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Should New Orleans be rebuilt?

 
 
Steve 41oo
 
  1  
Reply Tue 6 Sep, 2005 07:21 am
well i dont know if its admiration or grudging respect.

I certainly think Cuba has stood up to American bullying for many years. And I dont understand what the argument is about in the first place. Cuba was never a break away state of the Union, nor was it a colony of the United States. It poses no threat to the US. Its just an embarrassment because they do things differently, and because they are so close. Why not live and let live and accept Cuban aid into New Orleans?
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Phoenix32890
 
  1  
Reply Tue 6 Sep, 2005 07:24 am
Steve- One more time. It is not a matter of doing things "differently". Many countries have governments that are different than ours, and there is no problem. Cuba is a dictatorship. And that is all that I have to say on the subject!
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Bi-Polar Bear
 
  1  
Reply Tue 6 Sep, 2005 07:26 am
I'm curious...what is it, since the Cuban missile crisis that Cuba has done that has hurt the USA?
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farmerman
 
  1  
Reply Tue 6 Sep, 2005 07:32 am
They got me busted once for "smuggling" Cuban oranges back into the US.
OOOOH nasty, communist oranges. I had to leave the oranges at the Customs, pay a fine, and then write a declaration. This was about the stupidest bit of jingoistic nationalism I was ever part of.

They did NOT find my wee stash of herbs though.
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Steve 41oo
 
  1  
Reply Tue 6 Sep, 2005 08:02 am
" I had to leave the oranges at the Customs, pay a fine, and then write a declaration."

What sort of declaration?

I declare that I will, to the best of my knowledge and belief, never eat or attempt to eat or encourage the eating of or attempted eating of an orange which has been or might have been cultivated in land of which the Government of the United States of America disapproves, as determined by the National Orange Inspectorate.
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Ticomaya
 
  1  
Reply Tue 6 Sep, 2005 08:03 am
Quote:
Rebuilding New Orleans -- and America
Thomas Sowell

September 6, 2005

The physical devastation caused by hurricane Katrina has painfully revealed the moral devastation of our times that has led to mass looting in New Orleans, assaults on people in shelters, the raping of girls, and shots being fired at helicopters that are trying to rescue people.

Forty years ago, an electric grid failure plunged New York and other northeastern cities into a long blackout. But law and order prevailed. Ordinary citizens went to intersections to direct traffic. People helped each other. After the blackout was over, this experience left many people with an upbeat spirit about their fellow human beings.

Another blackout in New York, years later, was much uglier. And what has been happening now in New Orleans is uglier still. Is there a trend here?

Fear, grief, desperation or despair would be understandable in people whose lives have been devastated by events beyond their control. Regret might be understandable among those who were warned to evacuate before the hurricane hit but who chose to stay. Yet the word being heard from those on the scene is "angry."

That may be a clue, not only to the breakdown of decency in New Orleans, but to a wider degeneration in American society in recent decades.

Why are people angry? And at whom?

Apparently they are angry at government officials for not having rescued them sooner, or taken care of them better, or for letting law and order break down.

No doubt the inevitable post mortems on this tragic episode will turn up many cases where things could have been done better. But who can look back honestly at his own life without seeing many things that could have been done better?

Just thinking about all the mistakes you have made over a lifetime can be an experience that is humbling, if not humiliating.

When all is said and done, government is ultimately just human beings -- politicians, judges, bureaucrats. Maybe the reason we are so often disappointed with them is that they have over-promised and we have been gullible enough to believe them.

Government cannot solve all our problems, even in normal times, much less during a catastrophe of nature that reminds man how little he is, despite all his big talk.

The most basic function of government, maintaining law and order, breaks down when floods or blackouts paralyze the system.

During good times or bad, the police cannot police everybody. They can at best control a small segment of society. The vast majority of people have to control themselves.

That is where the great moral traditions of a society come in -- those moral traditions that it is so hip to sneer at, so cute to violate, and that our very schools undermine among the young, telling them that they have to evolve their own standards, rather than following what old fuddy duddies like their parents tell them.

Now we see what those do-it-yourself standards amount to in the ugliness and anarchy of New Orleans.

In a world where people flaunt their "independence," their "right" to disregard moral authority, and sometimes legal authority as well, the tragedy of New Orleans reminds us how utterly dependent each one of us is for our very lives on millions of other people we don't even see.

Thousands of people in New Orleans will be saved because millions of other people they don't even know are moved by moral obligations to come to their rescue from all corners of this country. The things our clever sophisticates sneer at are ultimately all that stand between any of us and utter devastation.

Any of us could have been in New Orleans. And what could we have depended on to save us? Situational ethics? Postmodern philosophy? The media? The lawyers? The rhetoric of the intelligentsia?

No, what we would have to depend on are the very things that are going to save the survivors of hurricane Katrina, the very things that clever people are undermining.

