Post by Freydis The Valkyrie on Jul 10, 2009 14:02:48 GMT -5
I'm not the one saying this. This is from the forum of the ever-wonderful arch-conservative and hater of everything that isn't HIM: RHJunior
Let's go over the basic points again.
1)The state of the levees in New Orleans was a result of DECADES of graft, corruption, and incompetence by the state and city politicians.... People who, in spite of demonstrable incompetence and corruption, were reelected over and over and over again by the people of New Orleans.
2)These selfsame politicians' response to the disaster was to get their OWN families out, leave the rest of the city to rot, and then try and blame the FEDERAL government for not doing the STATE or COUNTY or CITY government's job.
3)The behavior of the people in New Orleans was equally as contemptible. The flooding of New Orleans was not a sudden catastrophe: no massive tidal wave swept over the city. Footage and photos taken by those in the city show the flooding creeping up over a period of nearly a WEEK. They could have loaded up and driven out. They could have bought bus tickets and ridden out. They could have WALKED out ahead of the rising waters, dragging their worldly possessions in a handcart....or, God forbid, they could have chipped in and started filling sandbags..... they could have done any number of things, but instead chose to stand there gaping like beached trout as the water rose up around their feet.
4)And let's not forget the vandalism, looting, and violence that broke out all over the city when the poor, ennobled victims of Katrina saw that the police were not around.
5)There were communities all along the Gulf Coast that were hit by Katrina, and hit WORSE. Yet you did NOT see this bouquet of buffoonery, laziness, incompetence and atavistic lawlessness. People everywhere else got together, boarded up windows, filled sandbags, and helped one another get their family and belongings to high ground. When the water went back down they came back, broke out the brooms and the shovels, and cleaned up.
What do we see in New Orleans? People STILL wandering around gobsmacked because the water level went up.
They built on a delta, in a floodplain, elected criminal idiots to run their affairs, and partied like there was no tomorrow. Then, when tomorrow came, they did not even do the bare minimum expected of the most minimally functional human being towards securing their persons and property in a crisis... and have, in spite of the billions of dollars poured over them, spent YEARS doing nothing but milking this incompetence-created "natural disaster" and blaming everyone else for their losses.
They did it to themselves, they did nothing to prevent it, they sat on their asses and waited for someone else to come fix it, and when we came to their rescure, they sat around blaming the rest of us for not coming SOONER. The people of New Orleans collectively don't need CHARITY or COMPASSION, they need a swift kick in the ass.
I live in Marietta, Ohio. At least twice in the last 30+ years, Marietta has been hit by "once in a century" floods. You know what the people of Marietta did? Whined about FEMA, right? Looted each other's homes, right? No. They waited till the water went down, got out their shovels, scraped out the mud, cleaned up, rebuilt, and GOT ON WITH LIFE. The store I worked at got flooded, TWICE.... the second time literally within weeks of the cleanup from the first. TWO entire storefuls of merchandise lost.... but they just cleaned up, AGAIN, restocked, AGAIN, and went back to work. After the second flood several of the newer businesses rebuilt--- putting up artificial hills and putting their new buildings on top, above the highest flood level. (Taco Bell just finished moving into their new place last week.)
As a whole, I have little to no sympathy for the people of New Orleans. Pity, maybe.... the kind you'd feel for a dog that'd been whacked in the head with a car bumper a couple of times and wasn't quite up to walking straight anymore..... but sympathy? No.
I save my sympathy for people who try a little harder than that.
RHJunior said:
Since when has "compassion" come to mean "an infinite tolerance for destructive stupidity?"Let's go over the basic points again.
1)The state of the levees in New Orleans was a result of DECADES of graft, corruption, and incompetence by the state and city politicians.... People who, in spite of demonstrable incompetence and corruption, were reelected over and over and over again by the people of New Orleans.
2)These selfsame politicians' response to the disaster was to get their OWN families out, leave the rest of the city to rot, and then try and blame the FEDERAL government for not doing the STATE or COUNTY or CITY government's job.
3)The behavior of the people in New Orleans was equally as contemptible. The flooding of New Orleans was not a sudden catastrophe: no massive tidal wave swept over the city. Footage and photos taken by those in the city show the flooding creeping up over a period of nearly a WEEK. They could have loaded up and driven out. They could have bought bus tickets and ridden out. They could have WALKED out ahead of the rising waters, dragging their worldly possessions in a handcart....or, God forbid, they could have chipped in and started filling sandbags..... they could have done any number of things, but instead chose to stand there gaping like beached trout as the water rose up around their feet.
