New Orleans Street Thugs w/guns Shooting at Evacuation Helicopters? POLL: The Remedy?

A CNN news report stated that all the guns from local Wal-Mart stores had been looted by local street thugs, who are now using them to shoot at evacuation helicopters.

Two courses of action:

1. Republican Course of Action: Give them one opportunity to lay down the stolen weapons. If they do so, then prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. If they do not, "take them out," then continue with the evacuation and rebuilding of a civilized region.

2. Democrat Course of Action: Provide them with ample ammunition, food, social programs, federal aid and negotiate with them for a minimum of five years. After five years, looking in retrospect, tell them they were not responsible for their actions, after all, it was GWB's fault.

 

After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, the last time that a major American city went off-line, the US Army was sent in, martial law was declared and a proclamation was made that looters would be summarily shot.

That would probably be legally impossible today as it would deny looting suspects due process of law etc.

At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, San Francisco residents were awakened by a 40-second tremor... The earthquake is estimated to have measured 8.3 on the Richter scale, which had not yet been invented. Survivors saw the ground move in waves... Fires broke out soon after the earthquake... In a desperate attempt to contain the fire, firefighters began to dynamite buildings in its path...

Mayor Eugene A. Schmitz decreed that all looters would be shot. He also imposed a dawn-to-dusk curfew. Most San Franciscans obeyed the laws; only nine were shot for looting. Most waited until they were certain their homes would be burned. Then they would leave, carrying as many possessions as they could.

By the evening of April 18th, 1,700 soldiers had arrived in San Francisco to assist both residents and the firefighters. Brigadier General Frederick Funston took over command of the city and declared martial law.

After raging uncontrolled for three days, the fire finally burned itself out by the morning of April 21st. Destruction in its 4.7-square-mile path was complete. More than 28,000 buildings had been destroyed, resulting in an estimated $500 million in damage -- an amount equal to the federal budget of 1906.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/ansel/peopleevents/e_earthquake.html

 

Russell,

With all due respect, but are you absolutely sure that is the Democratic and Republican response? Do you speak for all groups? Do you think that response was necessary? We are in a time of crisis, partisianship should be left at the door. This is from a citizen of Houston and have relatives that are staying with me from New Orleans. Please think before post. Just my two cents.

 

One more item. Are you in New Orleans? Are you without food and water? Are you homeless? Are you now unemployed? I dont condone the use of guns nor the looting, but the human condition is a frail one. It can be broken and strengthened by the slightest of margins. If you were trying to be funny and cute, it failed with this board member. Thank you kindly.

 

Well, since we're politicizing it...here goes:
Republican response: The shooters are in New Orleans...attack Pensacola.

 

Prefect answer!

Deb

 

^5!

 

Oh, dear. The Pensacola thing is funny. Despite everything, it's funny.

Bill raises an interesting question: what happens to due process when martial law is declared? Does it still exist? How is it modified by such a declaration?

Tireman, I'm glad your relatives are safe. I'm getting calls from parishioners reporting on relatives--so far so good. There is great concern over "no news" from one of our pastors in the NO area.

 

Originally posted by Russell:
A CNN news report stated that all the guns from local Wal-Mart stores had been looted by local street thugs, who are now using them to shoot at evacuation helicopters.

Two courses of action:

1. Republican Course of Action: Give them one opportunity to lay down the stolen weapons. If they do so, then prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. If they do not, "take them out," then continue with the evacuation and rebuilding of a civilized region.

2. Democrat Course of Action: Provide them with ample ammunition, food, social programs, federal aid and negotiate with them for a minimum of five years. After five years, looking in retrospect, tell them they were not responsible for their actions, after all, it was GWB's fault.


__________________
Russell

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Russell,

I am very surprised and shocked at your comments.

Sensitivity, Sensitivity, Sensitivity

 

Tireman-

Your liberal over-sensitivity is showing ("the human condition is a frail one").

Your trouble is that you would treat adults as though they were children. Such infantilization promotes role-confusion. Role-confusion results in social breakdown, and social breaksown causes the crime we see today in NO.

If we are to enjoy the rule of law, society needs rules and rule followers instead of impulsive, romanticized (think: rap music) "rebels." According to the NO ambulance authority interviewed on FoxNews tonight, people from hospitals are dying merely because thugs you appear to empathise with are are taking pot-shots at Coast Guard rescue 'copters. In one case, he said, a large group of tuffs rushed one hospital's roof, preventing evac of the very ill, and some people are now dead. Yet you oppose the promotion of self-control because you don't want to hurt feelings???