New Orleans can be rebuilt and the levees around it shored up. But can the moral levees be shored up, not only in New Orleans but across America?
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Steve 41oo
 
  1  
Reply Tue 6 Sep, 2005 08:09 am
forgot to add, by way of linking cuba and oranges to new orleans, how much damage if any did katrina do in cuba prior to it smashing up new orleans?
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Thomas
 
  1  
Reply Tue 6 Sep, 2005 08:10 am
Thomas Sowell, as quoted by Ticomaya, wrote:
Forty years ago, an electric grid failure plunged New York and other northeastern cities into a long blackout. But law and order prevailed. Ordinary citizens went to intersections to direct traffic. People helped each other. After the blackout was over, this experience left many people with an upbeat spirit about their fellow human beings.

Another blackout in New York, years later, was much uglier. And what has been happening now in New Orleans is uglier still. Is there a trend here?

Is this true? I don't remember reading much about ugliness during the August 2003 blackout in New York. Of course, the claim is necessary for Sowell because otherwise he could not contend that morality in America is going to hell.
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Steve 41oo
 
  1  
Reply Tue 6 Sep, 2005 08:18 am
As well as August 2003:-

1996: 4m people hit by electricity outage across nine states
1977: lightning strike leaves New York without power for 25 hours
1965: power loss in north-east US and southern Canada hits 30m people.

Also from bbc site during August 2003 "civilians manned intersections directing gridlocked traffic after signals failed"
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Intrepid
 
  1  
Reply Tue 6 Sep, 2005 08:28 am
blueveinedthrobber wrote:
I'm curious...what is it, since the Cuban missile crisis that Cuba has done that has hurt the USA?


They make better cigars Laughing
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Intrepid
 
  1  
Reply Tue 6 Sep, 2005 08:31 am
Canadians enjoy wonderful holidays in Cuba at a very reasonable cost. They have a great time and go back time and time again. Canada has good relations with Cuba and does not have any problem. Miami would have a smaller population if it wasn;f for Cuba. ;-)
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farmerman
 
  1  
Reply Tue 6 Sep, 2005 09:40 am
my "declaration" was to provide a statement in lieu of any sentence , since they believed me that we just bought the oranges to eat in the camper. (We had them in thje refrigerator of the camper. Remember, the Customs service is just like the Post Office (except they have guns).

Ive tried Cuban ci8gars in Canada. Very pricey, and they taste like creosote, very strong. When I smoked cigars , I liked the milder ones like the Le Fleur Dominicanas. Cuban cigars, taste like a burning rope soaked in coal oil. Maybe some of you out there like that taste, I for one, do not..
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Thomas
 
  1  
Reply Tue 6 Sep, 2005 09:42 am
Phoenix32890 wrote:
Intrepid- Personally, I think that the government is right about Cuba. One does not deal with a police state.

Does one deal with decent, productive people who are in the wrong place at the wrong time? Or does one boycott them for having the misfortune of living in a police state -- a fate many of them would escape if they could, but they can't? I would have said that most Cubans fall in that category, perhaps almost all.

Apart from this, nobody forces you to buy Cuban goods. But as a libertarian, how do you justify telling me what to buy, and enforcing it through the full power of the government?
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farmerman
 
  1  
Reply Tue 6 Sep, 2005 09:43 am
The last batch of special legislation to begin to shore up and rebuild the levees along the lake was in the late 90's. Where did it go?
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Intrepid
 
  1  
Reply Tue 6 Sep, 2005 09:44 am
farmerman wrote:

Ive tried Cuban ci8gars in Canada. Very pricey, and they taste like creosote, very strong. When I smoked cigars , I liked the milder ones like the Le Fleur Dominicanas. Cuban cigars, taste like a burning rope soaked in coal oil. Maybe some of you out there like that taste, I for one, do not..


Perhaps you have just hit upon the reason for the (some) American dislike of Cubans. Laughing
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JPB
 
  1  
Reply Tue 6 Sep, 2005 09:45 am
I heard this morning that residents were allowed back into the city for a limited time to assess the damage and pack up what they could. They all must be out by Thursday. Some coming out have said they were glad to see what was left others, of course, won't find anything.

I'll be curious to hear an assessment from the residents on their desires to rebuild.
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sozobe
 
  1  
Reply Tue 6 Sep, 2005 09:49 am
Me too. There was a recent article in the NYT about the housing market booming in Baton Rouge post-storm -- possible of course that people just want a place to stay for a while and would like to go back.
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Thomas
 
  1  
Reply Tue 6 Sep, 2005 09:57 am
sozobe wrote:
Me too. There was a recent article in the NYT about the housing market booming in Baton Rouge post-storm -- possible of course that people just want a place to stay for a while and would like to go back.

Does it say that the market for rental housing is booming more than the market for houses to buy? It's what I'd expect from New Orleaners who just want temporary shelter.
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farmerman
 
  1  
Reply Tue 6 Sep, 2005 09:57 am
yeh but the commercial center and the oil presence is in Nawlins and South. The shotgun houses are easy to replace just like they were thereall the time. The older manisons of the Garden District I dont know how they look. theres a NOAA site that has detailed satellite photos of the area, anybody know the url?
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sozobe
 
  1  
Reply Tue 6 Sep, 2005 10:02 am
Well, "temporary" in the sense of "until it's fit to move back" might be a really long time.

I'll see if I can find it, don't remember anything about rental markets.
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