RSSNew Orleans Liberals Will Have To Find Another Moneypit To Sue
J.J. Jackson* | February 4, 2008
Because they can’t sue the government and the Army Corps of Engineers. So says the courts:
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) — A federal judge has thrown out a class action lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over the failure of levees in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.Levees failed in several areas, flooding about 80 percent of New Orleans with water up to 20 feet deep.
U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval acknowledged Wednesday that the agency failed to properly safeguard the city, but he ruled that the Corps was protected by the Flood Control Act of 1928. It shields the federal government from liability when flood control projects fail.
The Corps designed the levee system that was supposed to protect the low-lying city. But after Katrina stuck the Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005, steel-and-concrete levees eroded and failed in several areas, flooding about 80 percent of the city with water up to 20 feet deep.
In 2007, the Insurance Information Institute estimated insured losses for Katrina across Louisiana at $25.3 billion.
There’s actually a lot more to this than just blaming the federal government such as issues about misappropriated money that was moved to other projects by those in charge of the state and the levee, constant harassment from environmental groups that would get in the way of projects to help protect New Orleans (illegally and against the Constitutional limits on spending of tax dollars mind you), and the like that is rarely discussed.
The lesson of New Orleans is if you live in a flood plain that is only protected by a barrier that someone else built and you want to take the risk that it will not fail, that is your problem and you should have to deal with the consequences. It’s called liberty and personal responsibility.
But that’s not the liberal way. Someone else is always at fault for the decisions they make. Expect an appeal.
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42 Responses to “New Orleans Liberals Will Have To Find Another Moneypit To Sue”
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As a NOLA flood victimized homeowner with wife, kids and business who has managed to rebuild my flooded home (raised way above sea level), I need to let you know, you are hurting my feelings. I’ve been a Republican for 25 years. We vote, paid our taxes, work hard and believed the promise from the US Army Corps of Engineers that these engineering structures were sound - that perhaps the Corps didn’t build them high enough, but that the Corps desinged and built levees were absolutly structurally sound and not fall down like movie props the first time they got wet - without even being overtopped! Many families seek to be compensated for their losses by the entity that caused their damage. If I ran my car into your car, shouldn’t I pay for your damages?
I don’t understand your comments on this loophole in the law that makes it perfectly ok and legal for the Corps of Engineers to build unsound structures. Did you know the Corps has been rewarded for their mistakes that led to our disaster and losses. The local corp’s civil engineering project managers went from low budget/low importance projects to huge budgeted long winded important projects with deadlines they have no intentions of ever meeting. Believe me, now, we all know the Corps will absolutly cause our city to be flooded again. It is just a matter of time. Most of us are rebuilding higher to insure against their incompetence.
Cry me a river. What part of the spending exceeded the Constitution is so hard for you to understand? You took advantage of tax payer dollars for your own benefit and now whine about it?
So what if you have been a Republican for 25 years? Is that supposed to mean something?
With a mentality like this our republic is doomed.
Saying that the levies were structurally unsound because they failed when struck by a barge which was not properly tethered is like saying the World Trade Center towers were structurally unsound because they collapsed after being hit with airplanes.
The levies held. It took an event above and beyond the storm waters to compromise them.
You ignored important parts of this post in order to make your comments. Such as 1) there is no constitutional authority or Congress to provide tax dollars to build levies or do flood control for your benefit and 2) money that was set aside for such purposes was used on other projects by the wonderful bureaucrats in the State and city.
I realize it is easier to moan and complain but you still need to deal with reality at some point.
Ever notice how the “it’s unconstitutional” part of the argument always seems to be missed when people piss and moan abut not getting their share of government socialism?
Build a home in a flood plain and you will eventually get flooded. Eventually that storm of the century hits and breaks the flood walls. Blaming someone else for your choices doesn’t work in the real world.
First, please become more informed about the levee failures. You are 100% wrong about the stupid barge having anything at all to do with a levee collapse - it passed through that breech later in the day. The Corps admitted before congress to their multiple design engineering errors that directly caused most of the 50+ breeches - which occured without the levees even being overtopped.
