No Sympathy for the Stupid

Before I begin, I just want to say that I recently had surgery on my wrist and typing causes more than a little pain. Having said that, I felt the need to stuff my pain in a box and say my peace about the criminally stupid Ray Nagin, the reelected mayor of New Orleans.

It is often said that an elected official represents his electorate. In the devastated areas of New Orleans, 58% of the voters voted for Nagin while in the less devastated areas, the majority of the votes went to Landrieu. It's pretty clear that the vote went down racial lines. Nagin, cunning if not learned, played to the lowest common denominator of human nature and got himself reelected to a job that he knows he is not qualified for.

At this point, I don't mind that so much of our tax dollars are going to revive New Orleans. True, it's pretty stupid to put a major city there, but historically, it has a place in our hearts and if we can save it, we should. But now that the citizens of New Orleans have reelected the same man who left them to their diaspora, I no longer have any sympathy for them. Put simply, if anything further happens to New Orleans on Nagin's watch, I don't believe that federal dollars should be used to bail them out.

Stupidity is dangerous. It's rare that we can point to such a egregious event. But since we can, we should call it what it is and do what we can to lessen its influence. I am not white so I have zero guilt about the slavery of Black Americans. I also have no guilt of what my Country has done to become the sole superpower in the world. Until White America can adopts the same attitude, we'll never solve the problems that race-baiters like Nagin create. He is a racist in the worst sense of the word.

If I'm an asshole, you should be able to call me on it wihtout me being able to defend myself by calling you a racist. Playing the race card has its place but people like Nagin lessen its power by diluting it's morality. I'm not surprised he was reelected, sadly. I am genuinely concerned for their safety this hurricane season but lessons will be repeated until learned. And it's clear the citizens of NOLA haven't learned theirs.