And it's about the hurricane. Sorry for the downer. Don't worry, though. The two new Cash's Asa did are definite uppers. And how about these polka-dotted borders? Pretty neat, eh folks (read: Jeff and Liz)?

Anyway, these two seemingly contradictory statements illustrate where my own often hypocritical double-standard-loving self stands philosophically on the issue of New Orleans' disaster.

From Mark Steyn:

The big lesson of September 11th, in fact, is in the end, the more the people are self-reliant, and take control for themselves, the more they're likely to be able to withstand these things. If you entrust yourself to the government, then you will be vulnerable. The people who owned reviled SUV's, that the environmentalists want to get rid of and want to ban, they were able to drive away from the city. The people who were dependent on public transit, and did what the government did, and went into this appalling situation in the Superdome, they're the ones that have been failed by their governments.

SUV-loving aside, I like this passage for its committment to libertarianism.

Now, here's Andrew Sullivan:

Real conservatives believe that the state should do a few things that no one else can do - defense, decent public education, police, law and order among the most obvious - and leave the rest to individuals. Funding FEMA and having a superb civil defense are very much part of conservatism's real core. It's when government decides to reshape society, redistribute wealth, socially engineer, and take over functions that the private sector can do just as well that conservatives draw the line. The reason I'm mad as hell over Katrina is precisely because I'm a conservative and this kind of thing is exactly what government is for. Bush in this sense is not now and never has been a conservative. A man who explodes government spending but can't run a war or organize basic civil defense is simply a fiscally reckless incompetent. If this were a parliamentary system, we'd have a vote of no confidence. Instead we have three years of more peril.

Intellectually I'm libertarian, but politically I'm more...jeeze I really don't know. Anyway, Sullivan's passage illustrates the terrible failings of the Bush Admin with regard to A. Conservatism and B. Its BASIC CIVIC DUTIES. Ignore all the debates over health care, school vouchers, midnight basketball, or whatever the hell else we're debating regarding inner-cities. At the very least, the government must always be able to offer a base level of efficient and effective protection for its poorest citizens. When you call the cops, the good guys should come.

Another analogy: A poor American may not have health insurance, but he still has access to some form of health care. He won't be turned away from an emergency room and denied the most advanced medical infrastructure in the world. New Orleans is a case of the poor being denied both figurative "health insurance" and figurative "emergency health care." These people were indeed locked out of the ER. Steyn's commitment to overwhelming libertarianism is philosophically admirable, but in practice it's inherently unstable and often leads to Darwinistic anarchy.