Posted on 09/13/2005 7:49:49 PM PDT by Mark
What We Have Learned In The Two Weeks After Katrina Date Tuesday, September 13, 2005 What We Learned From Katrina...
That nature is still far more powerful than man, and our planet is not nearly as conducive to preserving human life as we would like to believe.
That New Orleans was a disaster waiting to happen.
That our expectations of government are completely unrealistic and downright scary for a nation founded on the principles of self reliance and limited government.
That government in general is probably even more incompetent than most of us realize.
That it can take as little as three days for the fabric of our society to tear apart at the seams.
That human beings suck worse and are even more animalistic than we thought, especially when they are hungry, thirsty, scared and think that the law can’t/won’t stop them from doing whatever they want.
That it is ok with liberals if people live in poverty for years, but it is absolutely unacceptable for them to do so for a few days if they can find a way to blame it on a conservative.
That we apparently no longer expect able bodied human beings to be obey evacuation orders or be able to fend for themselves for even a couple of days without the help of the same government whose orders they just ignored taking care of all their needs.
That it is perfectly acceptable and even admirable to blame anyone and anything for someone’s suffering, except for the people who allowed themselves to be put in danger in the first place.
That if those who are harmed by a natural disaster are mostly poor and black, that expectations for their behavior will be incredibly low and accountability for their actions and plight will be almost nonexistent.
That if the area that is supposedly being neglected by the government is black (even if the mayor of the city is black) then that result is due at least in part to racism, if the same thing happens to a mostly white area, then that is just because it was a horrible disaster and/or the government was just incompetent.
That if you are a liberal it is possible blame the federal government for the massive screwups of local, democratic-run local governments and most of the news media will blindly follow suit.
That if you are a black democrat mayor and your city’s response to a crisis is abysmal; you can avoid universal criticism by almost completely breaking down and blaming everyone else really loudly.
That once the conventional wisdom of “Blaming Bush” has been established, even if it is well before the facts come in, it is almost impossible to reverse, even when the majority of the evidence does not support that conclusion.
That if this conventional wisdom gets so pervasive and the perception of incompetence is too great, even President Bush will eventually admit wrongdoing, again without specifics, and his critics will then say, “See! We were right. He is the only one to admit wrong doing so he must be the one who screwed up!”
That even when it is totally obvious that he/she is really by far the most responsible for all of this, God still never gets blamed for anything.
That if you are a female Democrat governor and you refuse to ask the federal government for help as the law requires, it is the federal government’s fault that they didn’t invoke the Insurrection Act for the first time since the Civil War in order to overcome your stupidity.
That an entire nation can blame the President and the Director of FEMA for the results of an unprecedented natural disaster without even one specific, blatantly wrong action or inaction ever being proven or even really cited, while a mayor still doesn’t have to answer for unused buses and a governor isn’t required to explain the preventing of federal intervention.
That if you are a female Democrat Governor or Democrat Senator and you lavishly praise the head of FEMA after a hurricane, but before the levies break, that those comments will be totally forgotten and days later it can become universally accepted that the head of FEMA should never have been hired in the first place.
That the fact that FEMA was never designed to handle a disaster of this magnitude, especially when the local authorities are incompetent, will not matter if everyone needs a convenient fall guy.
That if you are a Republican you are far more likely to be forced to dot he “right” thing and resign, even when there is no actual evidence that you did anything egregiously wrong, if you are a Democrat there is no need to resign even when there is plenty of evidence you screwed up.
That being in a legitimate national crisis no longer carries with it the moral obligation to refrain form purposely dividing the nation for ones own personal agenda and can actually be used as a political weapon, at least if you are a liberal.
That, in the long run, you will get exponentially more aid from charity and the government if you are harmed my a disaster that also impacts thousands of others (especially if there are horrific pictures involved) than if your life is equally destroyed in a event where only a few others suffer the same fate.
That the answer to saving a city that was doomed by geography/topography and socialism seems to be to change nothing except adding massive amounts of even more socialism.
That an inherently corrupt and mismanaged city like New Orleans can, with no questions asked, get billions of dollars of federal tax money to bail itself out of a mess, even if that mess was inevitable from the inception of the city and incompetence of the part of tht city helped lead to the disaster.
That most of the rest of world (the same people we give millions of dollars to and whose support we supposedly need to legitimize out anti-terrorism efforts) is never happier than when America appears to be on her knees.
That if you are a Republican President that you are presumed to be against poor and black people unless there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary. If you are Bill Clinton it is presumed that you love poor and black people even with overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
That if you are the reverend at a black church and during a highly publicized show of support for an arrest Nation of Islam leader and you claim that Katrina was revenge for a 50 year old lynching and punishment for racism (even though black people were hit hardest), black people will give those words a standing ovation but the John Ziegler Show will be the only media outlet to report it.
That Celine Dion is nuttier, Geraldo Rivera is more of a showboat, Sean Penn is more of a media whore, Howard Dean is even more partisan, and Wolf Blitzer is more of a racist than we ever thought before.
That it is possible for Great Van Susteren to stop talking about Natalie Hollaway for an entire week.
That if you are white conservative like Rush Limbaugh and you say as a sports commentator hired to create controversy that the media favors black quarterbacks, you will be forced to quit your job and the NFL and ABC will be pleased, if you are a black rapper like Kanye West and you go way off script during a national telethon and claim that the President is a racist, the NFL, ABC, and cooperate America will stand by you, you will be invited to participate in an even bigger telethon a week later, and your new single will skyrocket to number one on the charts.
What We Have Learned In The Two Weeks After Katrina Date Tuesday, September 13, 2005 What We Learned From Katrina...
That Demonrats are corrupt, useless, self serving jackasses..
Oh sorry,
We already knew that.
The President will take the high road Thursday night, in probably the biggest speech so far in his second term. He will accept responsibility (even though he shouldn't), ONLY so the world can move on. The issue will be disfused, and this speech will resonate in the minds of 60% of the people who do not like the president. Contrary to alot of what people think, the people who do not like the president are really close to "really liking him." They do not hate him, don't be confused, but they feel misled and they are easily confused as a result of the MSM. A speech like that I hope he will give, even if it isn't his fault, will show that he is truly a man you'd want as your neighbor, and America will start to support him once again.
The people who hate him will probably just keep on hating him even more, for doing a play action fake on them, by accepting what they say, that it is his fault. It isn't his responsibility because he did something wrong, it's because he's the adult who will take the pressue.
John Ziegler?? Didn't he used to be NHL Commissioner ?
"That our expectations of government are completely unrealistic and downright scary for a nation founded on the principles of self reliance and limited government"
If only we would learn one lesson as a nation please Lord let it be this one.
bttt
I've got to start making his site a regular visit. He pretty much nailed the past 2 weeks. Thank you for posting!
***
Amen
I never watch the alphabet networks any more, but far more Americans still watch them than watch Fox News. And the papers they read are usually way to the left. Last week, in the midst of the Katrina furor, the editor of the big rag in my part of the country took the time to publish his own anti-war views. We still have a long hard road ahead of us to overcome all the lib bias.
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