An Unnatural Disaster

A Hurricane Exposes the Man-Made Disaster of the Welfare State

Robert Tracinski writes for The Intellectual Activist on the chaos we have seen coming out of New Orleans. Many others have also commented on the problems there both in new media and old. The old media is, of course, blaming President Bush already and doing its best to score political points as they always do, rather than trying to understand the underlying reasons for the problems. Mr. Tracinski argues, as I did briefly below, that what we have seen is a result of a lack of civilizational values which motivate behavior. And the welfare state is the inculcator in this case.

We have, in the case of New Orleans, an example of what happens when you create a class of people who are totally dependent on the state and have lost the ability to act for themselves. Such people do not react as you and I would under similar circumstances. Rather, they apply what they have always knows to the new situation. They take from others what they want without consideration of the consequences. They prey on the weak around them because they know nothing about independence and self-restraint. They build nothing, they create nothing, they are responsible for nothing and thus they contribute nothing in an emergency and instead become part of the problem. The welfare state has given this to us. It has created people who are totally incapable of self-motivated action to govern their lives and who, therefore, have no ability to act constructively in an emergency.