A bit annoyed with some New Orleans citizens....

[Fiftydriver]

I tend to be the type of person that is more then willing to help those that need help, even if they do not ask for the help. It is the American way to take care of each other when there is need.

BUT!!!!

I was watching the late night news the other night and they had a report about many of the evacuees and they did NOTHING but complain about the shelters they were living in.

One said that the other states were not ready for them and that this was a disgrace because they had 3 years to get ready for "Them"!!!

One lady was very upset because she had to take the kids outside to a row of outdoor, portable toilets to go to the bathroom. THere must have been 20 of them lined up.

Another lady complained that she could not take a shower every day.

Another man demanded to go back home instantly.

Another man said next time he would not be leaving when they were told to get out of town because of a coming storm that would be possibly dangerous to them.

I set there watching these people bitch and moan. Took me back to when I was watching the same **** thing on the news, people bitching and moaning because they were not taken care of a few years ago.

What really gets me going is not helping these people, but the lack of appreication and the attitude of entitlement that comes from these folks. What really gets me is that I would highly doubt that there was one of those people that were interviewed that paid one penny into the US tax system in the past 3 years.

I guess my opinion, if you can not afford to take care of yourself and there are those that are trying to help you out and save your life, be greatfull. If conditions are less then ideal, freakin live with it for a few days, the alterative is most definately worse then the conditions back home.

As far as being ****ed that they can not get back home, thats understandable but the reason they are not allowed back home is because there is no electricity and they do not want a million people walking around the streets while the clean up crews are clearing debris and getting downed power lines back up and functional.

I guess if i had no means to help myself, I would be willing to live in a bit less then ideal conditions for a few days at no cost to myself. Hell, they get a roof over their head, free meals, free water, free toilets and at whoes expense, not theirs. Not to mention a free bus ride from danger to a safe place.

Are the shelters dirty, I am sure they are, you get 1000 people in one place that will tend to happen pretty quickly. There are no hotel maids in a rescue shelter.

For me, I see all these people bitching and I would love to see them take names and addresses down and the next time something like this happens, let them sit on their rears and take care of themselves or help them and then hand them a bill to pay for it themselves.

We can not do that because its not politcially correct. Seems there is an attitude down in that area with some folks that they should be taken care of all the time.

When did we stop taking care of ourselves in this country and when did we start bitching when we are helped out by others and do nothing but bitch and moan when we should be saying thank you for saving my life for FREE!!!!

Do nothing and get reamed for not helping enough, do what they ask and then get reamed for not putting them up in the hilton.

I understand that they are in a bad situation but when its -20 to -30 degrees for two weeks at a time, you do not hear any bitching from us up here in the north, you take care of your self. You live in an area, you prepare yourself to survive in the conditions those areas will put upon you. If anyone things that a hurricane is any more lethal then -30 degree temps with catagory 1 hurrican winds on top of that. Where bare skin will freeze in a matter of a minute or so with wind chill temps in the -50 to -60 degree range, they are sadly mistaken but again, you never hear about these hardships because we just take care of ourselves.

Perhaps I am being overly hard on the masses down south but there are a few individuals that really make it hard to want to continue helping them out, after all, ITS NOT FREE.

Maybe another camp out on their roof surrounded by flood water is what is needed???? Not sure what would work but when did Americans become such a whiny bunch of spoiled brats when someone is saving their life and helping them out FOR FREE!!!

Anyway, enough ranting, just a bit annoyed with these folks.

 

[MT4XFore]

+1 Amen Brother!!! I saw the same program and got just as steamed.

 

[royinidaho]

Kirby,

You are pretty much spot on. It would have helped if you were to have lived there for a while to catch on even better. Also that is the kind of remark that the media chooses to report more than any other.

There are large cultural differences between West bank and East bank, up river and down river. Comparing Slidell with New Orleans is like comparing James Jones to a homeless fella.

The political culture of LA in general and New Orleans in particular is very different to what you are used to though MT is kind of headed that way in spots.

I lived up river, 23 miles, from New Orleans for 7 years in St. Charles Parish. Of my 7 children the last two are Coonasses and proud of it, by the way.

I recall when there was a major racial problem at the local high school , my neighbors were amazed that my 3 kids went to school that day. We knew about it but being from Idaho thought nothing of it. We seem to get along with everyone.

Certain groups of people there have been taught/conditioned/trained to have someone take care of them for their votes.

I was there during the Moreal and Edwards days. Pretty much a hoot from my perspective. I gathered that in New Orleans a fella or group of fellas which included a fella by the name of Moon ran the show anyway.

Additionally, I think Idaho politics is pretty much like Louisiana's except we've never had a Kingfish.

