Here is a sampling of what some conservatives are saying about the situation in New Orleans:
On reading about New Orleans’ well-known multiculturism:
“I was going to donate a few buck but after hearing that I think I’ll go buy a pizza instead.”
On the city’s poor:
“These people have no room to complain. They have not lost anything! For the most part they have been living off the government for years already.”
Some religious wisdom:
“Sometimes God helps those who help themselves.”
On the chaos:
“Enjoy it, liberals. Hope you’re proud.”
On a homeless man viewing his dead loved one on the street:
“[He] belongs to that cohort of useless able-bodied males who couldn’t think their way out of a paper bag if left on their own.”
On being trapped in 20 feet of water:
“You were told…everyone must evacuate. So take your bitching somewhere else.”
“And there are those ‘refugees’ who will claim lack of transportation (‘I couldn’t afford to fix the car”) or resources (‘can’t afford no tank of gas”) standing on rooftops and balconies waving at rescue copters while smoking $5/pk cigarettes and leaning on TV satellite dishes.”
It would be nice to say that the above views are held by a small minority of Americans, but it would not be true. Louisiana is a poor state. New Orleans is a poor city, albeit a beautiful and exciting one. Decades of local and state corruption have done little to help the people who need the most help. As a citizen of Louisiana and a former long-term citizen of New Orleans, I can attest to that corruption and its consequences: bad housing, bad schools, crime, and poverty.
So now that New Orleans’ worst fears have come true, the people–those who are still alive–who have suffered for so long at least have all of this unsolicited compassion and wisdom to get them through the crisis.