Please don’t blame this republican voter for aledged squandering of levee money by crooked politicians. You might not know how hard many of us worked to try to improve our local governments and probably don’t know how hard we tried Pre-K to get the Corps to address our concerns about the levee system they designed and built for our protection. Our concerns did not include catastrophic structural failure without even being overtopped. It was the worst engineering disaster in American history and you want to lay all of the blame on me, the flood victimized homeowner… Again, that attitude from fellow citizens hurts my feelings.
Why is it that in our country there is always a legal remedy for a damaged party to be compensated for their losses by the party that caused the damage, but in this case, nope. There is a law that says the Corps cannot be held liable for their decades of incompetance and damage their indifference caused and they are the ones rebuilding our levees - incompetently, no doubt. Is that fair to citizens they are responsible to try to protect? I hope you don’t live somewhere aledgedely protected by anything built by the USACE.
If the US Army accidently nuked your city, would you expect them to compensate you for your losses and help your region recover?? Would you consider that a liberal handout?
You folks that do not see my region as deserving a recovery from our massive losses, should consider lobbying to have us be forced to succeed from the nation.
Otherwise, it is not fair that American families in previous disasters were treated one way and then in our disaster (caused by engineering errors by federal engineers), the rules suddenly change. We need and deserve our recovery.
Happy Mardi Gras,
Ray Broussard
Ray Broussard on February 5th, 2008 10:49 am:
“Otherwise, it is not fair that American families in previous disasters were treated one way and then in our disaster (caused by engineering errors by federal engineers), the rules suddenly change. We need and deserve our recovery.”
Spoken like a true liberal. You keep calling yourself a “republican” like that is supposed to insulate you from criticism around here. It won’t.
Fact: You chose to live BELOW sea level.
Fact: You relied on someone else to protect you.
Fact: The politicians in Louisiana as well as other groups constantly made the upgrading of the levies difficult by either suing the Corps or spending the money elsewhere.
Fact: The storm came that broke the levies.
Fact: You were flooded.
Fact: This all stems from YOU deciding to live BELOW sea level.
Oh, and you STILL have continued to ignore that there is no provision ANYWHERE in the Constitution that allows for spending a single dime of someone else’s money collected in taxes on your betterment.
With all those facts against you no wonder you continue to ramble on and claiming about being owed something.
A pathetic excuse for an American you are.
Ray’s problem is obvious. His “feelings” are hurt by being told that his own choices put him in a situation that was dangerous for him. his “feelings” are hurt by being told that others should not pay for his poor decisions.
He even implies that he knew the levies were not very good but still continued to live in the flood plain. How utterly idiotic!
You keep digging your own hole Ray. You are one of them “moderate” (ie liberal) Republicans no doubt.
Well, this is why the “Moderator” title exists so I’ll step in.
Ray, a series of facts have been laid out before you. The major facts are that you chose to live in a flood plain and that there is no constitutional authority for you to ask any federal taxpayer to pay for improving (much less even building) levies, repairing them or helping you “recover” from a natural disaster.
Those are the facts. They are indisputable. Keep that in mind next time you post a comment and try to stick to those facts please.
RonniesRayGun (moderator) on February 5th, 2008 10:58 am:
“Spoken like a true liberal. You keep calling yourself a “republican” like that is supposed to insulate you from criticism around here. It won’t.”
It should be pointed out that this site is called American “Conservative” Daily, not American “Republican” Daily. he seems confused.
I think the answer is clear. Put Ray and all the rest of them under a big glass dome 40 ft thick like the Simpson’s Movie. That way they can never have any harm ever come upon them ever again by anything bad that might ever happen.
I left that town twenty years ago to get away from this entitlement mentality. Never looked back.
In Pittsburgh, liberal hell hole that it is, we have a series of locks and damns to help with flood control along the rivers. They are properly engineered. Yet each and ever year from November to April the rivers flood several times and people that continue to live along the shores wonder why they have swimming pools in their basements.
Some people just never learn. They just rebuild and think that their improvements will protect them. Then a bigger storm hits, the waters flood higher and they have that swimming pool again.