Also living there allowed me to recognize the racial problems that exist here in good ol' Bingham County Idaho.

 

[MontanaRifleman]

Kirby, you make some good points about lack of appreciation and sense of entitlement. Sad thing is, that is the way this country is becoming more and more and the politicians pander to it for votes.

 

[timl]

Well gentlemen, I hate to say it, but this is OUR fault. By "OUR" I mean middle class America. As we go through our lives dealing with our own problems, working to provide for our families, and trying to be good Americans, the liberals protest, the illegal immigrants get more and more rights, and the "poor me's" bitch about the free things that aren't good enough. I believe that if we banded together we could stop some of the things in this country that are completely out of control--welfare, immigration,... Problem is, we have jobs and families so there's no time to bitch and protest... Anyway, I agree with the rest of you guys--be glad you're still alive, and you have food and water.

 

[lsufrank]

I have lived in Louisiana all my life. There are generations of people who reley on welfare and other goverment handouts. When the state decided to bus the low income residents from New Orleans they could not tell them where they were going. They would argue about where they were being bused to. They sent them to Alexandria first, and then bused them to shelters. Some thought they were going to hotels like after Katrina.

lsufrank

 

[ebd10]

Unfortunately, LBJ's "Great Society" spawned several generations of people, mostly clustered in the inner cities, that seem to think that retiring at age 14 to procreate, abuse drugs and alcohol, victimize those who seek to work for a living, and drain the greater society of resources is their inalienable right. I do not disagree with them. What I disagree with is forcing the productive members of society to pay for their lack of ambition.

The worst part is that it has gone from being a charitable hand up to an entitlement. We need to start weaning these people off of the government teat.

 

[bwaites]

From Katrina, but explains the situation pretty well.

An Unnatural Disaster: A Hurricane Exposes the Man-Made Disaster of the Welfare State

by Robert Tracinski


It has taken four long days for state and federal officials to figure out how to deal with the disaster in New Orleans. I can't blame them, because it has also taken me four long days to figure out what is going on there.

The reason is that the events there make no sense if you think that we are confronting a natural disaster.

If this is just a natural disaster, the response for public officials is obvious: you bring in food, water, and doctors; you send transportation to evacuate refugees to temporary shelters; you send engineers to stop the flooding and rebuild the city's infrastructure.


For journalists, natural disasters also have a familiar pattern:


Theheroism of ordinary people pulling together to survive; the hard work and dedication of doctors, nurses, and rescue workers; the steps being taken to clean up and rebuild.

Public officials did not expect that the first thing they would have to do is to send thousands of armed troops in armored vehicle, as if they are suppressing an enemy insurgency.

And journalists—myself included--did not expect that the story would not be about rain, wind, and flooding, but about rape, murder, and looting.

But this is not a natural disaster. It is a man-made disaster.

The man-made disaster is not an inadequate or incompetent response by federal relief agencies, and it was not directly caused by Hurricane Katrina. This is where just about every newspaper and television channelhas gotten the story wrong.

The man-made disaster we are now witnessing in New Orleans did not happen over the past four days. It happened over the past four decades. Hurricane Katrina merely exposed it to public view.

The man-made disaster is the welfare state.

For the past few days, I have found the news from New Orleans to be confusing.

People were not behaving as you would expect them to behave in an emergency--indeed, they were not behaving as they have behaved in other emergencies. That is what has shocked so many people: they have been saying that this is not what we expect from America.

In fact, it is not even what we expect from a Third World country.

When confronted with a disaster, people usually rise to the occasion.

They work together to rescue people in danger, and they spontaneously organize to keep order and solve problems. This is especially true in America. We are an enterprising people, used to relying on our own initiative rather than waiting around for the government to take care of us.

I have seen this a hundred times, in small examples (a small town whose main traffic light had gone out, causing ordinary citizens to get out of their cars and serve as impromptu traffic cops, directing cars through the intersection) and large ones (the spontaneous response of New Yorkers to September 11).

So what explains the chaos in New Orleans?

To give you an idea of the magnitude of what is going on, here is a description from a Washington Times story:

"Storm victims are raped and beaten; fights erupt with flying fists, knives and guns; fires are breaking out; corpses litter the streets; and police and rescue helicopters are repeatedly fired on.

"The plea from Mayor C. Ray Nagin came even as National Guardsmen poured in to restore order and stop the looting, carjackings and gunfire....

"Last night, Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said 300 Iraq-hardened Arkansas National Guard members were inside New Orleans with shoot-to-kill orders. "These troops are...under my orders to restore order in the
streets,'she said. 'They have M-16s, and they are locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot and kill and they are more than willing to do so ifnecessary and I expect they will."

