Failure of an idea -- & a people(Pat Buchanan addresses reason for NO crime wave)

[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Failure of an idea -- & a people(Pat Buchanan addresses reason for NO crime wave)

Posted: 9/15/2005 4:16:48 PM EDT

Failure of an idea -- & a people
Pat Buchanan
September 14, 2005
pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/opinion/columnists/guests/s_373788.html
WASHINGTON -- In his 1935 State of the Union Address, FDR spoke to a nation mired in the Depression but still marinated in conservative values:
"Continued dependence" upon welfare, said FDR, "induces a spiritual disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To dole our relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit."

Behind FDR's statement was the conviction that, while the government must step in in an emergency, in normal times men provide the food, clothing and shelter for their families.

And we did, until war pulled us out of the Depression and a postwar boom made us, in John K. Galbraith's phrase, The Affluent Society. By the 1960s, America, the richest country on Earth, was growing ever more prosperous. But with the 1964 landslide of LBJ, liberalism triumphed and began its great experiment.

Behind the Great Society was a great idea: To lift America's poor out of poverty, government should take care of all their basic needs. By giving the poor welfare, subsidized food, public housing and free medical care, government will end poverty in America.

At the Superdome and New Orleans Convention Center, we saw the failure of 40 years of the Great Society. No sooner had Katrina passed by and the 17th Street levee broke than hundreds of young men who should have taken charge in helping the aged, the sick and women with babies to safety took to the streets to shoot, loot and rape. The New Orleans police, their numbers cut by deserters who left their posts to look after their families, engaged in running gun battles all day long to stay alive and protect people.

It was the character and conduct of its people that makes the New Orleans disaster unique. After a hurricane, people's needs are simple: food, water, shelter, medical attention. But they can be hard to meet. People buried in rubble or hiding in attics of flooded homes are tough to get to. But this was possible.

Coast Guard helicopters were operating by Tuesday. There were roads open into the city for SUVs, buses and trucks. While New Orleans was flooded, the water was stagnant. People walked through to the convention center and Superdome. The flimsiest boat could navigate.

Even if government dithered for days, this does not explain the failure of the people themselves.

In 1940, hundreds of British fishermen and yachtsmen sailed back and forth daily under fire across a turbulent 23-mile channel to rescue 300,000 soldiers from Dunkirk. How do we explain that a tenth that number of Americans could not be reached in four days from across a stagnant pond?

Stranded for days in a pool of fetid water, almost everyone waited for the government to come save them. They screamed into the cameras for help, and reporters screamed into the cameras for help, and "civil rights leaders" screamed into the cameras that Bush was responsible and Bush was a racist.

Americans were once famous for taking the initiative, for having young leaders rise up to take command in a crisis. See any of that at the Superdome? Sri Lankans and Indonesians, far poorer than we, did not behave like this in a tsunami that took 400 times as many lives as Katrina has thus far.

Watching that performance in the Crescent City, it seems clear: We are not the people our parents were. And what are all our Lords Temporal now howling for? Though government failed at every level, they want more government.

FDR was right. A "spiritual disintegration" has overtaken us. Government-as-first-provider, the big idea of the Great Society, has proven to be "a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit."

Either we get off this narcotic or it kills us.

Pat Buchanan edits The American Conservative magazine.

Posted: 9/15/2005 4:20:09 PM EDT

[#1]

FDR's programs were still unconstitutional. But the courts decided to let it slide because of the state the country was in.

See what happens when you say "well, this violation of the constitution is only temporary..."

Posted: 9/15/2005 4:24:50 PM EDT

[#2]

Is Pat an Arfcommer?

Posted: 9/15/2005 4:25:50 PM EDT

[#3]

Outsource FEMA to Wal-Mart. THEY sure got supplies there in a hurry without bullshit and red tape!

Posted: 9/15/2005 7:51:02 PM EDT

[#4]

Excellent

Posted: 9/15/2005 7:53:49 PM EDT

[#5]

Don't agree with some of his views, but he's spot on on this one!

Posted: 9/15/2005 7:55:56 PM EDT

[#6]

damn straight

Go Pat

Posted: 9/15/2005 7:56:20 PM EDT

[#7]

.

Posted: 9/15/2005 8:03:54 PM EDT

[#8]

Buchanan is usually a loon, but this piece hits the nail on the head. The worst part is, if any politician ever actually had the balls to stand up and declare that this experiment has failed and must end, the inner cities would burn. As others have said, it's going to get worse before it gets better.

Posted: 9/15/2005 8:05:27 PM EDT

[#9]

Thus leaving the inhabitants to fend for themselves and ending the experiment.

