RE: RE: No Clue

Nope, your not getting out of this one by twisting words and claiming that I "read too much into what you said".

I have no intention of getting out of anything. I stand by what I wrote, every jot and tittle. It is you who are twisting my words.

I don't know any other way to take that statement other than the way I interpreted it.

And how is that my problem? Because you can't understand what I wrote in plain English, you choose to berate me for it. Typical liberal-think: I don't live in your context so it's my fault. But let's examine:

I said, "Thousands of people hadn't the wherewithal to get up off their butts and leave the city, they sat around and waited for the government to do something for them."

Do you know the meaning of the word wherewithal?

where•with•al

Pronunciation: (hwâr'wi&thslash;-ôl", -with-, wâr'-), [key]
—n.
that with which to do something; means or supplies for the purpose or need, esp. money: the wherewithal to pay my rent.

Apparently you don't or else you chose to focus on the phrase "get off their butts," much as I thought you would. The meaning of that sentence is that these people did not have the means to get out of the city. It is intended as a predicate to the argument that they were in this situation because of the dependency relationship they have formed (almost involuntarily) with the government.

The government's job is to take care of it's citizens.

Let's see. How can I put this in a way you will not be able to misinterpret? I know...WRONG! That's where you are wrong and until you dispense with that kind of thinking, you will never understand what I am talking about. The government's job is to protect us from one another, not to be our nanny.

Who else is going to assist these folks if not FEMA?

Umm, how about their fellow citizens? If the government wasn't robbing us blind to pay for all your cute little socialist "programs," we would all have the wherewithal to handle these things.

You sure can't leave that one up to private industry!

So says you, but most of the rest of us are unconvinced of that. The government sure isn't handling it well.

But how you can make such ridiculous statements about the role of our government is beyond me.

Right back atcha. I am so sick of all you socialists and your big, lumbering, intrusive government, I can hardly contain myself sometimes.

You claim I don't have any answers to end poverty; let's hear yours.

I never have and never would make such a claim because it would be stupid. Are you listening? You cannot end poverty. It is a pipe dream. The poor have always been with us, they always will be. We will most definitely not end poverty by looting. All you people do is seek to make everyone poor. As usual, you seek to correct the symptom and not the problem. What we must do is to help the poor to lift themselves out of poverty and that doesn't happen by just throwing other people's money at them. And it is a never-ending task. Liberals like you would seek to throw a band-aid over it and call the job done. Meanwhile, misery continues unabated in New Orleans and elsewhere.

I have lots of ideas about how to employ people in this country, and my ideas are called socialism by people like you.

Great. Let's hear them. But I'd almost bet real money that we've heard them before and they have failed, every time they're tried.