The reference to Iraq is eerie. The photo that accompanies this article shows National Guard troops, with rifles and armored vests, >riding on an armored vehicle through trash-strewn streets lined by a rabble of squalid, listless people, one of whom appears to be yelling at them. It looks exactly like a scene from Sadr City in Baghdad.

What explains bands of thugs using a natural disaster as an excuse for an orgy of looting, armed robbery, and rape? What causes unruly mobs to storm the very buses that have arrived to evacuate them, causing thedrivers to drive away, frightened for their lives? What causes people to attack the doctors trying to treat patients at the Super Dome?

Why are people responding to natural destruction by causing further destruction? Why are they attacking the people who are trying to help them?

My wife, Sherri, figured it out first, and she figured it out on a sense-of-life level. While watching the coverage last night on Fox News Channel, she told me that she was getting a familiar feeling.


She studied architecture at the Illinois Institute of Chicago, which is located in the South Side of Chicago just blocks away from the Robert Taylor Homes, one of the largest high-rise public housing projects in America. "The projects," as they were known, were infamous for uncontrollable crime and irremediable squalor. (They have since, mercifully, been demolished.)

What Sherri was getting from last night's television coverage was a whiff of the sense of life of "the projects." Then the "crawl"—the informational phrases flashed at the bottom of the screen on most newschannels--gave some vital statistics to confirm this sense: 75% of the residents of New Orleans had already evacuated before the
hurricane, and of the 300,000 or so who remained, a large number were from the city's public housing projects.

Jack Wakeland then gave me an additional, crucial fact: early reports from CNN and Fox indicated that the
city had no plan for evacuating all of the prisoners in the city's jails--so they just let many of them loose. There is no doubt a significant overlap between these two populations--that is, a large number of people in the jails used to live in the housing projects, and vice versa.

There were many decent, innocent people trapped in New Orleans when the deluge hit--but they were trapped alongside large numbers of people from two groups: criminals--and wards of the welfare state, people selected, over decades, for their lack of initiative and self-induced helplessness. The welfare wards were a mass of sheep--on whom the incompetent administration of New Orleans unleashed a pack of wolves.

All of this is related, incidentally, to the apparent incompetence of the city government, which failed to plan for a total evacuation of the city, despite the knowledge that this might be necessary. But in a city corrupted by the welfare state, the job of city officials is to ensure the flow of handouts to welfare recipients and patronage to
political supporters--not to ensure a lawful, orderly evacuation in case of emergency.

No one has really reported this story, as far as I can tell. In fact, some are already actively distorting it, blaming President Bush, for example, for failing to personally ensure that the Mayor of New Orleans had drafted an adequate evacuation plan.

The worst example is an execrable piece from the Toronto Globe and Mail, by a supercilious Canadian who blames the chaos on American "individualism."

But the truth is precisely the opposite: the chaos was caused by a system that was the exact opposite of individualism.

What Hurricane Katrina exposed was the psychological consequences of the welfare state. What we consider "normal" behavior in an emergency is behavior that is normal for people who have values and take the
responsibility to pursue and protect them.

People with values respond to a disaster by fighting against it and doing whatever it takes to overcome the difficulties they face. They don't sit around and complain that the government hasn't taken care of them. They don't use the chaos of a disaster as an opportunity to prey on their fellow men.

But what about criminals and welfare parasites? Do they worry about saving their houses and property? They don't, because they don't own anything. Do they worry about what is going to happen to their businesses or how they are going to make a living? They never worried about those things before. Do they worry about crime and
looting? Living off of stolen wealth is a way of life for them.

The welfare state--and the brutish, uncivilized mentality it sustains and encourages--is the man-made disaster that explains the moral ugliness that has swamped New Orleans.

And that is the story that no one is reporting.

 

[joecool]

What gets me is on the coast of the PNW when we get winds into or around 100 MPH it's just a winter storm, not no big deal and not on ever news channel either.

 

[eddybo]

What gets me is on the coast of the PNW when we get winds into or around 100 MPH it's just a winter storm, not no big deal and not on ever news channel either.

Joecool, are you saying that we are just a bunch of whiners down here in the South? There were 115 mph winds in my area and I am 120 miles inland from Biloxi, not to mention the numerous tornadoes spawned by the storm. The amount of damage that occured on the MS gulf coast was unprecidented, until you have seen it you would never beleive it. Hell it took 20 or more people with 10 or more chainsaws cutting and dragging logs almost a day to cut our way to the main highway which is only a couple of miles away.

What does a winter storm in the NW have to do with the topic of this thread anyway(freeloading citizens), unless you are claiming that everyone in the region is a bunch of freeloading whiners. If that is your intent then I am taking issue with it.

