New Orleans

Let me start by stating that I do feel deep sympathy with the people of New Orleans, Biloxi, and the surrounding areas. Especially tragic are those who truly couldn't flee because of children and so on. However, this growing chorus of blame being laid at the foot of the government has simply gotten to be too much.

True, the government needs to do more. However, they're far from the only people who need to step up. Let's start with the news media who has taken so much effort to report every short coming while managing to miss virtually every positive piece of news. Especially frustrating is the talk of how awful the government is for not moving people out of the danger zones sooner. Did even one news crew offer to help transport the sick or dying out on their DAILY trips back and forth into the city? Certainly, the media could have saved hundreds, if not more, of lives just by taking a few people in their vans and trucks with them every evening when they went back to their soft, cushy beds for the night.

The second group that infuriates me is the people of New Orleans itself. How many stories did we hear of people packing up BOTH of their SUVs with their belongings and riding out of the city with only one passenger per vehicle? Too many. The people who could afford vehicles had the moral responsibility to help those who did not. Instead, they choose to value their belongings more than other humans lives. Shame on them, and they're as much to blame for the deaths as anyone else is. Tied closely to this are the people of New Orleans who stayed and are now roving the streets in gangs with automatic weapons, killing innocent people. Or people who stay on a rooftop and use a sniper rifle to kill emergency workers. Does anyone actually believe that we should send our emergency help into an area where the people they're trying to help are going to potentially kill them? I certainly don't. Our emergency helpers' lives are far too valuable to me.

Third are the idiots living on the rooftops of buildings, crying that the government isn't coming to save them and how they only have five days worth of supplies. Having been to New Orleans on two occasions, I can tell you from experience that these people are being stupid. You can walk from downtown New Orleans to Metairie (where all the news crews stayed in those cushy beds) in an hour. With children, it might take a little longer but you could still do it all during daylight. There is no excuse to run to the roof and denounce the government for having "forgotten" you. Sorry, but all those sick and extremely old people dying at the airport need help a little bit more than you do.

Certainly, mistakes have been made. The President admitted as much. Hopefully heads will roll over this. And there are many people in New Orleans and all across the Gulf Coast who need serious help. But this entire situation reflects what a society of helpless victims we have become. Even worse is our growing comfortableness with that victimization. Our country has been made strong, and even great, by people who sucked it up when tragedy struck. Without that will power, do we really believe that we can survive the trials ahead in our new world?