What's different about New Orleans?

Why are we seeing people at their worst in New Orleans, when previous natural disasters in the U.S. have tended to bring out the best in people? Robert Tracinski makes a compelling case for the proposition that we're seeing the fruit of forty years of the welfare state. Arguing such will get Tracinski branded immediately as a racist by unreasonable people, but I believe that this is at least part of the explanation (exacerbated by sluggishness and ineptness on the part of local and state government, especially before the storm hit).




Aerial view of New Orleans school buses that were not mobilized for the evacuation of the city.