It is never their fault however. Oh perish the thought!
So, Ray thinks that he should be able to sue the United States Government and the tax payers (like myself) who fund it to correct for his own bad judgment? What a crock of excrement!
I should not have to pay for your mistakes. And I wouldn’t have before America became a bunch of helpless children.
People wonder why we have a $3 trillion dollar budget. It’s because everyone has their hand out and thinks that they are entitled.
We rebuilt after Katrina. We didn’t ask for a dime from the government. Of course I’m from Mississippi and we were hit harder than New Orleans was where I am. But we planned ahead. We bought insurance that covered just such an instance. We didn’t sit around with our hand out after staring at a levy for years.
A fellow US Citizen said:
Fact: You were flooded.
Fact: This all stems from YOU deciding to live BELOW sea level.
Oh, and you STILL have continued to ignore that there is no provision ANYWHERE in the Constitution that allows for spending a single dime of someone else’s money collected in taxes on your betterment.
With all those facts against you no wonder you continue to ramble on and claiming about being owed something.
A pathetic excuse for an American you are.
My response:
Again, consider the china shop rule. You broke it, you bought it. You don’t want to buy it? Fine, but please leave the store and stop breaking stuff. At least let the proprieter have the broken pieces - make us succeded from the nation if you don’t want this community where about half of us live below sea level. You don’t need us. We are a drain. We are undesirable. Let us go.
Ray Broussard
Another judgmental US Citizen said:
You keep digging your own hole Ray. You are one of them “moderate” (ie liberal) Republicans no doubt.
my response:
You are correct. I plan to vote for McCain if given the chance. Since the federal floods, I’ve encountered a lot of unreasonable hostitlity from ‘republicans’ that I’ve become very disefranchized by all the republicans that assume they know what they are talking about when it comes to the many flood and recovery related issues concerning my community. I’ve been very offended. At first, I was shocked and surprised that our man made disaster became a partisan issue.
you said:
than New Orleans was where I am. But we planned ahead. We bought insurance that covered just such an instance. We didn’t sit around with our hand out after staring at a levy for years.
I say:
If you knew anything about our situation, you would at least know how to spell the five letter word ‘levee’. I had insurance. I wish I had had more. We’re $250k in the hole because of the flood. We tore down our flooded home and rebuilt as best we could manage - above the federal flood line as to try to prevent the Corps from taking our home and everything we ever worked for again. Forgetabout us moving elsewhere. Our families are here as they have been for 250 years. I wish the Corps would tear down all the levees south of Baton Rouge so as to let our natural storm surge buffer rebuilt itself. I’m perfectly willing to suffer through annual floods or live on a boat - here. Please, we don’t need the Corps ‘help’ with their flood control projects in South Louisiana - it only leads to a false sense of security. Our levees were only designed to look like levees. They were not the engineered structures we were led to believe.
Ray Broussard
Our moderator wrote:
Well, this is why the “Moderator” title exists so I’ll step in.
Ray, a series of facts have been laid out before you. The major facts are that you chose to live in a flood plain and that there is no constitutional authority for you to ask any federal taxpayer to pay for improving (much less even building) levies, repairing them or helping you “recover” from a natural disaster.
Those are the facts. They are indisputable. Keep that in mind next time you post a comment and try to stick to those facts please.
I say:
I know where I am at. And, as shown by the many responses to my posts, y’all seem to be enjoying my interaction - it is giving you a chance to express your opinions with greater depth and the discussion is worthwhile - while at the same time, pointless. I would be surprised if y’all moderated my posts.
I’ll address the facts:
‘you chose to live in a flood plain’
TRUE
‘there is no constitutional authority for you to ask any federal taxpayer to pay for improving (much less even building) levies, repairing them or helping you “recover” from a natural disaster.’
TRUE - except for your view that this was a natural disaster. Please research that part of your fact further. And, why is it that midwesterners are helped to recover from tornados, east coasters from hurricanes and west coasters from earthquakes and fires, but people want to deny recovery to New Orleanians suffering total destruction due to this man made disaster.
