John Galt

Join Date 07/2004

Want to Understand What's Happening in New Orleans?

A HUMAN Disaster

(To those of you that got stuck in New Orleans as tourists or through no fault of your own because you really did try and leave, this is not directed at you. My thoughts are with you and I hope that you can use your ingenuity and leadership to keep yourselves safe and get out.)

For the last week basically I've been at a loss for words as to what has been happening in the southern United States. We've been getting ridiculous commentary from the media here in Canada, even from the most right wing of news papers in the Global and Mail saying it's American individualism that is causing what's going on down there.

I've been completely stunned by the lack of response by the government, and worse, the complete lethargy of the people. In almost every other crisis I've ever seen in North America the people get out and help. They start rebuilding. Leaders come to the fore.

Not in New Orleans. The people are wandering around doing nothing. When their interviewed they keep demanding that someone give them something, that someone save them.

Unlike when the lights went out in the North East there are no leaders stepping up and leading the people. No one is metaphorically directing traffic at stop lights that are not working.

I couldn't figure out what was going on for the longest time. I can tell that the media is in the same boat. They're stunned. They're angry. Bush is to blame! It must be him!

It isn't. Sorry.

http://tiadaily.com/php-bin/news/showArticle.php?id=1026

Don't read another word until you've read the entire article at that link.

After reading that article it became so clear! Combine an inept government without a plan for the inevitable (it was statistically guaranteed to happen within my life-time, and this was a near miss, not even a real Cat 5), combined with the trash of our society, leaching off of the government in the "projects" and the criminals, large portions of which came from these very "projects" themselves, and you have a recipe for exactly what is happening now.

There are no leaders stepping up, because there are no leaders in these people. Leaders aren't in the projects. Leaders don't need social assistance and low income housing. They earn their living. More to the point, leaders listen to those that are more knowledgeable and evacuated no matter what they had to do when they were warned that this was exactly what was going to happen instead of expecting it to not happen to them for some bizarre reason (either praying to god, or praying to the government to somehow stop a hurricane).

(Little tip for the religious that are out thanking god for the food and the evacuations right now: That is the direct result of leaders, men and women working hard. It has absolutely nothing to do with god. There is only one thing that is miraculous and out of the purview of humanity: The hurricane itself. So don't be thanking God. God (if you believe in god) brought this down on you. Men and women are saving you. - - Paraphrase of something John Daily said about the plane crash in Toronto)

How many deaths laid at the feet of socialism does it take before we learn the evil of the concept? Soviet Russia killed 50+ million people in their "grand experiment". I would call that a failure that the entire world should listen to and not only that, go the other way as fast as possible, do not pass go, do not collect $100 in social program money. But no, the government of Canada with its social welfare state is killing people in our public health care system "for the greater good" and the "greater good" that drove the governments to create "the projects" in New Orleans has directly caused their deaths.

Oh, and before you make this a racial thing, this has nothing to do with race, it has to do with wealth. These people are poor. It doesn't matter if they are white, black or purple. They're poor and they're acting like poor people always do. (it's why they're poor) They're blaming everyone but themselves, their demanding someone give them a handout and when people do try and help them, they're shooting at them and then when that is suppressed, dare to lash out at the national guard because "the national guard treated us like animals!" Tip: You're acting like animals and thus you're being treated exactly the way you deserve.

Of course, as with every human disaster (this is not a natural disaster) the socialists are coming out of the wood work demanding a war on poverty and oppression and a new race war because we don't have equality damnit and the blacks should be given it and not have to earn it! And of course the end result of all of this will be more socialism, not less. And that's sad, because poverty and homelessness are both conditions that can never been "cured". Why? Because they're a choice, just as surely as sitting around rotting in the Superdome is a choice instead of banding together and building boats and retrofitting trucks with snorkels and getting the hell out by your own initiative is a choice. If you choose to do drugs there is nothing that anyone can do to stop you from being stupid, because no matter what road blocks are put up, you'll find a way to be stupid.

This is the fundamental failure of understanding that the socialists have. If someone chooses to be stupid, you can't stop them. And trying to stop them only ends in disaster. We've been fighting a war on drugs for 30+ years now, and it's worse, not better. Legalize all forms of drugs, allow people to be stupid. Require surgeon's general warnings and complete chemical specifications to be posted on the packaging and allow every drug store in the country to carry it if they so choose. Everywhere that this has been done, the amount of drug use has gone down, and more importantly violence and crime as a result of drug use and trade has virtually disappeared (sections of Belgium, Denmark etc.). Why? Because one way or another people are going to get them if they want them. They will be stupid, regardless of what road blocks you put up. If you make it a capitalist endeavour then at least there is a framework for fair trade instead of criminals dealing with criminals, which of course only has one outcome.

