A Sobering Reminder

In the last week, a man in Sri Lanka was quoted by the international media as saying "I am absolutely disgusted. After the tsunami our people, even the ones who lost everything, wanted to help the others who were suffering... Not a single tourist caught in the tsunami was mugged. Now with all this happening in the U.S. we can easily see where the civilized part of the world's population is."

To be fair, it's not entirely true. Rape and robbery did follow in the tsunami's wake, but not to the degree it did in New Orleans. At this point, I think most of the country is numb to what's happening there: the total breakdown of civil order. Today, security professionals are being offered $200 a day to work as armed officers in New Orleans, trying to remove the remaining citizenry - this is a wage driven high by risk of infection, risk of explosion, and risk of being shot. And as the public swell of charitable support grows, the wage remains high - which suggests that security professionals view the place as too dangerous. It's hazard pay, pure and simple.

We have it easy, in America. We've developed a system where the average person can get away with spending more than they earn and has access to a wide range of inexpensive commercial goods. This isn't to say life is easy (especially at the low-income level), but there isn't regular famine (China), civil war (Israel & Pakistan), an AIDS epidemic (sub-Saharan Africa), or foreign occupation (Iraq). And the truth is: if you take away our electricity, our clean water, and our food, we (as a society) are no more enlightened than therest of the world. You get a mix of heroism and law-of-the-jungle savagery.

I think more pople need to think long and hard about that, and about what they would be in that situation.