So many liberals who hold influential positions in this country seem genetically disposed to obey three distinct values:
Chronic seething anger.
Unrelieved jealousy of those who have accumulated more worldly goods.
And they feel obligated to generate a fresh lineup of newly discovered “victims” daily.
Liberals love to label the next person they meet as a “victim.” Two reasons: To showcase their own compassion and to further tax you and me in creative ways to support their self-styled “victims” of society.
Victimology, as a strategy, reached its apotheosis two years ago last month.
For 26 consecutive months, victimology has been masterfully manipulated until it has, bizarrely, blossomed into a robust America-grown industry.
During Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, you will recall that many residents and officers of the law behaved abominably, like suddenly unharnessed children whose parents had gone away for the evening.
The main failure was, of course, at the top.
The people of New Orleans have been trained since the 1920s to take their cue from government leadership, and that is crucial to today’s story.
Mayor, Governor Were Insulated
The leadership of New Orleans — Mayor Ray Nagin — and the leadership of Louisiana — Gov. Kathleen Blanco — embodied the worst America has to offer in elected officials.
Confident that they were politically bullet-proof because he is a black Democrat and she is a lady Democrat, both dithered and caterwauled while hapless residents flailed like wingless birds in the deadly engulfing waters.
Mr. Nagin and Ms. Blanco repeatedly showed they had no idea how to lead or what to say.
No Punishment for Failed Leaders
Demonstrably incompetent, strangers to courage, incapable of strategic planning, the race-baiting Mayor and the embarrassingly overwhelmed lady guv reached deep into their souls. They pulled out their two thumbs and did what the inept ever do. They aimed their thumbs at Washington. In unison, they chirped, “He did it.”
As with real-life fairy tales, their troubles did not go away.
Louisiana, historians tell us, has been almost irreversibly corrupt for 80 years, ever since brazen Huey Long softened up the illiterate population and converted fraud into a cherished value of state and local government.
Victimology on the Rise
Since people undeniably get the government they deserve, the under-educated masses of New Orleans retreated into simplistic anger and life-choking bewilderment when the hurricane struck.
Katrina has been schemed into one of America’s most thriving industries, a metaphor for victimology, which is a central tenet of the modern Democratic party.
Little did the people know that Katrina was going to evolve into a golden bonanza for liberal politicians.
Katrina, Katrina, Where Are You?
With the onset of Katrina — for 26 months, it hasn’t gone away, has it? — mass victimology came back into vogue.
Victimology has enjoyed a nationwide revival, a revival the likes of which has not been witnessed across the Deep South since the Rev. Billy Graham exploded in the late 1940s.
The pathetic behavior of law, leadership and the people they were charged to protect in New Orleans stands in abysmal contrast to the uniformly mature, heroic response to the wildfires in and around San Diego this week.
A Pouting Liberal
The dramatic difference is, of course, not an accident, not a fluke, even though Steve Lopez, the normally harmless columnist for the Los Angeles Times, vehemently argued otherwise this morning.
Even for a foot-stomping, tantrum-throwing, emotion-controlled liberal like Mr. Lopez, his desperate thesis was extreme. The next time you wonder why liberals have a hard time getting elected in America, consult his essay headlined “San Diego set no enviable standard.”
(Murgatroyd, please file the Lopez column under Liberal Jealousy.)
The emotional Mr. Lopez has been sorely troubled this week by the smooth, orderly, streamlined response across San Diego to the week’s world-class tragedy.
Talk About Filling up Fast
By Tuesday morning, San Diego officials said, amazingly, they already were at capacity on volunteers, on food and clothing for victims. Gov. Schwarzenegger straddled the crisis from the opening minute. He never loosened his grip.
Confronting his own pesky devils who were igniting fires within, Mr. Lopez found this massive display of moral responsibility repulsive.
He grew sick to his stomach when he contrasted the fluidly flowing drama in San Diego with the ugly Third World-like conduction of rabble, confusion and chaos that was and is endemic to New Orleans.
Heroes vs. Villains
Mr. Lopez is not on a first-name basis with logical thinking. Therefore he cannot believe the conservative bastion of San Diego can execute, and defeat, a giant tragedy while the liberal cauldron of New Orleans continues to drag its fingernails across the sidewalk.
The difference, pal, is as plain as your obstinacy.
The difference is moral values.
Shame on the Misguided Essayist
Through irredeemably foolish reasoning, Mr. Lopez demonstrates for his readers why he is a liberal. He argues that San Diego worked because government learned from its mistakes in New Orleans.
Government? What a ghastly misreading of the hourly heroics that played out this week in San Diego.
San Diego worked because of the incredibly generous outpouring from the people, for their fellow people.
As I said, pal, it is a question of moral values.
Mr. Lopez must have graduated with his degree in visionary thinking from the Braille Institute.