Could Someone Please Explain This To Me?

And... Cue the crickets!

Published on September 19, 2005 By stutefish In Current Events

Current Katrina death toll in Louisiana (see paragraph two): 579 (approximately)

Death toll from European heat wave in 2003: 35,000 ("In France alone, 14,802 people died from the searing temperatures...")

The body count for Katrina will go up, of course, as the recovery work progresses. If we find sixty times more bodies, it will match Europe's tragedy.

Could somebody please explain to me why we listen to Europe about anything having to do with good government, humane treatement of our citizens, or callousness towards human life?

Myrrander, would you like to take this one? I managed to come up with a defense of the "our sonofabitch" policy you so rightly condemned. Care to return the favor?

I mean, it's not like I'm asking you to admit that America is actually a damn fine country that quite often gets things right, and puts other nations to shame with its successes... Oh. Wait. Yeah, I guess I am asking that.

Well, how about it?

Comments

bakerstreet

on Sep 19, 2005

GAH@!! I have to start wearing my tin foil hat. Right now on my desktop there is a note to write an article about the European heat wave. Damn your telepathic rays!!

I think the real comparison though is how the populations of these nations reacted. Many blame the death toll in Europe to the draconian environmentalist attitude they have toward air conditioning re: global warming. The response there seems to be far less opportunistic, though.

Myrrander

on Sep 19, 2005

oh, kiddo, are you disappointed in the death toll so far?

I mean, it was 50,000 or more by the evening of 9/11 and 9/12

it wasn't that much in that case -- great

i will be happy in less than primary assumptions in this case, too

are you unhappy? didja want more dead black people?

I'm not sure the point of this post, so I'm no sure where I should "take it"

I'm always happy when tragedy doesn't meet the expectation.

Did you want me to praise the amount of dead people?

How sick is that?

stutefish

on Sep 19, 2005

You're reading the article in your head, Myrr, not the article I wrote.

bakerstreet

on Sep 20, 2005

Obviously, the people for which a huge death toll would have been of political "benefit" would have been the anti-Bush folks. Myrr evidently didn't want to acknowledge the point of the article.

stutefish

on Sep 20, 2005

Heh. You seem stumped, Myrr, so I'll give you a hint. I'm not bemoaning the low death toll after Katrina: I'm rejoicing in it. And I'm asking you why your faction spends so much time bemoaning this low death toll while holding up other nations (e.g., France) as models of good governance and humane social policy.

I think the European heat wave death toll is horrible. Numerically, it's about sixty times more horrible than the Katrina death toll.

So when are we going to see your faction revile France sixty times more than they revile the U.S., or praise the U.S. and its policies sixy times more than they praise the policies of other nations?

You say that my response to these two tragedies is inappropriate. I say your response is about sixty times more so.

And I invite you to justify it.

Which, apparently, you can't.

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