Thomas Sowell nails it again...

[The Ressurrected One]

Rebuilding New Orleans -- and America

September 6, 2005

The physical devastation caused by hurricane Katrina has painfully revealed the moral devastation of our times that has led to mass looting in New Orleans, assaults on people in shelters, the raping of girls, and shots being fired at helicopters that are trying to rescue people.

Forty years ago, an electric grid failure plunged New York and other northeastern cities into a long blackout. But law and order prevailed. Ordinary citizens went to intersections to direct traffic. People helped each other. After the blackout was over, this experience left many people with an upbeat spirit about their fellow human beings.

Another blackout in New York, years later, was much uglier. And what has been happening now in New Orleans is uglier still. Is there a trend here?

Fear, grief, desperation or despair would be understandable in people whose lives have been devastated by events beyond their control. Regret might be understandable among those who were warned to evacuate before the hurricane hit but who chose to stay. Yet the word being heard from those on the scene is "angry."

That may be a clue, not only to the breakdown of decency in New Orleans, but to a wider degeneration in American society in recent decades.

Why are people angry? And at whom?

Apparently they are angry at government officials for not having rescued them sooner, or taken care of them better, or for letting law and order break down.

No doubt the inevitable post mortems on this tragic episode will turn up many cases where things could have been done better. But who can look back honestly at his own life without seeing many things that could have been done better?

Just thinking about all the mistakes you have made over a lifetime can be an experience that is humbling, if not humiliating.

When all is said and done, government is ultimately just human beings -- politicians, judges, bureaucrats. Maybe the reason we are so often disappointed with them is that they have over-promised and we have been gullible enough to believe them.

Government cannot solve all our problems, even in normal times, much less during a catastrophe of nature that reminds man how little he is, despite all his big talk.

The most basic function of government, maintaining law and order, breaks down when floods or blackouts paralyze the system.

During good times or bad, the police cannot police everybody. They can at best control a small segment of society. The vast majority of people have to control themselves.

That is where the great moral traditions of a society come in -- those moral traditions that it is so hip to sneer at, so cute to violate, and that our very schools undermine among the young, telling them that they have to evolve their own standards, rather than following what old fuddy duddies like their parents tell them.

Now we see what those do-it-yourself standards amount to in the ugliness and anarchy of New Orleans.

In a world where people flaunt their "independence," their "right" to disregard moral authority, and sometimes legal authority as well, the tragedy of New Orleans reminds us how utterly dependent each one of us is for our very lives on millions of other people we don't even see.

Thousands of people in New Orleans will be saved because millions of other people they don't even know are moved by moral obligations to come to their rescue from all corners of this country. The things our clever sophisticates sneer at are ultimately all that stand between any of us and utter devastation.

Any of us could have been in New Orleans. And what could we have depended on to save us? Situational ethics? Postmodern philosophy? The media? The lawyers? The rhetoric of the intelligentsia?

No, what we would have to depend on are the very things that are going to save the survivors of hurricane Katrina, the very things that clever people are undermining.

New Orleans can be rebuilt and the levees around it shored up. But can the moral levees be shored up, not only in New Orleans but across America?

[j-6]

Is anyone looking?

Thanks for the post, TRO. I sorta like Thomas Sowell, believe it or not.

[JohnnyMarzetti]

Good article but that is just one man's opinion.
I see you can google too.

[xrayzebra]

Yep TRO, Sowell is one smart cookie. Not only smart but very intelligent and has great common sense. He usually nails thing down firmly.

[boutons]

An apologist for entire shrub/Repug stinking pile of incompetence.

There is a huge difference between my responsibility for and my mistakes in my personal life and the responsibility of elected officials with enormous powers with responsible for an entire city, state, or country.

"mistakes you have made over a lifetime can be an experience that is humbling, if not humiliating."

exactly. Has anybody sniffed any odors of humility from the shrub/Repug camp, any remorse for their horrible decisions and performances in Iraq and Katrina? no, the word most often used is the opposite of humility: pride and hubris, while deflecting all accountability and sliming everyone else. shrub/Repugs are the "can't do" / "stuff happens" administration, except when it comes to cutting taxes for the rich/corps.

