An Unnatural Disaster: A Hurricane Exposes the Man-Made Disaster of the Welfare State

TIA Daily ^ | 09-02-05 | Robert Tracinski

[Morgan in Denver]

You know, this is a great catch. The connection of red states versus blue, and who was doing more completely went past me. Without stopping, I should add. Even though it's the south aiding the south one does have to consider if places like NYC are willing to take these people in and put the kids in schools. On the other hand, perhaps NYC isn't the best place to voluntarily send kids.

[A. Pole]

Welfare breeds poverty!

Before welfare state, were the poor less numerous?

[elk]

Witness the Marxist Laboratory"....

I like that description. We've seen it fail for 100 million people in the last century, and are seeing it fail for the city of NO.

[shuckmaster]

Man-Made Disaster of the Welfare State

This event has made it obvious that in a disaster situation, the people raised on welfare socialism will just sit helplessly on a bridge for days demanding that people raised on working class ideals come and save them. My question to the welfare socialists is: what kind of morbid perversity drives a person to place welfare housing in a known hurricane target in the first place?

[rodguy911]

Excellent post and great ending. "How do you rebuild a city that is below sea level."
One way is to level it and create a gravel rock base, est. cost 1/2 billion. But, the problem with even that is that no matter what anyone does or how strong you make the new const. the city still "sinks one inch per year" due to the silt base it is built on.

Kind of like the political base it is built on, sand, instead of rock, lots of unholy similarites there.

[shuckmaster]

Before welfare state, were the poor less numerous?

The welfare state pays people according to how many welfare babies they produce.

[va4me]

Public officials did not expect that the first thing they would have to do is to send thousands of armed troops in armored vehicle, as if they are suppressing an enemy insurgency. And journalists--myself included--did not expect that the story would not be about rain, wind, and flooding, but about rape, murder, and looting.

The "Hurricane Pam" scenario run by FEMA in 2004 predicted wide-spread civil unrest, looting, and violence.

[rodguy911]

Great comparison.

[Uncle Vlad]

We can't have lucid thinking like this! (sarcasm off)

[DoughtyOne]

Thanks.

[Newshues]

Appearently yes, welfare does breed poverty.

http://www.fee.org/vnews.php?nid=3741

Another way of determining whether the poor have benefited from income growth is to look at changes in the percentage of families classified as living in poverty over time. By our current definition of poverty, 56 percent of families in the United States were poor in 1900. By 1947, even after the economic shocks of the Great Depression and World War II, the percentage of families in poverty had been reduced by more than half, to 27 percent. By 1967, the percentage was halved again, to 13 percent. Notably, the decrease in poverty between 1900 and 1967 occurred before the advent of the greatly expanded welfare state. In other words, it was the free market, not government welfare, that caused the poverty rate to fall from 56 percent in 1900 to 13 percent in 1967.

[Kozak]

If George Washington Carver and Booker T. Washington could do it in their day, there are a whole lot of people who could damned well do it today

They didn't have a Government tit to permanently latch onto.

[DoughtyOne]

Exactly! And they didn't have the Jessie and Al dog and pony show, with the left singing one part harmony in the background.

[greenthumb]

I hope it is not just wishful thinking that some of these people will take this opportunity to start a new life.

[A. Pole]

By 1947, even after the economic shocks of the Great Depression and World War II, the percentage of families in poverty had been reduced by more than half, to 27 percent. By 1967, the percentage was halved again, to 13 percent. Notably, the decrease in poverty between 1900 and 1967 occurred before the advent of the greatly expanded welfare state.

The key words are "before the advent of the greatly expanded welfare". 1950s/1960's were the heyday of the New Deal. Do you support New Deal style policies or not?

There are other reasons of poverty for example the collapse of blue collar industries. Many rural poor including blacks migrated to the large cities in search of work and they got stranded.

Also welfare is not always bad. I tend to think that it is more often beneficial than harmful.

[airborne]

Before welfare state, were the poor less numerous?

Does it matter? Does that make my statement (welfare breeds poverty) untrue?

[timestax]

bump

[timestax]

bump

[A. Pole]

Does that make my statement (welfare breeds poverty) untrue?

If there was more poverty before introducing the welfare system it might.

[Dont_Tread_On_Me_888]

This author is correct.

Isn't truth refreshing?

Watch the MSM and the politicians avoid the truth. They will spin and blame and jawbone, but this article does explain much of the core reason for the disaster that occured.

Two points to add:

1] The welfare state also encouraged these people to stay in the city since the welfare check was due to arrive in days, just as Katrina was arriving, and

2] The welfare state allows incompetent mayors like Mayor Nagin to be elected. He chose not to evacuate the city.

It is critical that the truth be told, no matter how politically incorrect it is.

TRUTH is more vital to the future of this nation than the politically correct crap we get from Washington.

The ability to discuss this at Free Republic.com makes this forum more important for America than C-SPAN, the Congressioanl Record and the MSM, all of which jawbone their way into the mush-mouth Hall of Shame.

Thank you Free Republic.

Signed,

A non-white memnber of Free Republic.