there are those who saw the president’s speech as an air-kiss to the liberal solution of throwing money at problems to cure them. i don’t think this is entirely incorrect. i think that the president will be better off when he realizes that some groups of people are never going to like him. trying to appease the kanye wests, the al sharptons, and the farrikans of the world is misguided and a waste of time. african-americans died in new orleans not because of racism, but because of mismanagement on all levels of government. we saw a lot of video with african-americans as victims of katrina. why was that? it was because there were a disproportionate number of them in that area. racism in this case was a myth and the president should have called out the race-baiters last night. he missed that opportunity.

one opportunity the president and our elected leaders should not miss is the opportunity to explode the concept of the welfare state. its flaws are obvious and glaring in new orleans. we need to encourage people to take personal responsibility for their own future by allowing them to be part of creating something they can take pride in. just re-creating new orleans the way it was before doesn’t fix the problem. we don’t want to keep people struggling and on welfare. if my tax money is going toward this reconstruction, then i want some accountability on where it’s going. we should all demand this.

also, repealing the pork projects in existing bills should be done immediately. we should bring the pressure to bear on our elected officials to do this. this country belongs to us, and it’s about time washington acknowledged this and listened to us for once.

Technorati : hurricane katrina, new orleans, president bush