it's not looting if there's nobody there to stop you.
Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. Electronic stores, too; get a radio and some batteries to hear what's going on.
I have been perversely wondering what is going on in the heads of these warbloggers. Their logic seems to be 'people who stayed behind stayed behind to loot, because staying behind is irresponsible.' But they're clearly expecting some cowboy vigilante to be the good guy, even though he irresponsibly stayed behind... wait now, but he's the good guy, interested in shooting to protect big-screen TVs.
I'm glad I don't live in your neighborhood ... or the United States for that matter.
yeah, well, don't mess with american pride, dude. we're obviously anarchic, homicidal maniacs. I'd lie to you, but I'm blogging anonymously.
to be honest it doesn't really take a breakdown of civil society; I'm usually on the lookout for anything worth nicking at the first signs of mild industrial action on the buses.
Seems like instead of hoarding guns and ammo in preparation for such an event, you could just hoard food and water. You know, Mormon-style. It has the advantage of being less likely to kill your family members, too! Well, unless that stack of Parmalat boxes collapses...
Seriously though, how hard would it be to put a week's worth of food and water in the basement? Not very, I suspect. Of course it's understandable when folks find themselves in a situation they hadn't expected or prepared for. But if you're actually planning ahead about what to loot, it seems like maybe you should just go on a survival shopping spree instead.
Any major city that has its services totally severed would descend into Lord of the Flies in no time flat. I've never owned a gun and have no plans to ever own one, but in that situation, I'd be looking for one however I could find it.
sure, given that we're talking about my dirty bomb scenario. and I do, in fact, have plenty of canned goods here. but there are lots of people in NO whose basements are full of carefully hoarded supplies...and this is doing them some good under 4 m of water how, exactly? once you're stuck up on the roof it doesn't matter how much baked beans you've got in the fucking basement.
Ideally, I'd have the food and water on hand (but that's VERY ideally -- apartment dweller, no basement); but if the reports out of New Orleans are accurate, you had to worry about more than just getting food and water, but keeping yourself and your family from physical harm. Stacks of parmalat aren't handy weapons against rapists.
Seriously though, how hard would it be to put a week's worth of food and water in the basement? Not very, I suspect. Of course it's understandable when folks find themselves in a situation they hadn't expected or prepared for. But if you're actually planning ahead about what to loot, it seems like maybe you should just go on a survival shopping spree instead.
Except if you're living from paycheck to paycheck. People's lack of compassion and lack of understanding for what it really means to be poor never fail to astound me.
I'm not failing to have compassion for a failure or inability to prepare for a disaster. I'm failing to have compassion for the non-poor preemptively excusing their own theoretical looting.
If any of us were to find ourselves in a LOTF situation I'm sure we'd do what we had to do, and everyone would understand. I just don't think you can declare this as morally fine and dandy before the fact. That we're having this discussion on the internet implies that we're capable of taking steps to avoid the necessity of looting.
And give me a fscking break about basements getting flooded. Store the cans in the goddamn attic, then. Or move them when the disaster begins. I'm sorry, but anyone who thinks a gun's portability makes it a better survival kit than a cache of water and food is either an idiot or deeply immoral.
well, I hate to get all lord of the flies on you, but minimum 1 gallon of water per person per day vs. a gun...hmm. portability issues. Look, I'm not some crazed anarcho-syndicalist, I'm just speculating about my likely reactions. we can't even get our shit together at my mom's place to get the dishwasher fixed, and you're telling me we have to have a week's food and water stored in the attic (which is also my sister's bedroom, and she might not like that)? I don't think I am a good person for saying this, or a provident person, or even a particularly smart person. I'm just saying that this is what, irl, would happen.
could we at my mom's place afford to do better? unquestionably. have we, in fact, done so? no. are we heavily armed? yes. I'm just extrapolating.
I think it's more than a function of the chaos of the moment. When you distrust the system to look out for your interests, you look out for them yourself in ways that are not necessarily legal or conducive to public order. That was the gist of the justification in support for Bernhard Goetz in the 80s (to whom I'm sympathetic): he couldn't trust the police to provide him a safe life in NYC, so he got a gun and he tried to protect himself. Even leaving aside life as experienced by the poor, it's hard for me to say that someone who got trapped and abandoned for days in a flooding New Orleans was unreasonable in his belief that the system wasn't looking out for his interests.
Here is a chipper response I just ran across. In response to the newspaper quote of "LEVEES BREAK, BARRIERS HOLD: What the world saw exposed in New Orleans was a cleavage of race and class," this guy responsds with: "Yep; African-Americans loot. Caucasians provide for their families. Who says racism is dead?"
Someone calling themselves "northstar."