Posted: 9/15/2005 8:12:47 PM EDT

[#10]

Quoted:
Thus leaving the inhabitants to fend for themselves and ending the experiment.

You say that like their is something wrong with it. If N.O. is lucky most of the "evacuees" will not come back. Our welfare system in LA. is horrendous and it would it a boost certainly. Louisiana to my knowledge has no realistic welfare-to-work or "Weening" programs. Alot of recipients enroll and fail out of programs to stay on welfare. Many recipients in Louisiana have known only welfare for generations thier overdue to find jobs, I just wonder if N.O. as a market can support its population in terms of jobs available.

Posted: 9/15/2005 8:21:58 PM EDT

[#11]

It almost seems he wnts to exonerate FDR and to blame LBJ. While I blame LBJ I also think FDR new full well where his policies led. LBJ was quoted as saying soon after the Voting Rights act was passed
"Those niggros will be voting democrat for decades" how prophetic he was.

To all the racist shitheads keep the quote in its context and keep the racist shit to yourself, this thread has potential don't get it locked.

Posted: 9/15/2005 11:26:10 PM EDT

[#12]

Quoted:
FDR's programs were still unconstitutional. But the courts decided to let it slide because ~~of the state the country was in~~ FDR was going to expand the number of seats on the USSCt and pack it with communists.

See what happens when you say "well, this violation of the constitution is only temporary..."

The SCOTUS knocked down almost all of FDR's unconstitutional programs until the court-packing plan surfaced, at which time they surrendered, did a complete about-face, and bequathed us the fetid morass of statism and nannyism we pay for today. A pox on them all.

Posted: 9/15/2005 11:37:51 PM EDT

[#13]

That article is 100% correct.

This reminds me of that guy in NO who took an abandoned school bus and got himself and 100 other random people out of NO and to the Houston Astrodome ahead of all the government run buses.

Then the government officials hassled him for a bit because he wasnt on the list and didnt wait for the government to rescue him.

We need more people like that guy.

Posted: 9/19/2005 1:50:05 PM EDT

[#14]

The society which adjusts it's mandates to accomodate it's least productive members is doomed to failure.

Posted: 9/19/2005 2:25:52 PM EDT

[#15]

Quoted:
That article is 100% correct.

This reminds me of that guy in NO who took an abandoned school bus and got himself and 100 other random people out of NO and to the Houston Astrodome ahead of all the government run buses.

Then the government officials hassled him for a bit because he wasnt on the list and didnt wait for the government to rescue him.

We need more people like that guy.

This was a 17 year old man that did this!

CMOS

Posted: 9/20/2005 4:10:04 PM EDT

[#16]

Quoted:
Quoted:
Thus leaving the inhabitants to fend for themselves and ending the experiment.

You say that like their is something wrong with it. If N.O. is lucky most of the "evacuees" will not come back. Our welfare system in LA. is horrendous and it would it a boost certainly. Louisiana to my knowledge has no realistic welfare-to-work or "Weening" programs. Alot of recipients enroll and fail out of programs to stay on welfare. Many recipients in Louisiana have known only welfare for generations thier overdue to find jobs, I just wonder if N.O. as a market can support its population in terms of jobs available.

LA, TX, NC, SC are the last states to kick off the career welfare receipents
except for the 20%(?) that they are allowed to let continue on welfare........
(I posted a link to that info in another thread, the one about "projects")

Posted: 9/20/2005 4:29:23 PM EDT

[#17]

Quoted:

In 1940, hundreds of British fishermen and yachtsmen sailed back and forth daily under fire across a turbulent 23-mile channel to rescue 300,000 soldiers from Dunkirk. How do we explain that a tenth that number of Americans could not be reached in four days from across a stagnant pond?

Would you allow any of those people on your boat?

Posted: 9/20/2005 4:32:24 PM EDT

[#18]

Quoted:
Quoted:
That article is 100% correct.

This reminds me of that guy in NO who took an abandoned school bus and got himself and 100 other random people out of NO and to the Houston Astrodome ahead of all the government run buses.

Then the government officials hassled him for a bit because he wasnt on the list and didnt wait for the government to rescue him.

We need more people like that guy.

I heard him interviewed "Where's the bus?" "Over there.."

This was a 17 year old man that did this!

CMOS

Posted: 9/20/2005 4:39:00 PM EDT

[#19]

Quoted:
Outsource FEMA to Wal-Mart. THEY sure got supplies there in a hurry without bullshit and red tape!

Wal-Mart and Sam's Club already had provisions ready for Rita here in TX. They even had canned fruit, the really big cans this time.

The only thing they were short on was bottled water, but I expect them to have more in the next few days.

[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Failure of an idea -- & a people(Pat Buchanan addresses reason for NO crime wave)

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