[Tolik]

Very Interesting!

This ping list is not author-specific for articles I'd like to share. Some for the perfect moral clarity, some for provocative thoughts; or simply interesting articles I'd hate to miss myself. (I don't have to agree with the author all 100% to feel the need to share an article.) I will try not to abuse the ping list and not to annoy you too much, but on some days there is more of the good stuff that is worthy of attention. You can see the list of articles I pinged to lately  on  my page.
You are welcome in or out, just freepmail me (and note which PING list you are talking about). Besides this one, I keep 2 separate PING lists for my favorite authors Victor Davis Hanson and Orson Scott Card.  

[little jeremiah]

later read/ping.

[untenured]

Outstanding. Pouring the water of Big Government into a culture whose foundations are rotting already is a sure way for the culture to collapse.

[Jaysun]

New Orleans shows us in the starkest possible way the reality of the thin blue line that protects us from barbarism and mob rule.

The veneer of civilization really is thin. Christianity plays a vital role in keeping us civilized. Those that continually seek to weaken and discredit Christianity do so at their own peril.

[clearlight]

I love this guy's work. His observations and the way he puts them into writing are just extraordinary. Anyone who hasn't read Dalrymple's book, "Life at the Bottom" would be doing themselves a favor by picking it up.

[snarks_when_bored]

The civilized veneers are much thinner on some than on others.

[squarebarb]

Dalrymple is excellent.

If you want to know what's happening in Britain, his books are a very good read.

I heard he could not get published in Brtain.

[auboy]

Bump.

[Tax-chick]

bttt

[windcliff]

ping

[Constitution Day]

Bump for later.

[Crawdad]

The culture described had been covered with a burlap bag for decades. It took 150 mph winds to blow the bag away. When it did, everyone saw what had been growing underneath.

[teawithmisswilliams]

Far from ameliorating the situation, then, the billions spent on welfare programs, and the intellectual ingenuity expended on justifying the unjustifiable in the form of affirmative action, have resulted in a hatred that is bitter and widespread enough among those condescended to in this manner to result in the scenes for which New Orleans will now long be remembered.

The fruit of liberalism is bitter.

[Psycho_Bunny]

Most of this article is built on a false premise which I'm surprised the auther ignored, given how intelligent he is.  Drawing conclusions on human nature as a whole from what happened in New Orleans is to make an arguement out of context:  the people who stayed and misbehaved in New Orleans were not a cross-section of New Orleans as a whole - they were a concentrate of the worst the city has to offer.

Certainly not all but a great many were the drug dealers...the drug users....the thugs....the homeless...the mentally ill....people who had neither the resources nor the intelligence to leave the city.  People who had no where to go nor the motivation to go there.

In other words, the people who were left in New Orleans were the minority whose behavior is normally kept in check by the people who left.  When the grown-ups left, the children got to ransack the house.

It is also an informal fallacy to compare the poor of the US with the poor of Bombay.  Those two groups of people live very different lives in very different circumstances.

By and large, this article is pure intellectual dishonesty.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Anyone remember the blackout of New York about 1965?
there was almost no crime or looting.

Remember the blackout of New York years later when Carter was president? Mass looting in black areas. Carter said it was just hungry folks looking for food. How a man looting and carrying a 300 lb. couch on his back is related to hunger I don't know.

I think the problem really bagan with the various riots of the late 1960's when the governments refused to put them down, just cordoning off the areas and letting them burn themselves out. Perhaps it's time to start shooting back.

[Jackson Brown]

""Pictures of the looting that followed the devastation in New Orleans have been flashed around the world. Everyone is, or at least pretends to be, shocked and horrified, as if the breakdown of law and order couldn’t happen here..."

Anyone who is old enough to have lived through the 60s, or was paying attention during things like Rodney King and the LA riots, should be laughing at this assertion.

[GreyFriar]

Ping

[6ppc]

The survivors of the tsunami reported their terror at the size and destructive force of the wave, of course, but in no instance that I recall did they mention having been robbed by other survivors, let along going in fear of armed gangs.

He is wrong. I remember reports of gangs of outlaws after the tsunami, although I would have a hard time tracking down the specific articles.

[wildcatf4f3]

bump

[spunkets]

Re: The Veneer of Civilization. Utterly removed.

"Pictures of the looting... Everyone is, or at least pretends to be, shocked and horrified, as if the breakdown of law and order couldn’t happen here, wherever here happens to be.

Dalrymple misses quite a bit. Criminals don't represent civilization. The govm't and law abiding citizens do. He failed to note that govm't forces broke into homes, detained and cuffed law abiding citizens and ransacked their homes searching for their arms, their means of protection from the criminal element. Vocal opponents were arrested. If Dalrymple wants to ponder civilization, he should be focusing on the barbaric, illegal actions of those claiming to be civilized, but are only pretending.