4)And let's not forget the vandalism, looting, and violence that broke out all over the city when the poor, ennobled victims of Katrina saw that the police were not around.
5)There were communities all along the Gulf Coast that were hit by Katrina, and hit WORSE. Yet you did NOT see this bouquet of buffoonery, laziness, incompetence and atavistic lawlessness. People everywhere else got together, boarded up windows, filled sandbags, and helped one another get their family and belongings to high ground. When the water went back down they came back, broke out the brooms and the shovels, and cleaned up.
What do we see in New Orleans? People STILL wandering around gobsmacked because the water level went up.
They built on a delta, in a floodplain, elected criminal idiots to run their affairs, and partied like there was no tomorrow. Then, when tomorrow came, they did not even do the bare minimum expected of the most minimally functional human being towards securing their persons and property in a crisis... and have, in spite of the billions of dollars poured over them, spent YEARS doing nothing but milking this incompetence-created "natural disaster" and blaming everyone else for their losses.
They did it to themselves, they did nothing to prevent it, they sat on their asses and waited for someone else to come fix it, and when we came to their rescure, they sat around blaming the rest of us for not coming SOONER. The people of New Orleans collectively don't need CHARITY or COMPASSION, they need a swift kick in the ass.
I live in Marietta, Ohio. At least twice in the last 30+ years, Marietta has been hit by "once in a century" floods. You know what the people of Marietta did? Whined about FEMA, right? Looted each other's homes, right? No. They waited till the water went down, got out their shovels, scraped out the mud, cleaned up, rebuilt, and GOT ON WITH LIFE. The store I worked at got flooded, TWICE.... the second time literally within weeks of the cleanup from the first. TWO entire storefuls of merchandise lost.... but they just cleaned up, AGAIN, restocked, AGAIN, and went back to work. After the second flood several of the newer businesses rebuilt--- putting up artificial hills and putting their new buildings on top, above the highest flood level. (Taco Bell just finished moving into their new place last week.)
As a whole, I have little to no sympathy for the people of New Orleans. Pity, maybe.... the kind you'd feel for a dog that'd been whacked in the head with a car bumper a couple of times and wasn't quite up to walking straight anymore..... but sympathy? No.
I save my sympathy for people who try a little harder than that.
There is an unending supply of people who would never darken the door of a church nor lift the cover of a bible without ironic and sarcastic intent, yet who think nothing of stooping to QUOTE it.....
And they only quote it when they wish to criticize people--- not for failing to live up to the BIBLE'S standards, but for failing to live up to their own, fanciful, Proper Perfect Christian stereotype.
Everybody loves the "give, share, compassion, etc." perspective of the bible. What they're not so fond of is that it is a harsh, unyielding,broad-sweeping--- you know, stereotyping---- judge of Man. The bible that said to be forgiving of our brethren also said, quite bluntly, "he that will not work, let him not eat." The same Jesus who said "suffer the little children to come unto me" also told his disciples that any city that rejected their message, they should "shake the dust off their feet" and that it would fare better for the city of Sodom and Gomorra in the day of judgement than it would for them. That bible you cherry-pick also says "the foolish man built his house upon the sand...." Funny, but I don't see any mention of FEMA in there in the afterword. Just a little footnote elsewhere about how "what a man soweth, that shall he also reap...."
That's terribly offensive to people.... especially those who imagine Christianity as becoming a bottomless piggy-bank of charity and "forgiveness". See, what's missed is that "forgiveness" comes with an expectation of REPENTANCE. It's not given out so that the forgiven may cheerfully waddle back to their pigpen and roll in the mire. You aren't asking for "forgiveness" or "compassion," you're demanding an endless supply of blank checks.
Sorry, this isn't Precious Moments, this is the REAL deal. Cope.
And let's talk "stereotypes." Stereotypes..... ah, the mating call of the Hollow-chested Droop-headed Sniveler. What "Male Chauvinist pig" was to the seventies, "Stereotypical" is to the Naughties. What a hideous, heinous crime!
Dear LORD I am sick of this crap. Every NON-THINKER wants it both ways... When they want special privileges, they demand group recognition as a Mighty Force in SOCIETY ("We are Group X, make you snore/ with how we gripe and whine and bore"), but when said group starts stampeding, threatening to carry them, us, and all of society off the top of a cliff, suddenly it's "stereotyping" to note that they're acting like a mindless herd.
Stereotyping! You mean to tell us that people.... gather in groups, and behave in a common, identifiable fashion? Dear GAIA, say it isn't SO! We should all be precious unique individual beautiful crystals--- just like every other flake in the avalanche.
You are accountable for your individual actions. You are also accountable for when you go along, passively or actively, with the herd. There is no "opt out" after the fact.