If you feel absolutly no one should be helped by government after either a natural or man made disaster - then I am cool with your attitude about New Orleans.
Do y’all seriously expect this vital to the nation city to pick up and move? At our own expense? Why? I wouldn’t choose to live anywhere else in the world? This is our home. Rather than running away to somewhere aledgedly safer, we rebuilt higher - on our flooded Pre-K lot. Is that not the responsible thing to do? I couldnt really afford to do anything else. I never had a better choice.
What do y’all want us to do? What would you do?
Ray Broussard
Every time you post you sound more and more like a liberal. You can’t even accept the truth. Well you do, then you ignore it.
You admit that there is not constitutional authority to spend money and then complain that because it was a natural disaster, that there should be an exception. But there isn’t.
Its the State’s responsibility. It’s called Amendment X to the Constitution.
You are trying to have your cake and eat it too. You can’t. You want the federal tax payers to basically be required to help you when the federal government has no authority to tell them to help you.
And your attitude is clear:
“Do y’all seriously expect this vital to the nation city to pick up and move? At our own expense? Why? I wouldn’t choose to live anywhere else in the world? This is our home.”
No one said that. You are putting words in people’s mouths to try and continue an argument you have admitted you lost but won’t admit you lost at the same time. We expect you to take responsibility to live with the choices you make.
You chose to live in a flood plain. You chose to have to pay the cost to rebuild when you are flooded.
Here’s the gist I get from Ray’s incoherent babbling.
He new the levees were bad, poorly constructed and not being fixed. He said to Hell with it because he likes living where he does and decided to live in the flood plain anyway. He thinks other people should be responsible to cover his expenses that he didn’t get covered. He is one of those “Republicans” that would as soon vote for a man that has similar ideas about the Constitution as he does - its not really important. He is offended that anyone would take offense to not wanting to pay for his incompetence.
Hmmm. Basically he has the same theory about America as Hillary Clinton and Obama do.
Ah, America is becoming such a lovely place to live these days. Better enjoy America while we still have some of it left.
you said:
‘You admit that there is not constitutional authority to spend money and then complain that because it was a natural disaster, that there should be an exception. But there isn’t.’
I Say:
Again, IT WAS NOT A NATURAL DISASTER. I say the party responsible for the damage should act responsibly and compensate the damaged party for their losses. Yes, that is my position. Yes, I understand you feel differently. If the responsible party refusses to act responsibly then the affected region should be forced to succeed from the nation. Chop us off. Get rid of us. Make sure we don’t come back to the trough to leach off of you ever again. Wash your hands of our problematic region. Why not? Would not our succession benefit the United States?
Ray Broussard
lifelong New Orleanian
Do any of y’all support the forced succession of our flood prone region? Wouldn’t that be best for the United States in the long run?
One other thing: Just to let you know, both Clinton and Obama scare the hell out of me and I would NEVER vote for either. But, as always, I will vote for whomever I deem to be the lesser of the evils.
Ray Broussard
never claimed to be a true conservative - I’m nothing more than a relativly loyal republican sharing views with serious conservatives.
Ray Broussard on February 6th, 2008 12:18 pm:
“Again, IT WAS NOT A NATURAL DISASTER.”
Uh, hurricanes are natural disasters bub.
“If the responsible party refusses to act responsibly then the affected region should be forced to succeed from the nation.”
Uh, Ray, from what I can tell most people here agree that the “responsible party” should pay. That responsible party however is you. You just don’t want to admit it.
No one held a gun to your head and forced you to live there. Knowing that you are responsible for you own actions.
Ray Broussard on February 6th, 2008 12:36 pm:
“Do any of y’all support the forced succession of our flood prone region? Wouldn’t that be best for the United States in the long run?”
And so he begins rambling incoherently …
Ray: “Would not our succession benefit the United States?”
No. Your acceptance of being responsible for your own choices and decisions would benefit the United States however.
“If the responsible party refusses to act responsibly then the affected region should be forced to succeed from the nation.”