The Repugs have been running a huge confidence game, exploiting and politicizing 9/11, betraying peoples' benefit of the doubt and good will and desire to come together when under attack, in order to destory the US govt through catastrophic spending and deficits, which are then used as justifications to underfund/unfund essentials such as infrastructure bulding/maintenance, medical programs and meals for poor kids, college loans. This entire approach was labelled long ago: "starving the beast".

"Any of us could have been in New Orleans."

Total BS. People with means and smarts like Sowell, and everybody reading this forum, would have done what all the other people with means did: get the out.

Notice how he praises the moral obligations of the individuals who are responding to the mess created by the failure of govt at all levels, but doesn't talk about moral obligations of the govt for preventing or mitigating the disaster?

"the very things that clever people are undermining"

I don't know what TF he's talking about, but I guess "things" is some kind of code word understood by the choir he's preaching to. What clever people? what things? Nobody answer for him. I want to hear from him what "people" and "things".

What's being undermined by the very clever Repugs is the govt ability to be a force for good, to help people when they are overcome by disasters, to protect people from the corps, etc.

He essentially saying the poor, black, defenseless, mistrustul people who won their bet against Katrina but lost their bet against the unmaintained levees deserve to be floating around with the turds.

"Why are people angry? And at whom?"

which people? the victims of the levees? Or the rest of the US disgusted and angry that shrub/Repug would allow NO disaster to happen, then respond so slowly, sliming all the way, while deflecting all accountability?

"Situational ethics? Postmodern philosophy? The media? The lawyers? The rhetoric of the intelligentsia?"

code words and hot buttons listed with no other intent than to rouse the rabble. As this thread shows, the rabble is permanently rousable.

"what could we have depended on to save us"

How about our own individual efforts in the context of the disaster/emergency plans competently designed and executed by city, state, federal governments.

How about city, state, federal govts spending tax $$$ on professional emergency/FEMA people and solid organization and infrastructure? If NO was know to be at risk, why weren't the levees "shored up" and maintained and monitored ALL ALONG rather than only now?

Dishonesty is immoral, and Sowell has written profoundly dishonest piece about morality.

[The Ressurrected One]

Has anybody sniffed any odors of humility from the shrub/Repug camp, any remorse for their horrible decisions and performances in Iraq and Katrina?

I don't know what Iraq has to do with the thread but, I've actually heard and seen the following come from President Bush's mouth...

"The results are not acceptable," he told reporters on the South Lawn before leaving the White House for his tour of afflicted areas. "We'll get on top of this situation, and we're going to help people that need help."

At his first stop in Mobile, Ala., he repeated the promise. "If it's not going exactly right, we're going to make it go exactly right," Bush vowed. "If there's problems, we're going to address the problems."

Not exactly hubris, I'd say.

I commend the President for not playing into the blame game and revealing to the world exactly who (Gov. Blinko) was responsible for many of the failures, early on, that led to many more deaths than would have actually occurred.

Now we learn that NOAA had warned Louisiana and New Orleans officials on THURSDAY, before the storm, that a Gulf bouy had registered a 68' wave before being destroyed and that it might be advisable to evacuate New Orleans.

The President called her Blinkiness on Saturday and pleaded with her to order a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans...probably based on such reports as was given by the NOAA.

The American Red Cross is claiming they were kept from pre-positioning food, water, and hygeine supplies, prior to the levee breaking, because the Governor and Mayor didn't want to give residents any reason to stay -- they wanted them to leave New Orleans and felt a fully stocked pantry at the Superdome would be counter to that end.

Mayor Nagin allowed buses to become swamped.

City, Parish, and State officials diverted funds from levee coffers to other pet projects.

Almost half of the New Orleans Police Department walked off the job.

How, exactly, is the federal government responsible for what happened? What would you have had them do that didn't violate the 10th amendement to the U.S. Cons ution or, otherwise, would have trampled all over the State's rights?

I think President Bush is, as he always does, exhibiting extraordinary composure in the face of overwhelming undue criticism.

[ChumpDumper]

Listen to authority even though it won't do anything for you and will be absolved for any mistakes it might make in not doing anything for you.

Really now, which moral authority guided us to decide NO was going to be destroyed and thousands would die when (not if) a CAT 4 hit?

Were we better back then?

I think President Bush is, as he always does, exhibiting extraordinary composure in the face of overwhelming undue criticism.

He's going to lead the investigation into what happened, after all.

Worked for OJ.

[Spam]

Jennifer Broome.....and Manny nailed Katrina!