There were many gulf coast residents who lost everything they owned. You didnt hear much about it because they did what real people do. They picked themselves up and got to rebuilding, they didnt have time to mug for the camera. I feel that you are minimizing thier suffering with your post and insulting thier character. I am all for bashing the freeloading riffraff, but when you start making light of that storm I find it insulting.

 

[joecool]

Joecool, are you saying that we are just a bunch of whiners down here in the South? There were 115 mph winds in my area and I am 120 miles inland from Biloxi, not to mention the numerous tornadoes spawned by the storm. The amount of damage that occured on the MS gulf coast was unprecidented, until you have seen it you would never beleive it. Hell it took 20 or more people with 10 or more chainsaws cutting and dragging logs almost a day to cut our way to the main highway which is only a couple of miles away.

What does a winter storm in the NW have to do with the topic of this thread anyway(freeloading citizens), unless you are claiming that everyone in the region is a bunch of freeloading whiners. If that is your intent then I am taking issue with it.

There were many gulf coast residents who lost everything they owned. You didnt hear much about it because they did what real people do. They picked themselves up and got to rebuilding, they didnt have time to mug for the camera. I feel that you are minimizing thier suffering with your post and insulting thier character. I am all for bashing the freeloading riffraff, but when you start making light of that storm I find it insulting.

Well Eddie I guess that your opinion, But we all have bad weather and we all have to deal with it. Get over it pick up what's left and move on. Just kind of funny how your 100 MPH wind is worst than are 100 MPH wind. Hurricane there and just a winter storm here. That's my point…And no buddy calling anybody a whiner

 

[eddybo]

Get over it and pick up what is left......that is exactly what the people of the MS Gulf Coast did, same as they did with Camille. This post is about freeloaders and people who feel they are entitled to something for nothing. Not about comparing storms in different ends of the country, maybe that is why I think you are belittling the effects of a hurricane and that we are all just a bunch of whiners.

I dont know what damage your 100 mph winds do in the NW but if they did the type damage that Katrina dealt out, it would be on the freaking news. I am going to take your post to mean that the SE has bad *** 100 mph winds, and not as a slam on the people who do deal with these really bad storms every 30 or so years.

Do you get 20 foot storm surge with your 100 MPH winds and tornadoes? Do your storms drop so much rain on summer parched land that even 50 mph winds will blow over mature trees? I do not know anything about your storms apparently they are not news worthy.

 

[Fiftydriver]

There is no question the damage was severe. Katrina destroyed much more of the gulf coast then just N.O. but you did not hear ALOT about those areas, why? Because they took care of themselves and did not sit around for the federal government to come and save their life.

Its simply a matter of survival instinct. are you going to sit there and DIE or are you going to fight to protect your self. I do not understand how you could just sit around and wait to die.

My only real point was how ungreatful many have been this time around and seem to do nothing but complain. I do not understand that.

I too have set here and watched the news when they were talking about catagory 1 hurrican winds and laughed a bit. I would say 20% of the year we have winds far greater then that and getting catagory 2 and 3 winds are certainly not uncommon. When they have to shut the interstates down regularly so that semi-trucks don't get literally blown off the highway that is some wind.

I agree, we all have situations and conditions around the country that can be deadly, extreme heat, extreme cold, extreme winds, tornados, hurricanes, extreme snow, earthquakes. There are very few areas that do not have some type of severe and deadly weather or natural occurances sometime of the year.

That said, why is it that it seems there is only a small amount of people that feel they need their bottoms powdered for everything that happens. From Alabama to Texas, Katrina hammered the gulf coast, only New Orleans citizens rasied hell and why, BECAUSE some idiots decided it was a good idea to build a city below sea level and not only that but allowed the security of those protective walls to degrade. IT was never a questions of if, only of when. And they all set around and waited for it to happen, IT HAPPENED!!!

Anyway, we all have harsh times to deal with, the very large majority of us prepare and protect ourselves and our families so that when the federal government shows up to help, they can simply turn around and go home!!!

It just amazes me that this small group of people continue to complain when they are being helped. That is sad.

 

[shortshooter]

Don't know what it's like in New Orleans and exactly whats happening.

If I were there personally, I'd load up my Yamaha TW 200 with 5 gal of gas on the front rack and my Osprey pack and 12 man Kifaru tipi and stove on the rear. The 30-30 Marlin fits on the handlebar rack and the 9mm pistol on my chest holster.

With this I'd head of the city 30-40 miles into the interior of the state. Find a little knoll or hill to protect my tipi and pitch out and be content. Could live almost indefinately with this set up and you can cook and be warm.

That is my readiness package that I have here in Idaho, and I think it would work just fine in Louisiana.