I would love to hear how I, as a tax payer living in Montana am “responsible” for you being a moron and living in a flood plain.
Ray, you claim that you would never vote for Hillary or Obama. Yet you support the same sort of usurpation of the Constitution as they do and redistributing wealth from other tax payers into your pocket.
Me thinks you doth protest too much.
Let’s remember. Lots of areas of New Orleans were not flooded because they were above the flood lines. I, as someone that used to live there, take great offense at his assertions made in comment after comment above. New Orleans doesn’t need to be forgotten or cut loose from America. What the people living in the flood prone areas down there need to do is move out of the flood prone areas.
Does that mean you might have to live a little further from the city you love. Yes. Does it mean that you greatly reduce the pain of being flooded out again. Yes.
Duh! It is so simple!
prince said:
Uh, hurricanes are natural disasters bub.
ray says:
The hurrican missed New Orleans. A levee’s purpose is to stand up to water pressing against the structure. If a levee is overtopped the water rushing over the levee can lesson the structural integrity and the levee and it might breech, but never should such a structure simply fall down before even being overtopped - which happened in 50+ places during Hurrican Katrina - the first time those levees ever encountered water. Investigators determined the cause of the failures and these failures were directly attributed to many many engineering errors and negligence by many many US Army Corps of Engineers engineers and managers over the four decades since they were directed by Congress to provide storm surge protection against a ‘100 year’ storm.
Yes, I understand your position that I was stupid and irresponsible to believe these federal engineers and many government agencies and politicians that said our levee system would stand up when confronted with water. I agree. I was a total idiot to believe (and I believed) the levees were sound. I totally believed they would remain upright and that at worst, their was a chance that some might be overtopped a few hours during a storm. I knew that if overtopping occured, a breech would be more likely. I had no idea they would fall down like a house of cards without even being overtopped. I trully wished that when we bought our home twenty years ago that we had chosen one of the ‘raised basement’ styled homes that are so popular in New Orleans - like what we now have. We were very surprised when our house suddenly had seven feet of water inside for alomst a month. Yea. Shoulda, coulda, but didn’t. But, how was I to know? We were naturally concerned about the soundness of our levees, but having lived in this flood zone for fifty years, without a flooding problem and never being warned by the Corps or any government entity that the levees were not anything close to approaching adequacy, we beleived they were structurally sound. Jeez, were we ever stupid or what?
I think my mistake was that I trusted the governement and the4 general competancy of governement workers because I worked for the Navy and Marines for many years and I knew how those departments tried to do the right thing. The Army’s Corps is an animal with very different stripes. They are incompetant liers incapable of sound engineering. No one living behind any Corps designed/built flood protection structure is safe. Such people must take flood protection as a personal responsibility. That fact is now clear as a bell to me.
We are very thankful to finally be back in our rebuilt home. And, we sincerely appreciated all the help we received from family, clients and the thousands of volunteers from church groups and others across the country. We really needed the help. It has been a very expensive, humiliating & painful experience. We lost some of our family’s old folks to the Post-K pain. Our teen age kids are not doing as well in school as before the storm. My mortgage is double the balance and term that it was, business is off, but like it or not, we are doing the best we can to recover. I heve no expectation of being compensated for my losses by the party responsible for my damage, but I know in my heart that what happened was not my fault as you seem to believe.
What would you do if you were one of us New Orleans homeowners?
former said:
cut loose from America. What the people living in the flood prone areas down there need to do is move out of the flood prone areas.
Does that mean you might have to live a little further from the city you love. Yes. Does it mean that you greatly reduce the pain of being flooded out again. Yes.
Duh! It is so simple!
Ray says:
I agree. Finally a reasonable voice on this forum. folks should take responsibility for the potential to be flooded and should rebuild housing as to avoid the damage of a flood. However, since I cannot afford to move to higher ground, is it not just as prudent for me to rebuild at the same location, but well elevated above the flood line? That is what we did - took responsibility for the probability that the same thing might happen again - and it cost a lot of my money to build higher - we had to rebuild with a 25% smaller home in order to afford being higher, but we probably won’t have unaffordable losses next time during the next levee failure.
