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"DON'T ARREST THEM, BEAT THEM" [Jonah Goldberg]
Email from a reader about the great Chief Greenberg:
It's interesting that no one has yet remarked on the behavior of recently-retired Charleston police Chief Reuben Greenberg during Hurricane Hugo in 1989. When the eye of that Category 4 storm passed over the city and offered a half-hour of calm, Greenberg sent out a paddy wagon to round up looters. It got as far as the entrance to the police lot, which was flooded (the police HQ in Charleston is on reclaimed landfill - not below sea level, but not above it by much). He was able to get on the horn to his lieutenants around town with the order: "Don't arrest [looters]; beat them. We don't have any place for them in our jails." I credit the attitude espoused in those lines - a refusal, even in the eye of the storm - to tolerate lawlessness, with the subsequent quality of the response. The National Guard was called in immediately, especially on the barrier islands that had lost their bridges to the mainland (I remember taking our boat to inspect our beach house two days later and being politely told to inspect and leave by the Guard troops on Sullivans Island. Though the entire response in the Charleston area was phenomenal, Chief Greenberg and Mayor Joe Riley were phenomenally strong that horrible night, and they facilitated the rebuilding effort that has led to the Charleston that has developed today. Their response was pure Giuliani - before there was a Giuliani.
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NOT A NATIONAL DISGRACE [Rich Lowry]
A dissent from this column I wrote yesterday:
It is not. It is - or ought to be - a disgrace and an embarrassment to Louisiana and New Orleans. I see the way Florida prepares for and responds to hurricanes; I see the way Mississippi and Alabama are dealing with this one; I've seen the Carolinas and Virginia deal with hurricanes, too. I've been in Miami and Norfolk when hurricanes hit, though not as severe as this one, and seen folks come together to support each other in the crisis. I see the outpouring of support from surrounding states and from the federal government heading to Louisiana as fast as it can. And then I see citizens of New Orleans shooting, raping, burning, and plundering while their government officials stand by helplessly....
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Mandatory evacuation ordered for New Orleans
8/28/2005, 10:48 a.m. CT
The Associated Press
Gov. Kathleen Blanco, standing beside the mayor at a news conference, said President Bush called and personally appealed for a mandatory evacuation for the low-lying city, which is prone to flooding.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/
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The last one the real kicker.
ReplyDeleteConsider this:
1. Katrina passes over FL as a Cat. 1.
2. Immediately NOAA starts saying it will mature into a Cat 5.
3. The mayor has a full week to evacuate his city, while the press discusses the worst case scenario for all to see.
4. Eventually, he calls for evacuations.
5. Bush personally calls for a mandatory evacuation.
6. The mayor tells folks who can't leave where to go. His city (to this very day) is full of school buses that went unused in this crisis. Ergo, he had the means availabe to move at least some of those people out. He and his government did not avail himself of those means.
7. On Day 4, the mayor, the Congressional Black Caucus, and (insert name of liberal commentator here) all begin complaining the President and the adminstration is at fault.
This, folks, is what happens when mayors don't take care of their poor citizens and when they don't do what they are asked to do from the beginning. There's plenty of blame to go around on all sides right now, but many of those doing the complaining have their fair share as well.
I'm waiting for Steve's comments on Kanye West's recent diatribe against Bush ("doesn't care about black people").
ReplyDeleteI was going to post a link to my comments of the bilge pump of stupidity that is coming from places like the Huffington Post, but you guys have covered it.
ReplyDeletesteve said...
ReplyDeleteJonathan,
In answer to your question, this is how I responded to something a liberal friend sent me. (Yes, I do have a token liberal friend. Not something we discuss in front of the children.)
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Sorry, but I don't see where your going with this.
1. New Orleans was a disaster waiting to happen. The levees were only designed to withstand a Cat-3 hurricane. Instead of upgrading the levees, the citizens of NO chose to sink public funds into a Superdome.
If you tempt fate often enough, fate will succumb to temptation.
2. Why didn't the major and city council have had some rudimentary disaster preparedness contingency plans in place, like a siren system in case a levee broke?
This really is a local responsibility. It isn't the job of the Fed gov't to wetnurse and micromanage every municipality.
3. The citizens of NO had advance warning that a Cat-5 hurricane was on an intercept course for their fair city. The prudent thing to do in that situation is to pack your valuables and head out of town.
Mind you, one reason people don't leave is fear that their homes and businesses will be looted. NO has 10 times the national crime rate. We all saw the looters doing their thing with immunity. Even the local police were looting stores.
If local law enforcement hadn't allowed crime to spiral out of control years before, it wouldn't have been ripe for looters--not to mention snipers firing on relief workers.
4. Playing the race card about "poor and black" gets to be patronizing after a while. To the extent that we have economic disparities, it has, in large part, to do with lifestyles choices. If you're a high school dropout or a single unwed mother, your job prospects are limited.
In regions of the deep South, blacks are in a demographic position to elect their own mayors, city councilmen, lawmakers, judges, school superintendents, the police chief, fire-chief, &c. And, in fact, they do that on a regular basis.
I'd add that I don't see the liberal pundits rolling up their sleeves and rushing down to NO to help out with the relief effort; instead, they do what liberals always to, which is to tell other people to roll of their sleeves and go fix the problem.
ReplyDeleteNow CNN is saying, "It seems like the Tsunami victims were treated better."
ReplyDeleteHmmm, the Tsunami victims' villages and infrastructure was washed away into the ocean. The Tsunami victims didn't find themselves waist high in toxic water and muck for days on end afterwards. The Tsunami victims had no real warning this was coming and therefore no time to evacuate. One could go on and on and on.