Danehy

Post-Hurricane Katrina questions about liberals

It shouldn't hurt to be a child or a liberal, but sometimes, it does. Like most Americans, I've been watching the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and if nothing else, it has given me insight as to why we liberals and Democrats keep getting the crap beaten out of us by the Stepford Party: Liberals done gone stupid. If, as it is said, truth is the first casualty of war, then certainly one of the casualties of Katrina is spine. There are questions that need to be asked, including:

What's wrong with at least thinking about putting parts of that city someplace else?

If American taxpayers are going to foot the bill for rebuilding that cesspool, shouldn't we have some say in seeing that our investment doesn't get flushed in another 30 years or so? The place was below sea level, surrounded on three sides by water, and in the direct path of the most powerful force on Earth. How could it not happen?

If the people of New Orleans want to rebuild their city and pay for most or all of it, they should knock themselves out.

But if everybody else has to pay for their insanity, we should at least be able to suggest something sane.

Why do we have to rebuild the city at all?

In 1900, the city of Galveston, Texas, was destroyed by a hurricane that came to be known as Isaac's Storm. More than 6,000 people died, making it the worst natural disaster in American history. (Hey, there's a question for you: Which disaster is worse, one that kills a lot of people, as in Galveston, or one that does an incredible amount of property damage, as in New Orleans? Ask that question, and I'll bet you get responses split along political-party lines.)

At the time, Galveston was a cosmopolitan city, one of the largest in the entire Southwest. But after the storm, it was decided that it was too dangerous to have Texas' main port right there on the gulf. So they built the inland waterways, and Houston became the port city and is now one of the largest cities in America.

That's just the way it goes. Cities grow, flourish, then die off. No city in the world has a God-given right to exist.

Does George W. Bush really not care about black people?

Sorry, Kanye, I really like your Late Registration CD, but your feeble attempt at street cred backfires here.

A case could easily be made that Bush doesn't care as much about poor people as he does about the rich; he proves that on just about a daily basis. And while a lot of poor people are black, you can't make that leap. I just don't see Bush as being motivated by racism, and to suggest such brings about the worst possible situation: It makes people like me, who despise his administration and his policies, have to defend him against scurrilous and baseless accusations.

Are people serious when they look tearfully into the TV camera and ask, "How can we break the cycle of poverty?"

I saw an extended family in the Astrodome. The grandmother (!) was 44; the mom was 28, and she had six kids, from age 13 on down. How about telling your kids not to make the same dumb-ass mistakes you made, and your mother made before you? How about handling your business? How about making sure your kids go to school and have a better life? How about suggesting to your kids that they wait until after puberty before they start having sex?

We've become so damn PC in this country that the concept of personal responsibility is offensive to people who call themselves liberals. What's really offensive is coddling people who need to be smacked upside the head. As I've always said, liberals aren't supposed to make people's lives easier; they're supposed to make them better.

Why was there no outrage at efforts here in Tucson to recruit as many black people as possible to greet the evacuees at the Convention Center?

When I saw church leaders and others on KOLD Channel 13 News talking about how they wanted to have as many black people as possible at the TCC so the people arriving from New Orleans wouldn't feel alienated, I absolutely couldn't believe it. One in 25 Tucsonans is black, and who cares? I think it would have been even more poignant had they been greeted by a representative Tucson delegation, showing that even though the ethnic distribution of our communities is different, we're all just people willing to help our fellow man. It was PC to the nth.

My wife, who is inadvertently Hispanic, was going to have her school's National Honor Society chapter (of which she is the sponsor) go to volunteer, but after seeing that report, she changed her mind. She didn't want kids being turned away because they're Hispanic, Asian or Native American.

It was a disgusting suggestion to make, and I'm flabbergasted that the newspeople just nodded and went along with it.

Any questions?