Ray Broussard
“I agree. Finally a reasonable voice on this forum. folks should take responsibility for the potential to be flooded and should rebuild housing as to avoid the damage of a flood.” -Ray
Ray, there are lots of “reasonable” voices here. It is you that is being unreasonable. Don’t think that praising me will get you any brownie points. You are still a sniveling liberal who needs to learn how to be responsible.
“However, since I cannot afford to move to higher ground, is it not just as prudent for me to rebuild at the same location, but well elevated above the flood line?” - Ray
Yet you have plenty of time to screw around defending liberalism and socialism on a blog. I think we have found the problem here. Maybe if you stopped trying to defend and indefensible position and get to work you could afford to move. Just maybe.
All you’ve proven is that you are irresponsible whiner.
moderator says:
Ray Broussard on February 6th, 2008 12:36 pm:
“Do any of y’all support the forced succession of our flood prone region? Wouldn’t that be best for the United States in the long run?”
And so he begins rambling incoherently
Ray says:
Why do you say that? My suggestion is logical.
If you don’t want the region inhabited by US Citizens, why not fix that problem and cut us loose? What value do we have to the United States? Aren’t we just a liability? Why force more federal flood protection upon us, then not build it so it is structurally sound? Why invest anything in our recovery? Why do y’all want us as part of the United States? I just don’t get it?
P.S. TO MONTANA
I don’t hold you responsible for my losses. It is unfortunate for you that you are the financial backer for the entity responsible for my losses - if we are compensated for our losses. However, the US Army Corps of Engineers absolutly caused my damage as well as the damage of over 100,000 other flood damaged families. If I come to your house and accidently marinate it with seven feet of salt water for a month, would you think I should act respnsibly for my behavior and compensate you for your losses? What would you expect of government if the Army accidently bombed your home?
Ray Broussard
Ray Broussard on February 6th, 2008 1:11 pm:
“The hurrican missed New Orleans.”
No Ray. The “eye” of the hurricane missed New Orleans. The hurricane did hit the city. Just not head on. You know all that rain that was falling? It wasn’t God pissing on you. It was Katrina!
And he posts again … wasting even more time when he could be bettering his situation. Instead he chooses to whine like a good little liberal.
To quote Reagan: “There are no easy answers’ but there are simple answers.”
Moving from the flood prone areas isn’t easy and it may not be cheap. But it is the right (and simplest) answer.
Ray asks the silly question of me, “What would you expect of government if the Army accidently(sic) bombed your home?”
First of all Ray, before you pick on other people and their spelling (as you have) make sure you don’t also make spelling mistakes there.
My answer is that if the government bombed my home, considering that I did not buy a home in the shadow of a bomb making facility or near a military bombing range, I think most Americans would actually be outraged. There is a world of difference between what you did by not taking responsibility and this silly hypothetical. And that’s why you see all the responses here going the opposite way and expressing outrage at you.
There is a difference between putting yourself in harms way knowingly (like you) and complete and utter accidents (like your hypothetical).
Accidents are accidents. But when you do a high wire act without a net and fall it isn’t an accident.
@ Dugan: that’s Occum’s Razor: The simplest answer is the right answer.
@ Repperdir: You’re using logic. Ray doesn’t understand logic.
Ray, you’re good for a laugh. Too bad most Americans think like you.
I particularly enjoy how you try to equate an accident with predictable natural disasters that happen year after year and decade after decade. Live in the Gulf Coast States along the water? You’re going to get his with hurricanes. Live in the middle of BFE and you’re not going to get bombs dropped on you by the government in all likelihood ever in your lifetime. They are not the same nor are they even remotely equivalent.
But beyond that, the Corp of Engineers builds the breaks to keep the water back. You decide to live there knowing full well that if they ever failed you’d be flooded. When the levies break you cry foul because you think that somehow it is the American tax payer’s fault that you chose to live there.
