Public Service

Courtesy of the crew at corrente (and my man digby), I've had the distinct pleasure of reading a final, complete and utter moral repudiation of Objectivism, Libertarianism, and all other capital lettered insanity.

Take it away, Jane Galt (and her lovely bevy of posters).

From Ms. Galt herself:

But it is more tragic when someone dies because they have nowhere to go, than when only their own bullheaded stupidity is to blame

this refers to people who can't afford to lose everything they own in the flood, written by someone who's clearly never had to make that choice

From "sdb510":

It seems to me that the poor should have had the EASIEST time leaving. They don't need to pay for an extended leave from their home, they could have just packed a few belongings and walked away to start over somewhere else. What did they have to lose?

When the wealthy evacuate, they leave behind nice houses, expensive cars, possibly pets that they treat as members of the family, valuable jewelry, family heirlooms, etc. This makes it emotionally difficult for wealthy people to leave. But by definition, the poor do not have this burden: they either rent their homes, or they are in public housing; their cars are practically junk anyway; and they don't have any valuable possessions. This is what it means to be poor. These people could just pick up their few belongings, buy a one-way bus ticket to any city and be poor there. Supposing they even had jobs in NO, it's not like minimum wage jobs are hard to come by.

ah, there's nothing like somebody with a view of the world shaped by "C" grade Econ101.

From "Rob":

What I can't understand is why they couldn't be bothered to take the bus or just walk over to the Superdome, where there was an organized attempt to help them out. They had 48 hours to gather up what they could carry and move to a shelter.

And how could anyone in New Orleans fail to grasp the problem so completely that they didn't even bother to stockpile a couple day's worth of drinking water? I couldn't believe it when I saw victim after victim going by on TV saying, "we haven't had anything to drink since the storm hit".

In the past, residents of Florida have been complacent about evacuating. After being pounded enough times, they've learned their lesson and evacuations go pretty well now. It's too bad that the lesson didn't extend as for as Louisiana.

Blaming victims is fun, and makes me feel better about voting Republican!

From "MarkJ"

I guess I'm one of those "closet racists" noticing that it seems to be almost exclusively black people who are doing the looting. I also noticed it during other previous disasters and riots - '92 Los Angeles, Hurricane Andrew, etc etc etc. I guess we're supposed to ignore the evidence of our eyes and continue repeating the mantra that race has nothing to do with behavior. But what if there really IS a correlation between race and a tendency to amoral, selfish, violent behavior? Wouldn't it be suicidal to ignore it just because it is unpleasant that life might actually be ordered that way?

I just feel sorry for any white people left in that city. I saw video of some white tourists walking aimlessly, dragging their suitcases behind them, looking for help. They said they hadn't seen any police. What a nightmare...white people abandoned in a lawless city full of black people with no police in sight, and no firearms to protect themselves. You can talk all you want about how awful it is to be a racist, but they are the ones who are finding out firsthand the brutal realities of race in this country.

"I'm sorry to call a spade a spade, but niggers love stealin'!"

From "Dan":

You can't explain that decision by saying "they're poor". Poverty wasn't the problem, ignorance was; they didn't understand how bad things were likely to be.

That's the ticket... they're ignorant! Just plain ig'nint!

And the king, the absolute monarch of utter discrediting of anything a Randroid ever says EVER is....

Floyd Alvis Cooper!

Why?

This:

Speaking purely in economic terms, the situation in New Orleans is actually quite positive, long-term. Yes there is the destruction of the port and that's bad, but consider: 80% of the population evacuated. The remaining 20% stayed, either because they didn't have the means to leave, or because they were just foolish; how much of each is a guess.

But in EITHER case, you have to consider that these people were essentially surplus. In other words, the least-functional 20% of the population of New Orleans has been eliminated. That obviously INCREASES the overall functionality of the New Orleans population.

I'm not blind to the fact that the people who chose to stay behind are suffering, and that's not good, ALL THINGS BEING EQUAL. But all things aren't equal. Consider: normally, disasters like this have ALWAYS served to help weed out the less competent. In these days of Mommy Government, these people are saved to drag down the rest of us. This hurts EVERYONE in the long run.

But of course you can NEVER get people to see things this way. It's all Boo hoo hoo look at that baby that Geraldo is holding, let's get the Government to Save That Baby.

I've gotta hand this over to Spider Jerusalem on this:

"It's how I think of you. A big black animal squatting in the heart of America, shitting huge steaming green turds into the country... You're the Thing in us that votes to fuck other people in the gall bladder, the lizard brain that says nothing but eat-kill-hump-shit...

...the beast.

Thanks, Spider!

Oh, and for those who will complain that Ms. Galt isn't responsible for these comments... she blocked access from Corrente after the post went up. Instead of repudiating these horrible assholes, she's ran cover for them.

Eat. Kill. Hump. Shit.

Hope you're enjoying your hurricane footage, Ms. Beast. Your pets certainly are.

Edit: I'm not impressed by your pound cake either. Go read what the Filthy Communist wrote, Ms. Beast, and maybe, just maybe, think that his horrible Red ass might have a point. Pound cake doesn't make up for espousing the ideology that likely worsened the situation.