And for the religious people out there: You're to blame for socialism. It is the completely false ideal of altruism as thrust upon us by Jesus in the new testament that created the concept of socialism in the first place. "Give of yourself" becomes "make others give of themselves too" because "if I give and it helps, then if everyone gave, it would help even more so let's get the government involved and force everyone to give!".

Charity is a good and required thing for any society to succeed. But lets be clear about what charity is. (and no, I'm not going to use a dictionary because they seem to be completely incapable of writing a definition nowâ€¦ look in Webster's on the definition of "human", they use the word "man" to define "human". Tip: You can't use the world or its roots to define it. It's called a circular reference and is a contradiction and thus WRONG.)

Charity: An individual's freely given gift of one or more of their possessions to another whom has not earned said gift but is in need because of extraordinary events out of their capabilities to predict or deal with.

Note that possessions is not constrained to simply material items, it includes effort and time as well, such as a doctor's services.
Note 2: Notice how complex the definition is? Notice how many abstractions are necessary? Compared to "rational animal" as the definition of "human" and you understand why so many don't understand the conceptualization of "charity" and thus bastardize it with socialism.

What's important here is that it is one person's FREELY given gift. It must be the choice of the individual to give it to the other person. It is a transaction between two people. At the height of its goodness it is a purely selfish act predicated on enlightened self-interest. "If I were ever in that same situation I could really use someone else's help too, thus if I would want that if I was in that situation, I better give in this situation."

Everything in the universe requires trade. You must expend energy to get an action. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Charity is no different. It is the expenditure of energy for a future action that you will inevitably need done for you. You are in effect trading with yourself. It is only when this is true, that charity is GOOD. And to be clear, your expectation of someone helping you in the future when you are not able to deal with a problem because you're not equipped doesn't have to be the same thing. (that would be irrational because you're helping specifically because you are equipped to deal with it, and the other person isn't) It simply means that you're "paying it forward" for a future event where someone else is equipped to help you and you're not equipped to help yourself.

Altruism and its evil child, socialism have caused this human disaster in the southern United States. The rest of the world that is quietly being smug and saying that it looks good on the United States needs to look again and realize that it is specifically because the United States is becoming like those other socialist countries (Europe) that this happened, not because of individualism and the things that the United States is built upon. If the United States was true to the foundation built by its fathers, this would be a natural disaster to be sure, but it wouldn't be a human one, and the death toll would reflect that reality.
To all of the people that got out and showed forethought, I salute you. If anyone knows a way to help these people, and NOT help the fools in New Orleans, please let me know. I fear however that anything that I could do for these people would be subverted to poor and foolish...

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Excellent article.

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'allow people to be stupid'
Jesus, it's working already!

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Excellent article, though the anti-religious statements, or at least trying to blame socialism on religion is a case of trying to link an effect with the wrong cause.

Try linking socialism back to laziness. It's much easier, and much more on the mark.

Those that champion socialism do so because they are too lazy to help themselve, rather than wanting to follow any sort of religious teaching that tells them to help out their fellow man.

Otherwise, great points all around.

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Yeah, those poor people are worthless...we should be able to buy and sell them, or keep them caged and under control, or just to firebomb them all...God knows there's no hope of any of them ever becoming self sufficient.

I hope I never lose as much faith in humanity as you obviously have.

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Nice to see that Philomedy wants to take a leap off in a new direction here.

No one is claiming that poor people are worthless.

What is being stated is that people that aren't interested in helping themselves will likely never break the cycle that they are caught in. And helping themselves doesn't mean demanding that the government, their neighbor or someone else do the job.

There's the old saying that .... helps those that help themselves. It still very much applies.

Are there times when people still face seemingly insurmountable challenges, yes. But simply demanding that someone else fix the problem will never get the problem solved. And that has been the case for most of the people that were most victimized by this storm.

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Those that champion socialism do so because they are too lazy to help themselve, rather than wanting to follow any sort of religious teaching that tells them to help out their fellow man.

Though I am not a socialist, and would very likely have a very similar critique of socialism to you, I do not think that what you've written here is quite right. Most socialists tend not to come from the poor and downtrodden (or lazy, if you will) but tend to be reasonably well-off and well-educated people who want to 'do something' for those that they see as disadvantaged by the 'system'. The problems with this are obvious, but that's another discussion.

As far as religion goes, although the most extreme form of socialism is Leninist Communism, which holds atheism and animosity to religion as important precepts, there are many kinds of socialist, including those who hold their political beliefs as part of their religious convictions. Perhaps the most famous example is Tony Blair, who, as well as being the British prime minister and leader of the Labour Party, is also a leading member of the Christian Socialist Movement.

Altruism and its evil child, socialism have caused this human disaster in the southern United States.

Some people are saying that God sent it to punish sinners, now we hear that 'socialism' is the cause. Interesting (?!) theories, but I'll stick with the old fashioned notion that a hurricane was to blame.

