Look, I disagree NOT a bit with your self-responsibility position, what I will NOT do is allow it to be given as an excuse for local and state government failure; because no matter how much WE SHOULD BE as self-responsible as possible, that does not absolve them of their duties.
I am sure that was Nagin’s and Blanco’s position - “they had a TV and a radio, what did they need from me”????
The extension of that, taking your position in its purest terms, is to find total agreement with it - all individuals should be 100% self-responsible 100% of them time - there is no government there for anything. In practical terms, the end result of that Libertarian purity is nothing more than anarchy, which always eventually produces the opposite, dictatorship.
To continue a survivable civil society you have a government and no matter how much you should do many things yourself, that can never absolve that government for the things IT should do. If a major natural catastrophe IS NOT an area where conservatives share an agreement on limited and limited-time extension of what the government should do, I do not know what is.
Your state can prosecute the nursing home owners all you want. I think the bigger crime is that Nagin and Blanco are not now in jail.
The nursing home wasn’t in New Orleans proper but in St. Bernard Parish. So Nagin is off the hook there. It wasn’t his jurisdiction. This area did not flood with Betsy and had survived other storms since. Had the levees held up like they were supposed to they would have been fine then too.
As long as we keep ignoring the obvious then NO CHANGE will take place. Too many people dump their elderly parents off and wash their hands of the responsibility leaving it to others to deal with. As you can see from the link I provided that is being addressed sometimes these storms blow up out of nowhere like Humberto did today. There may not always be a lot of time to get things done.
I live here and understand the enormity of the task involved. Like I said, I took my invalid parent out myself even though I could have left it up to the agency where he was being cared for. I knew how swamped the workers were and all of them had their own families and property to secure too. They were very relieved and thankful that I took care of my father. That allowed them to help someone else and finish up their jobs sooner in order to take care of their own families.