Fringe bytes
Select morsels from the lunatic right
September 9, 2005
New Orleans
I have never lived in nor have I ever visited New Orleans. I don't first-hand know its sights, sounds or people. I must ask: What was it in that city that, after the storm had passed, quickly made men embrace savagery? What caused people there to rape and to murder, to steal from the desperate, to loot things unconnected to survival? What caused organized groups of people to attempt murder on those coming to save them? Why didn't their neighbors - the good people- band together to stop them from doing those things? The answer is simple: For the last forty years they had been taught by the creators of the Welfare State that they were permanently absolved from the responsibility of tending to their lives.
-- Rocco DiPippo, “A Tale of Two Hurricanes,” Frontpage, 09/06/05
There are a few simple things Congress could do immediately to facilitate the rebuilding effort in the private sector. For example, the entire storm region could be turned into an enterprise zone, suspending burdensome federal regulations, such as the Davis-Bacon Act and the Jones Act. Also, onerous regulations imposed by the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communication Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency could be suspended…
For example, the individual income tax and the death tax could be suspended for people living in the storm region. Rules relating to retirement accounts could be relaxed to give people access to capital…
Displaced individuals could be given education vouchers they could use to enroll their children in schools anywhere in the country.
-- Jack Kemp, “Imagining the Unimaginable,” Townhall, 09/05/05
If police officers are authorized to shoot looters, this intelligence will spread quickly among the criminal population. The free-for-all will come to an abrupt end.
-- Mona Charen, “Shoot Looters,” Townhall, 09/02/05
Instead, what has struck me about this disaster is that it has demonstrated what Second Amendment defenders have been saying for years.
--Laura HirschfieldHollis, Katrina and the 2nd Amendment, Townhall, 09/04/05
The reason New Orleans slid so quickly from civilization into Third World conditions was that it was pretty much a Third World city already, and didn't have too far to go. In its violence, in its corruption, in its reliance on ambience and tourism as its critical industry, in its one-party rule, in its model of graftocracy built on a depressed and crime-ridden underclass that was largely kept out of the sight and the mind of vacationing revelers, it was much more like a Caribbean resort than a normal American city. Its crime and murder rates were way above national averages, its corruption level astounding…
-- Noemie Emery, “A Two-City Tale,” The Weekly Standard, 09/06/05
How then shall we look at New Orleans and the devastation that occurred? If we look at this as one event in the long history of the world, and then look in the Bible to see how this might be an early warning of God’s judgment, we might look at the final judgment in Revelation 18:10-11: "For in one hour your judgment has come. And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her.
This description fits what happened to New Orleans and many people might say that New Orleans would be a good candidate for an early warning. Its immorality, corruption, and crime are legendary. Nevertheless, for nearly a century God spared the city from major hurricanes that everyone agreed would destroy it. When He finally did allow a major storm, there was a 3-day warning and plenty of time to evacuate, although the governor, mayor and thousands of residents either waited too long or ignored the warnings.
-- “Could Katrina Be Good?” – World Magazine’s blog, sent in by Missionary Jim Hogrefe (9/6/05)
Everything else
Fall registration, the first day of class, and another crop of America's high school graduates have left home and hearth to attend college in the hope it will prepare them for life and career.
But from Harvard to UCLA and thousands of colleges and universities in between, what awaits them is non-stop leftist indoctrination, pervasive sexual anarchy and – if they're not careful – loss of their values and innocence.
Let families take care of their own kids. The reason most kids get a free lunch at school is because the parents want to use the money for something else … the governments of this nation must stop borrowing money to give away to people to buy potato chips at the 7-11 stores.
-- “ THE PERFECT STORM” – Religious Freedom Coalition’s weekly legislative update (9/6/05)
"Road Bill Reflects The Power Of Pork" was the headline over a page-one August 11 article in the Washington Post. It was about the transportation bill passed by Congress and signed by the President. And it was full of pork-barrel spending. But when the House of Representatives restored $100 million to the budget of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, bringing its annual appropriation up to $400 million, there were no headlines in the Post, New York Times or other media about wasting taxpayer dollars on "pork."
--Cliff Kincaid, “PBS Stands for Pork,” Accuracy in Media, 9/7/05
A moderate is somebody who drifts to the left once they're on the court.
-- Robert Bork, “Judge Robert Bork on Simultaneous Supreme Court Vacancies,” Hannity & Colmes, 09/06/05