If order breaks down, and we are in the same neighborhood, we shall form a gang.
Seriously though, how hard would it be to put a week's worth of food and water in the basement? Not very, I suspect.
Actually, quite, quite. hard.
Houses in New Orleans don't have basements.
On the looting point, for me at least, it looks like a prisoner's dilemma type problem. It's individually advantagous for you to have a gun, but you're fucked (in the sense that rescue efforts will be slowed, and the fact that other people with guns are more likely to view you as a threat) by the fact that everyone has guns.
On Goetz, I was only three years old when the underlying events of the Goetz case took place, so I can't claim to understand the national mood at the time. But I've read the case, I've read Gladwell's accounting of it in Tipping Point, and it seems pretty crazy to me for you to be sympathetic for his actual use of the gun, rather than carrying it. Just for instance, after he had all four of them once, he shot someone who he already shot and was slumped down a second time, because he didn't look badly hurt enough. The second shot severed his spinal chord.
I just want you all to admit that if I had written this post, you'd be impugning my manhood and fantasy life for months.
Has anyone addressed the philosophical question here of whether looting is wrong? I'm sure someone has. But I'm thinking that we can come up with two ways of justifying laws against looting:
1. The loss in some sense causes pain to the owner.
2. It causes fear and stress in other people who now have cause to think that their goods might also be looted.
However, in this flood situation, if only stores are being looted, and if the contents of those stores are already practically lost or recompensed by insurance, then looting doesn't appear to be wrong. The taking is not causing pain, and the because specialness of the situation, 2 doesn't apply generally.
Of course arson, the smashing of windows, and breaking in to people's homes cannot be defended along these lines. So, I suppose we could have two categories: moral looters and immoral looters.
I was only three years old
Christ, I keep forgetting that I'm an old man around here. Thank goodness for Tripp and Emerson. Hey, w/d, get offa my damn lawn. And get a haircut!
My previous comments is missing the word "shot" prior to "all four." I also should have put the words "badly hurt enough" in a different order.
There would be something wrong, I think, in saying, 'I could go and stock up on food and water, and I have the money to do so, but tomorrow I can just steal it, so today I'll just clean my gun.' And I think that would be wrong even if you knew or suspected the stores would be compensated. And I think that's what's driving the misguided 'shoot-the-looters' reactions; the idea that people just figured that the goods would be free tomorrow.
But that's a lot different from finding yourself without adequate food or water or other supplies and deciding to loot, and thinking that you might need a gun around to defend yourself.
Right again, Ms. A.
I *do* keep water in my car. I keep a stock of canned tuna, dried fruit and aseptic pouch Indian food as my emergency stock. I can carry all the food, less of the water.
BUT, if pressed, I'd do what was necessary to to get what I needed. Cooperatively, preferred, but by theft if needed.
And I don't object to the guy who took the champagne, although alcohol is dehydrating so it's not the wisest choice except for trade value. And for that, I'd steal malts and grain alcohol - higher product to glass ratio and I might want the Scotch for myself...
What would I have done if I was with my grandmother, who was 94 and totally sound of mind when she died? Pretty much anything necessary. That and I'd have encouraged her to tell stories to children, thus making her more valuable to whatever passes for community in such a situation.
I don't think the arm yourself/be prepared is a binary thing. I've done the latter, the past week has just about convinced me of the need to do the former.
I can't say if it's true or not... but this post smacked of someone who thinks in the dog-eat-dog mentality, and would LOVE for an excuse to just let it loose and act like that with no societal boundaries.
I just want you all to admit that if I had written this post, you'd be impugning my manhood and fantasy life for months.
And how would this differ from you not writing this post?
I'm going to disagree with A here on a bunch of things. First off, I agree with 18. It's definitely a prisoners dilemma. Would everyone be better off if there were no guns at all? Yes. At that point of course, people would probably go all out to find the shapest sticks they could, but I would think it's a lot easier to fend off someone with a sharp pointy stick or club than someone witha gun. In any case, in the absence of some outside force of order, I can imagine why everyone would want to protect themselves. This assumes, of course, that there is a reason to protect yourself. A, it appears, does not care about being defensive, but rather wants to go on the offensive. I suppose it's a case of shoot first and ask questions later, but again, we're talking about guns.
But what I take issue with is shooting at rescue helicopters. That I find unconscionable. For the most part, they haven't come to get you because either a) they don't know you are there or b) they know you are there but haven't gotten to you yet. Do you think shooting at them will get them to rescue you quicker? "Hey Bob! Let's go rescue that crazy chick who unloaded a magazine into the belly of our helicopter!" Fuck no. Shooting at the helo does nothing to help your cause.
Of course, I'm probably incredibly naive. I'll let you guys tell me that.
