RE: YOU have no clue...

Did you bother to actually read what I wrote, or did you just skim it, decide what you wanted to get outraged about, and then react?

You seem to be implying that I was blaming the people in New Orleans for simply being lazy. My point was clearly that many of the people who found themselves in this situation were victims of liberalism and social engineering as well as the hurricane and flood. Now pay attention: My whole point is that creeping socialism has created an utter dependency relationship on the government for an entire segment of our population. That dependency relationship has not only gotten more than a few of these people killed, but it has contributed to the overall misery index of the situation and has adversely affected our society as a whole. Your predictable response was that we just need more government.

A few fine points:

Do you realize that the majority of people who stayed in New Orleans had no way out AND no where to go?

I fully realize that, but do you? And have you asked yourself how that happened? I already gave you the answer.

They didn't have cars and relied on public transportation to get around the city.

Indeed, but what does that have to do with what I said? Some of these people stayed put because they were waiting for the government to tell them what to do, not directly because they had no transportation, but because they were dependent on the government to tell them what to do and provide them with a way out. This drama has been palyed out in planned economies and socialist states all over the world. The result is the same: those who are utterly dependent on the state end up as casualties. Those who remain even the slightest bit self-sufficient survive.

All they had was the shotgun shack they lived in and the city they loved. When your home is all you've got to your name, it's damn hard to leave it!

How poetic. Unfortunately it isn't reality. Most of those who stayed involuntarily lived in government housing ("the projects"). And you're trying to change lanes without a turn signal. There is a difference between being so stubborn that you plan to die rather than leave your home and being trapped because you are dependent on the state and the state failed.

How you can even insinuate that they've done anything wrong is beyond me.

I insinuated nothing of the kind. You inferred it from some preconceived notion of what you expected me to say and all the fun you could have getting your drawers in a twist in righteous indignation. You've been hanging around Tucker too much.

When we can help the poorest of the poor all over the world, but can't even save our own people, something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.

Have you ever stopped to consider that the reason we can't help our own poor is because we spend so much time nosing into the business of every other country in the world in the name of helping their poor? Have you ever stopped to consider that charity at the point of government's gun has numbed people to the plight of their fellowman?

Bush is lying to us all when he states that no one had predicted the breach in the levees.

Of course. This is all Bush's fault. How does that tinfoil hat fit?

I only pray that this event is opening the eyes of blind Americans who deny the poverty in this country. And the divide between the haves and have-nots grows deeper by the day.

You need to drop that unless you can provide a concrete instance of a substantial number of people who deny poverty in this country. That is nothing but your imagination. Or are you simply being disingenuous? The debate here is not whether people are poor, the debate is what to do about it. People like you are of the "build a fire to keep a man warm today" school of thought. People like me are of the "teach him to build a fire so he can stay warm tomorrow" school. People like me need to fight people like you tooth and nail to keep our society from going out like a match in darkness and chaos.