The End Of Social Darwinism In America?

Interesting 'outside looking in' points made by BBC News' Harold Evans in his column, 'A Point Of View.' Is he on to something? I guess we'll have to wait and see...

After so many years of Social Darwinism, Hurricane Katrina could reawaken the American people's appetite for compassion in government... While 9/11 made Americans angry, the fate of New Orleans has gone beyond that. In varying degrees the whole population is angry, ashamed, and fearful. Angry at the incompetence and buck-passing between inept local, state and federal authorities; ashamed at those relentlessly recycled pictures of the abandoned black underclass; and fearful to see that the country is still unprepared to cope with a major terrorist attack.

In my view, it is likely to have as traumatic an impact on American political life as the Great Depression of the 1930s. That catastrophe ushered in two decades of Democratic presidents - but even more, it reversed America's entrenched dedication to laissez faire Social Darwinism, a philosophy embraced by both major parties for 150 years.