So, the liberal IS part of the problem in socially succoring stupid, psychotic confusion, keeping the underclass down and class-less

-Orson
PS to Khan, et al. Perhaps I'm too close to people in the area, but I didn't get your "humor." And what I did get wasn't humorous - but tragic.

 

Hmm. Not too patronizing.

Oh. My. God. That is, without a doubt, the most convoluted, cockeyed, absurd, laughable piece of knuckleheaded, circular logic that I have ever read here. And that's really sayin' somethin'!

[shakes head in disbelief]

So, right out of the gate, I caution the reader to consider the source. But I digress.

Oh. My. God. Again.

People are dying, first and foremost, because this catastrophe is actually big enough that no matter what anyone does, people are gonna' die. That's just a fact.

But, in addition...

People are dying because during the past five years your president redirected funds to Iraq that were earmarked to upgrade and maintain the very levee that failed and is the primary source of the flooding. They're dying because what we have, here, is a Republican war for oil company profits while New Orleans sinks beneath the waters and threatens to go the way of Atlantis.

People are dying because Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld didn't listen to his own generals when they told him that there were not enough troops in Iraq to get the job done; and so he called-up most of America's national guardsmen to be in Iraq instead of back home, where they belong. Now those guardsment are sitting in the Iraqi desert, helplessly watching images of friends and loved ones back home, stranded -- and, now, even dying -- in what is fast becoming an unfathomable third-world-like scene right here on U.S. soil. Fewer than 200 national guardsmen were covering the entire downtown area yesterday... while the rest of them were caught-up in the Iraqi quagmire thousands of miles away, worrying about their loved ones, unable to do anything to help them, and knowing that that's really where they belong.

People are dying because all the military helicopters that should be dropping sandbags onto the levees, as New Orleans's mayor had always expected they'd be available to do; or that should be swooping-in and delivering pallets of food, water and medical supplies to the good, stranded, and now-dying citizens of New Orleans, are on a fool's errand thousands of miles away in Iraq.

People are dying because, on your president's watch, FEMA has become mismanaged and grossly inept; and the Army Corps of Engineers has become verily dysfunctional... its leader, former Mississippi Republican Rep. Michael Parker, having been forced to resign in 2002 as head of the Army Corps of Engineers because he criticized Bush administration cuts to hurricane preparation and flood control.

People are dying because New Orleans is largely populated by people of color who tend not to vote for those currently in power; and those currently in power have abject disdain for said voters of color. Speaker-of-the-House Dennis Hastert (R., Ill) let slip the true attitude of the Right currently in power toward the working poor and others whom they know they don't represent when he said this week, and I quote, "It looks like a lot of that place could be bulldozed"... a thoughtless, heartless, careless comment that betrayed neo-con sensibilities; and which Hastert's press secretary hastily retracted later because even he knew his boss had crossed a terrible line.

If the hurricane and subsequent flooding had been in Florida, where brother Jeb has an image to maintain; or if it had been in virtually any city that wasn't so blue -- and black -- there'd be two national guardsmen per citizen, pallets of food and supplies on every corner, first-aid stations and medical personnel everywhere, and unquestionable plans to rebuild.

You've really got it wrong, Orson... so wrong, in fact, that it almost can't be argued with because you're willing to state as fact -- and with a straight face -- the outragious and ridiculous.

 

As I stated, please dont let partisianship dictate our decisions. You can label me all you want, but you are failing to realize that labels will not help the people on the Gulf Coast. Labels will not fix the houses. Labels will not erase the pain. You catagorize as a liberal, but am I? Do you know all my beliefs? I think not. Let me try this little history lesson for you Orson.


FDR- New Deal- Social Security was only supposed to be a safety net. It was only supposed to addition to income. In those days, families took care of the elderly. During the Depression, it became increasingly difficult to take care of them by the families. Social Security was supposed to be a supplement. Supplemental income. Many of our senior citizens have used it as income entirely.

LBJ-Great Society- Welfare was supposed to be a supplemental. This was not supposed to a permanant solution. It was supposed to help until jobs were found or situations got better.

I will not stand idly by as people have no where to go. Welfare does work when used right. I am not "quibblin" people. I believe in helping those who need it.