It has been asked often already and bears repeating. What makes myself, as a taxpayer (but I live in Maine), responsible to you for your bad choices? You said you felt sorry that we as taxpayers are funding the Corp of Engineers, but apparently not sorry enough not to ask us to pay your way.
BFE!?!?!?!?!?!?!
Hey Montana isn’t the end of the world … you can see it from here - but it’s not the end of the world
“There is a difference between putting yourself in harms way knowingly (like you) and complete and utter accidents (like your hypothetical).”
This goes to the root of this issue Repperdir. What Americans are getting sick and tired of is busting their hump while people like Ray who admits he doesn’t have enough money yet spends lots of time on the internet not doing anything to make more money sit around and put themselves in harms way and then want payouts once that harm happens.
What happened in New Orleans wasn’t an accident. It was a predictable natural disaster and everyone living there with an IQ over 5 knew it. Once they put themselves knowingly in harms way all bets are off. Taxpayers should not be held accountable for their own stupidity.
Just so everyone knows, Ray tripped our granular spam filter which starts to watch people very closely that post repeatedly in the same thread over very short periods of time. Eventually he was posting so many responses so fast that he finally built up enough bad karma that it popped on him.
I was going to release him from being banned but after discussing it with the other moderators we have decided not to based on the following:
Ray admitted in one of his responses caught by the filter that he didn’t want to work harder and that indeed he was screwing around wasting time here which he blamed on it being Ash Wednesday blah, blah and then continued to push for others to pay his way. With that response he was basically saying that those that have raised this point were right, but that he didn’t care and was going to carry on anyway.
Ray also started pulling the typical tactic of most liberals and accused people of calling him names. The name he was called? “Liberal”. Which is a fairly accurate representation of his self admitted views. It would be like him taking offense at being called Ray, even though that is his name.
After reviewing his positions and his admission to basically being lazy and not caring it was determined that his comments were turning basically into nothing more than trolling (i.e. being argumentative for the sake of being argumentative) and had no real purpose. So we left him where he put himself.
I know Ray has gotten himself banned, but I am going to add my wisdom to this thread. According to Ray’s “logic” the following would be true.
I go shopping for a car which has certain mechanical limitations that are known (just like the flood walls in New Orleans had certain structural limitations that were known). But I buy it anyway (just like Ray bought his home behind the flood walls). Then one day we get a really bad storm in the middle of winter (much like Katrina hitting New Orleans) that exceeds the limitations of the vehicle, have a wreck, cause a lot of damage to the car and get very hurt.
By Ray’s logic, it is the car manufacturer’s fault that they didn’t design and sell a car capable of handling any situation that it could possibly be put into. This is exactly what he is saying. He bought a house behind a flood wall that had limitations. When the device failed now he wants to blame the people that built it even though, as I previously stated, money to fix it was diverted to other projects and people stood in the way of the government fixing the flood walls. But somehow it is still the government’s fault.
However what he has learned, I think, is that his position is not overly widely held which is why he started to basically troll and make frivilous arguments. We see this a lot from people that come here and think they are capable of holding down an argument but really aren’t.
Let us not rewrite history. After Katrina hit the Gulf Coast States there was a flood of aid and money from private individuals and companies to the area. Convoys of trucks left from all points around the country and delivered the things that residents needed in order to not have to worry about basic necessities and instead could focus on rebuilding. Heck, even truck loads of supplies to actually rebuild arrived in the area.
Many Americans did this despite having upwards of 25% of their paychecks taken by the federal government already.
Some areas took advantage of this help and picked themselves up (Mississippi in general). Others however are still complaining and sitting around with their hands out (New Orleans in general). There is no reason it should take a decade for New Orleans to recover if the people that lived there helped themselves and recovered.
The generosity of the American people is great, but it is not unlimited. Those with their hands out are learning that these days and are kicking and screaming all the way. We help our fellow man to learn how to fish, but once it is clear that he will not fish our patience grows thin and we leave them to fend for themselves.
Demanding someone else pay for your mistakes is easy. Being responsible and taking the bloody nose from your own bad choices however is hard.
It is safe to say that most people are tired of people not being responsible and trying to take advantage of their generosity.