And so I stand atop the flood basin of New Orleans and yell "MOOOOOO!"
New Orleans spent, not just one hurricane season, but literally over a century ignoring the inevitable. Their few preparations were a slipshod joke, their community and government were rife with crime and corruption, they ignored DECADES of warning about their levees.... at countless points, had they exercised even a MINIMUM of responsibility for their situation, the disaster never would have happened. Had they exercised any responsibility from that point on, the flooding and destruction and loss would have been a mere fraction of what it was. It was, from beginning to end, a man-made disaster..... and THEY were "the man" in question.
Then after the rest of America poured BILLIONS of dollars and man-hours into helping them out, the response by their community leaders was to go on television and accuse the administration and the rest of America of racism for not preventing this disaster--- a disaster of their OWN making--- or responding sooner. NEVER MIND the daft folly of them all going back and rebuilding right in the exact same place they were before, this was beyond the pale.
If my neighbor falls in a ditch, I'll help pull him out. That doesn't preclude me calling him A HORSE'S ASS for not watching where he was going in the first place. And if he KEEPS falling back in, he's begging for a boot to his backside with the next hand up.
And they only quote it when they wish to criticize people--- not for failing to live up to the BIBLE'S standards, but for failing to live up to their own, fanciful, Proper Perfect Christian stereotype.
Everybody loves the "give, share, compassion, etc." perspective of the bible. What they're not so fond of is that it is a harsh, unyielding,broad-sweeping--- you know, stereotyping---- judge of Man. The bible that said to be forgiving of our brethren also said, quite bluntly, "he that will not work, let him not eat." The same Jesus who said "suffer the little children to come unto me" also told his disciples that any city that rejected their message, they should "shake the dust off their feet" and that it would fare better for the city of Sodom and Gomorra in the day of judgement than it would for them. That bible you cherry-pick also says "the foolish man built his house upon the sand...." Funny, but I don't see any mention of FEMA in there in the afterword. Just a little footnote elsewhere about how "what a man soweth, that shall he also reap...."
That's terribly offensive to people.... especially those who imagine Christianity as becoming a bottomless piggy-bank of charity and "forgiveness". See, what's missed is that "forgiveness" comes with an expectation of REPENTANCE. It's not given out so that the forgiven may cheerfully waddle back to their pigpen and roll in the mire. You aren't asking for "forgiveness" or "compassion," you're demanding an endless supply of blank checks.
Sorry, this isn't Precious Moments, this is the REAL deal. Cope.
And let's talk "stereotypes." Stereotypes..... ah, the mating call of the Hollow-chested Droop-headed Sniveler. What "Male Chauvinist pig" was to the seventies, "Stereotypical" is to the Naughties. What a hideous, heinous crime!
Dear LORD I am sick of this crap. Every NON-THINKER wants it both ways... When they want special privileges, they demand group recognition as a Mighty Force in SOCIETY ("We are Group X, make you snore/ with how we gripe and whine and bore"), but when said group starts stampeding, threatening to carry them, us, and all of society off the top of a cliff, suddenly it's "stereotyping" to note that they're acting like a mindless herd.
Stereotyping! You mean to tell us that people.... gather in groups, and behave in a common, identifiable fashion? Dear GAIA, say it isn't SO! We should all be precious unique individual beautiful crystals--- just like every other flake in the avalanche.
You are accountable for your individual actions. You are also accountable for when you go along, passively or actively, with the herd. There is no "opt out" after the fact.
And so I stand atop the flood basin of New Orleans and yell "MOOOOOO!"
New Orleans spent, not just one hurricane season, but literally over a century ignoring the inevitable. Their few preparations were a slipshod joke, their community and government were rife with crime and corruption, they ignored DECADES of warning about their levees.... at countless points, had they exercised even a MINIMUM of responsibility for their situation, the disaster never would have happened. Had they exercised any responsibility from that point on, the flooding and destruction and loss would have been a mere fraction of what it was. It was, from beginning to end, a man-made disaster..... and THEY were "the man" in question.
Then after the rest of America poured BILLIONS of dollars and man-hours into helping them out, the response by their community leaders was to go on television and accuse the administration and the rest of America of racism for not preventing this disaster--- a disaster of their OWN making--- or responding sooner. NEVER MIND the daft folly of them all going back and rebuilding right in the exact same place they were before, this was beyond the pale.
If my neighbor falls in a ditch, I'll help pull him out. That doesn't preclude me calling him A HORSE'S ASS for not watching where he was going in the first place. And if he KEEPS falling back in, he's begging for a boot to his backside with the next hand up.
