That post ROCKED, Lady. Thank you for writing it. I have been loathe to come to FR as well because of all the vile attitudes being promulgated by some. Part of me wants to say its only a few, another part of me says its the interlopers/moles who liek to muddy up the site with really outrageous statements that play into the stereotype that people have of conservatives. I have a hard time believing that a conservative can have some of the views as they are put forth here, especially as uncharitable as those that want to hammer the poor themselves for what has happened to them. I am angry FOR them because of what the state has fostered, but not them. Even if they were guilty of being the worst sort of welfare queen, I would not wish what happened in NOLA during katrina, nor being stranded without care at teh Superdome for anything. How people can sit there and blame them for that is beyond me.
Thank you Hair!
Nice post!
The nasty attitudes and criminal behavior of *some* of the people we've seen in this thing are going to make it easier to cut - or at least limit the growth - of some mooch and sponge programs. That's a good thing. If you want to give them some of your $$$, fine with me...
Thanks for this post. It's been distressing to see how this storm has really brought out the worst of us, as a nation and especially here on FR.
I ~thought~ 9/11 showed us how vulnerable we really are here on our home shores. Except for the shrill harpies on the left who will never be content, it brought out the best in us. It brought our our patriotism, we stood together.
But there we could be angry with a common enemy, the terrorists who had done this. It's hard to get (or at least stay) angry with a hurricane that no longer exists.
So in our frustration we have to seek someone to be responsible. And, unforunately whoever we hate or mistrust the most, is likely to fill that void.
No one is responsible ~for~ the hurricane. But we are all responsible for how we respond. There's plenty of blame to go around, with a healthy share of it belonging to the Mayor and the Governor.
I wish that more of our leaders would have the cojones to stand up and say "things went wrong, but we're gonna fix them" like the President did. It was a bold move. It was the right move.
As for FReepers, most here are good, solid people who will read and contemplate what you said. Then there are some bozos who will never get it. Unfortunately, they are often the loudest. And they drive some of our best and brightest away.
It's way too easy to get sucked into a flame war. And it's too easy to say stuff we'd never say in "public" because of the appearance of anonymity here. Well, ask NCPAC and Jeff Gannon about their anonymity.
I am sorry to see rdb3 and mhking go, as well as many others who have left or were banned (granted, some needed to go). But it's our loss, not theirs. We are less complete because they are gone.
I still use FR as my primary source of news, but I no longer bother with most of the political opinions here. They differ too much from my own, and frankly, I have better things to do than to try and change that. It would be a losing battle.
Anyway, my two cents.
But the point is, regarding poor folks, who are that way for whatever reason, whether their "fault" or not (and that gets almost philosphical in some sense, when single parents pass on poor habits to their children, whose at fault?), is whether those with no means to drive a car out of the impending storm, and no public transportation is offered out, and then not much gets in afterwards for five days, and there is no law and order), "deserve" the "fruits" of all of that? I don't think so, and I don't think many Americans do. In an emergency, and saving life, and acute danger and pain and suffering, one's bank account should not matter to the extent the public square is reasonably able to make it not matter.
The penalty for being impecunious because one is feckless, should not be death, or extreme abuse. That is cruel and unusual. It shocks the conscience, at least my conscience. It should not, and must not stand, to the extent with reasonably prudent efforts, it can be avoided.
At least that is where my moral compass, and my sense of what is right, leads me.
EXCELLENT
And that's what makes you a good man. The philosopher/pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupery wrote about just such conditions that you relate as he was riding on a refugee train full of Polish workers and their families fleeing from Spain during the Spanish Civil War in 1936:Quote..
"I sat down face to face with one couple. Between the man and the woman a child had hollowed himself out a place and had fallen asleep. He turned in his slumber, and in the dim lamplight I saw his face. What an adorable face! A golden fruit had been born of these two peasants. Forth from this sluggish scum had sprung this miracle of delight and grace."
"I bent over the smooth brow, over those mildly pouting lips and said to myself: This is a musicians face. This is the child Mozart. This is a life full of beautiful promise Little princes in legends are not different from this. Protected, sheltered, cultivated, what could not this child become?"
"When by mutation a new rose is born in the garden, all the gardeners rejoice. They isolate the rose, tend it, foster it. But there is no gardener for men. This little Mozart will be shaped like the rest by the common stamping machine. This little Mozart will love shoddy music in the stench of night dives. This little Mozart is condemned."
"I went back to my sleeping car. I said to myself: Their fate causes these people no suffering. It is not an impulse to charity that has upset me like this. I am not weeping over an eternally open wound. Those who carry the wound do not feel it. It is the human race and not the individual that is wounded here, is outraged here. I do not believe in pity. What torments me tonight is the gardener's point of view. What torments me is not this poverty to which after all a man can accustom himself as to sloth. What torments me is not the humps nor the hollows nor the ugliness. It is the sight, of a little bit in all these men, of Mozart murdered."
(From: "Wind, Sand and Stars" by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. 1939.)
I think that you see what "Saint-Ex" was seeing on that train fleeing with the poor from civil war. You're in good company, my kind friend. If you weren't, you would not hurt.
P.S. Do you think anybody'd believe this stuff from a couple o' "saddle tramps?" Naw, neither do I..................;^)
Like the Jews of ancient Jerusalem, they (the blacks in New Orleans) have forgotten and disgraced their leader's goals.
Good post!! Here, here. And thank you for making it.
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. ~Martin Luther King Jr.
BTW. Good post, Hair!
BRAVO!
Well done, Hair. This thread made my morning. :-D