Big Sky Cairn

As someone who once wrote this:

To this day, I am apathetic toward the rebuilding of New Orleans. I certainly don’t plan on visiting there in the near future. The trouble is, the tremendous generosity of the American People was not appreciated. It was expected by an entitled population who felt that they could turn their noses up at the help because it wasn’t fast enough or comfortable enough. Thanks, but there are plenty of people who need more help and that’s where I’ll put my resources - emotional and financial.

Let me just ask… when did every hurricane that hits Louisiana suddenly become my problem? Why do they think that they should be asking me to help? It’s not like this has never happened before. Turns out, hurricanes are pretty common on the Gulf Coast. Long before climate change alarmism, that region was getting hammered by severe storms - with much larger body counts than Katrina:

August 10-12th, 1856: Hurricane strikes Isle Derniere, Last Island, a pleasure resort south- southwest of New Orleans. The highest points were under 5 feet of water. The resort hotel and surrounding gambling establishments were destroyed, over 200 people perished, and the island was left void of vegetation and split in half. Only one terrified cow survived on the Isle. Last Island is now only a haven for pelicans and other sea birds. The rain total at New Orleans reached 13.14″. Every house in the town of Abbeville was leveled, including the St. Mary Magdalen Church. Rains from the storm flooded the Mermentau River and destroyed crops along the bottom lands. Area rice fields in Plaquemines parish were under several feet of salt water. Nearly all rice was lost. Orange trees were stripped of their fruit. The steamer Nautilus foundered. The lone survivor cling to a bale of cotton and washed ashore sometime later.

If people want to live in a hurricane zone, they need to be held accountable for protecting themselves from the impacts of the hurricanes they chose live with. Same goes for earthquakes in California, flooding in the Mississippi flood plane and blizzards in the Rockies.

This pandering - from both sides of the aisle by the way - makes me so angry. It’s the worst kind of pandering politics. It’s time for Louisiana to step up and take some accountability for their own fate.

Nice spelling in the title… it makes everything in the post so much more credible.

I’m sure you feel the same way about the families of the victims of 9/11, right? I mean, sure, a little less than twice as many people died, but the Federal Government still saw it necessary to spend a bunch of money on them… so that pisses you off, right? Right?

New Orleans is nearly 70 percent black. The city is what demographers call, off the record, a “federal plantation.” The city acquired that unofficial status about 140 years ago during Reconstruction. It is in fact one of the earliest of the federal plantations and therefore enjoys an odd kind of seniority in the history of our government’s management of blacks. In many ways, New Orleans is to the federal plantation system what Yellowstone Park is to the National Park System.

Hurricane Katrina exposed New Orleans as a gigantic federal management failure. And, contrary to what the liberal media and the Democratic Party would like us to believe, it was not a federal emergency management failure. Rather, Katrina simply showed the nation and the world what life was like on a federal plantation. The storm showed the squalor and savagery of the place in vivid detail and emphatically demonstrated what happens to a city in crisis when its mayor is a black Democrat and the majority of its police force is black, not to mention what happens to a state in crisis when its governor and senator are female Democrats.

You cannot understand why Louisiana and New Orleans are supposed to be your problem every time a hurricane hits because you have no political stake in Louisiana and New Orleans. The apprehension and fear that swirls around the nation each time a storm approaches the area is not for the possible loss of life or property. It is not about Mardi Gras being ruined. No, the apprehension and fear is about the embarrassment that will be suffered by those who are responsible for creating and maintaining this oldest of federal plantations.

Steve, while I am not sure I entirely agree with Cody’s premise, can’t an argument be made that the 9/11 victims were different because the federal government is supposed to “provide for the common defense” against our nation’s enemies, but not the weather?

Gregg- That argument can be made inasmuch as it’s the government’s responsibility to prevent something like that from happening again, and even going out and getting those responsible for the attacks. But as far as rebuilding the city and paying reparations to the families is concerned, shouldn’t New Yorkers understand that because they live in a large city, they’re subject to Terrorist attacks on occasion? Under Wiley’s premise, shouldn’t they accept some personal responsibility for that fact?

Clearly, I’m not of the opinion that the individual people of New Orleans should all take some “personal responsibility” for keeping their levees strong enough to withstand a near-direct hit from a category 4 storm.

Steve, the fact that you equate terrorist attacks to natural disasters - on a scale of inevitability - underlines the reason Americans don’t trust liberals on matters of national security.

Gregg gets it right. There’s a pretty important difference between the impact of hurricanes and the impact of terrorism - namely one is a matter of national security and the other a matter of mother nature.

Should government make sure the levies are strong enough. Hell yes. But not the Federal government. Why i it my business or responsibility to make sure that New Orleans protects itself from regular and expected weather occurrences? The heads that should be on the chopping block here are the local, city, county and state governments.

There are several national economic and security issues related to the Mississippi Delta Region. They would include, among other things, the refining and transshipment of oil and gas from the Gulf of Mexico to the interior of the country and the maintenance of open and safe navigation on the Mississippi River. Otherwise, you are basically correct in your assertions.

First of all, in case you didn’t get it in my first comment, the spelling of your title should be “CatEgory 5 Political pandering.” Just keepin it real for ya.

And as for your first sentence, I’m glad you’re speaking for all Americans now. This blog is bigger than I thought!

And your argument about the Federal Government’s role in the disaster is a little bit more salient than in your original post, where you claim that the “entitled” people of New Orleans simply didn’t appreciate your generosity enough, therefore you were revoking your support of it. The role of the Federal Government in Natural disasters is a debate that needs to be had, but it wasn’t the original argument you were making, and not the premise that I was attacking in my original comment. Quite frankly, most people in this country expect Federal help when a disaster (natural or man-made) affects them.

By the way, 200 people dead is not a “much larger body count” than 1,800. Your research skills are right up there with your spelling skills.

That’s odd. “Category” is spelled right in the RSS feed and the post slug of the URL… not sure how it got changed in the posted title. Anyway, fixed that.

Now, to your post: The first post wasn’t about federal assistance, but rather about how the people of New Orleans didn’t appreciate the voluntary generosity of the American People.

You are right though, my original argument wasn’t about the role of the USFG in natural disasters. What I see as the problem is exactly what you wrote: “most people in this country expect Federal help when a disaster affects them.” This increased Federal involvement displaces personal responsibility in things like insurance. If Big Brother is going to take care of me, why should I spend money to take care of myself. And when enough people don’t pool their money with insurance, the insurance itself becomes too expensive for anyone to afford - thus passing the entire responsibility on to the Taxpayer. That is the secondary argument I am making in this post: People should stop expecting federal government bailouts and the USFG should stop footing the bill.

All I have left to say to you then, is that you need to find some kind of broad example of the residents of New Orleans getting pissed off about all of the assistance they received from the voluntary donations of the American people. Show me that it’s as big a problem as your brain has made it into.

DAESH ONOTOLE V PRAVITELI VSELENNOI!

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