If they are stupid enough to stay there, let them.
Like all good arguements there is always a grey area. Few rational souls would stay at their home knowing dead corpses rotted in a warm swamp near their house. In a city of 1 million, 5,000 to 10,000 is only .5-1%. It is easy to believe that 7,500 or so urban dwellers are:
A. Delusional, not in touch with reality. Removing them is like pulling a schitzophrenic person out of the way of an oncoming truck. They may be irate that you jerked them out of a conversation with their shoe, but the alternative is worse.
B. Those that aren't done looting yet. The only way to ensure that we don't tie down our elite paratroopers fighting an insurgency quagmire is to get them rested, refitted and capable of returning to Iraq. Odds are Iraq will have a stable, operating government several years ahead of Louisiana. As to the looters, this is the same crowd that delivers their Christmass presents in January. We can call them procrastinating illegal shoppers. They should be promptly removed with pitchforks. C. The tragicly uninformed. These people have been living in a hazardous waste sewer for a while now. They are not watching the news. If I were in that condition, thinking that the waters would recede and I would go back to work next week I would tell a rescuer to go to hell if he wanted me to put my life in a rubber dingy that leaves in 15 minutes. Sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees. Remember that family flying their personal jet back from a camping vacation September 2001. They were forced to land by F-16's and were very confused, prior to that they refered to the 11th as Tuesday. If 0.5% of the current population is in this boat, chock up anouther 5,000 people. I suspect this number includes MANY of the people who were properly prepared for a hurricane and are surviving just fine now. How many of them prepared for a hurricane by stocking up 30 days supply of food, water and essentials? Unless you already had all of these supplies for an alterior motive (Such as surviving other circumstances) it would be borderline paranoia to assemble that much for a hurricane.
The fact of the matter is, New Orleans is destroyed. What is together and functioning is likely to be altered severely. In what may become the largest urban renewal project in American history, roads will be moved, bridges left standing shattered, the groun torn up from replacing water sewer and NG lines. Check with anyone who had their house built. The builder hates it when you move in there at the start of construction. If these people think anything will be normal anytime soon in New Orleans we can safely put them in the delusional catagory. I have seen the result of flooding here in North Carolina and just because alot of the buildings stood, it does not mean you can live in them. Nor do your new neighbors want to build next to your stinking, poop-smelly house.
It is easy to say "O.K. stay here, but we wont be responsible for your well being" To leave people the option of staying in the city. The problem is that we are going to be sending in police and firemen in to save these people as their patience, health, food or water runs out. This is an unavoidable externality to allowing thousands to live there. There is no way an EMT could know that people are dying there while he or she pointed his finger and said "see, I told you you were going to die, tisk, tisk" These folks save people who would really rather be dead.
By the way I hope it never comes to this but if an Oklahoma National guardsman comes to my door to remove the weapon fron my warm, law abiding hand, I will give him a 7.62 mm answer.