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kingbee

Join Date 04/2004

+42

retrofitting trucks with snorkels and getting the hell out by your own initiative is a choice. If you choose to do drugs

i've done a drug or two. i can now see i should try to get my money back cuz even at my most euphoric, nothin like this ever occured to me.

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Most socialists tend not to come from the poor and downtrodden (or lazy, if you will) but tend to be reasonably well-off and well-educated people who want to 'do something' for those that they see as disadvantaged by the 'system'. The problems with this are obvious, but that's another discussion.

I don't claim that those that champion socialism are poor and downtrodden. As you note, many tend to be well off and well educated.

I still hold though that their championing of socialism goes back to the lazy nature of people. They want to help, but they can't be bothered to actually provide the help directly. They want to contribute to a bigger effort that makes things easier for all, rather than individually volunteering. Individual effort is too hard, while collective effort makes it easy -- which to me, goes back to people wanting to be lazy.

The same happens (for the most part) with idiots like our beloved C.O.L. and his cries to take more in tax money. He ignores the fact that many of those "with money" are contributing large sums of that money over to relief efforts and various charities. Instead, he cries that the government should take all of the money and decide where it should go, rather than letting those with the money decide that issue for themselves.

Personally, I'd rather give my money to places of my own chosing. Despite it's flaws, the Red Cross is a wonderful organization, as is the Salvation Army. I give my money to them because I know (for the most part) they'll stretch every dollar out of it. Perhaps I too am being somewhat lazy, preferring to go to work to earn a little more to perhaps give a little more, rather than volunteering directly. Or perhaps I've done my volunteering over time, and believe that I'd be more in the way than helping.

Anyway, to me the solution is not to give the government power -- as the original article above demonstrates, doing so doesn't fix anything.

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Wow, great article. The religion pieces were a stretch, but I understand what you are getting at. Not so much that it's a direct result of those concepts, but bastardization due to the laziness terp describes. Right?

Bravo.

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"Yeah, those poor people are worthless...we should be able to buy and sell them, or keep them caged and under control, or just to firebomb them all...God knows there's no hope of any of them ever becoming self sufficient.

I hope I never lose as much faith in humanity as you obviously have."

You obviously don't know what Objectivism is. It is the very notion of slavery and servitude that we despise. It is the slavery of all men, poor OR rich, for personal gain or, in the case of the able, being enslaved the greater good that I hate and that I will fight to my last breath against. Objectivism is the belief that every man woman and child has the ability to not only survive but thrive on their own merits through free trade with others. That we don't need assistance from anyone, or anything thing (God) and to suggest so is to suggest that we are worthless and hopeless. It is the belief that with rational, logical thought any problem can be overcome and with free trade we can acquire that which we need to survive through the sweat of our own brow. It is the belief that every human being can be more than a zero. More than "not bad" as the Catholics demand. That there is no original sin, that your life is your own, and your parents and your parents, parents do not instil any value on you personally. You are a zero when you are born and if you are good, it is because you chose to be by using your rational mind to make your life better, and likely in the process make others lives better too through fair and equitable trade.

Poor people that choose to be poor and on welfare and not take responsibility for their own lives are worthless. But they're free TO be worthless. That is their right. It is also my right to not give a rat's ass about these people and choose to not spend a dime on them and no elected government, at the point of a gun or not has the right to take that money I do not wish to give and give it to another. That is called slavery and thievery and it's of the worst kind.

As for the religion being a stretch, who do you think came up with the concept of socialism? That's my point. Jesus is the most famous socialist there is. It is the concepts of Altruism that are the root of socialism and Altruism is firmly rooted in the New Testament. Socialism is simply Altruism mixed with a healthy dose of Subjectivism resulting in a hopelessness caused from a belief that we are doomed to be ignorant and never know the truth and a desire to have a purpose. The purpose is altruism and the desire to help less fortunate. End result? Socialism. (i.e. in mathematics: Jesus + Kant = Socialism) (and yes, a whole pile of laziness, but that goes without saying when you're taking about subjectivism because that is the root to the entire belief system.

Make no mistake, I'm an atheist. God had nothing to do with the hurricane. (Although John Stewart was pretty funny when he said that the only thing out of all of this that you could accredit to God is the hurricane itself, not what happened/s after, that is the sole domain of human beings.) God also has nothing to do with the people rebuilding and moving forward with their lives. Hurricanes are physics, nothing more or less. How people deal with them; That's what makes us humans instead of animals. (or not as the case may be)

I choose to be a human.

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Brilliant article, and the one that you linked to was equally brilliant. I loved:

"People living in piles of their own trash, while petulantly complaining that other people aren't doing enough to take care of them and then shooting at those who come to rescue them—this is not just a description of the chaos at the Superdome. It is a perfect summary of the 40-year history of the welfare state and its public housing projects.

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."

I had a conversation with a friend the other day about the mess that took place after the hurricane, and he echoed what the linked article said. That decades of self-induced helplessness have finally taken their toll.

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