I usually don't care much about gun control, but the use of guns seems like a big problem here. Things would be better if the public didn't have guns.
15: You're misreading northstar's comments (if I'm reading you right)--above he says "why is it that Caucasians stealing food are 'providing for the survival of their family', while African-Americans engaging in the same behavior are 'looting'? Don't tell me racism no longer exists in this country…." The part you quoted is just repeating the same thing; it's in agreement with the newspaper quote.
Regarding gun control... why would anyone who doesn't own a gun want anyone else to have one?
As an abstract question, it might be that I think that there will be less violence if, say, 50% of the population has guns--because the fear of armed response will deter crime--but you don't want to carry one yourself.
I'm not saying this is true, but it's akin to a common pro-gun argument I think. I hope no one is arguing that the presence of guns in New Orleans was helpful, but I've seen people continue to claim that private gun ownership prevents tyranny even though everyone in Iraq seems to have a gun, so who knows. (I tend to think that gun control wouldn't be helpful or effective in the U.S., but that pro-gun forces talk a lot of shit.)
MW, that's interesting. As you drive past Fenway in Boston on the Mass Pike, there are two billboards. The first says: "Welcome to Massachusetts. You're more likely to live here." I pointed it out to my sister, who said, "I don't get it." The second billboard says, "Massachusetts: Lowest gun-related fatality rate and most effective gun control laws. Proof that gun control works." It's an interesting thought. Of course, everyone knows that Massachusetts is a Communist state, so...
But that's a lot different from finding yourself without adequate food or water or other supplies and deciding to loot, and thinking that you might need a gun around to defend yourself.
Yes, I agree. Nobody here is condemning the looters in the present crisis in NO. And as I see NRO et al predictably fixate on civil disorder/looting as the main problem in NO, I naturally want to side with the folks who are taking what they need.
My point is just that planning to loot really can't be justified. Which is what this post amounts to. If you're making any preparations at all, they should be justifiable ones, right? Thinking about how to use force to secure what you would need counts as preparation. In my opinion, anyway.
33: My views on gun control aren't very fixed. Maybe I should take the Dean route and say it should be done state-by-state. My feeling is that if we were to try to restrict gun ownership in all the U.S. as much as it's restricted in the U.K., it wouldn't work ("Remember how we had that war on drugs and now you can't buy drugs anymore?") But I think that it would be insane for a country like the U.K. to change its gun laws to ours.
Weiner, or anyone else who knows, what Wodehouse book does one start with? Does order matter?
"Regarding gun control... why would anyone who doesn't own a gun want anyone else to have one?'
Because you have Parkinson's, or are blind, and what your mom/sis/bro/husband/wife/best friend/whomever, to have one.
"(I tend to think that gun control wouldn't be helpful or effective in the U.S., but that pro-gun forces talk a lot of shit.)"
Yep. It's possible for much of what each "side" says to be wrong or silly, and with gnu control, it often seems to be so.
I've never owned a gun and always said I doubted I ever would want to. I must say that this past week has given me a bit of pause to think (not that I'd be able to afford one, anyway, while I have only $20 for a month's expenses, as in this month, as is a common norm).
A guy tried to break into my apartment in the middle of the night last week. So far as I could see, he was just drugged, and confused enough to be at the wrong building, and he left with apologies once my neighbor came out and I confronted him. But it did make me focus on feeling unsafe and wondering what to do. (I had a portable umbrella handy as my weapon, for what that's worth.)
Order doesn't particularly matter. I mean, some of the plots follow on from others, but it's not like your enjoyment will be followed if you read the second Bertie/Jeeves/Gussie/Madeline novel before the first.
For Bertie/Jeeves: Joy/Jeeves in the Morning, Code of the Woosters (the one I actually started with), Right Ho, Jeeves/Brinkley Court (first in that series); The Mating Season.
For others: Leave it to Psmith (actually the last of the Psmiths, but the best; also a Blandings novel); Something Fresh/New (the first Blandings Castle novel)
An obscure one that's a particular favorite is The Small Bachelor, but it might not be the best to start with.
Read the dang-blang books! (The 'p' is silent, as in pshrimp.)
The 'p' is silent
Like in the public pool.
with gnu control, it often seems to be so
This is the last time I tell you, Farber, if you can't keep your gnus off my lawn I'll eat 'em for supper.
The 'p' is silent
As Psmith says, compare the Z in Zbysco.
Welcome to our ool. Notice there is no "p" in it.
I assumed the "p" was silent, you dang so-and-so.
Gary, re: 37. Aren't there other tools you can use to defend yourself? Let's assume X has Parkinson's. He doesn't own a gun, but wants his wife Y to protect him. Now if nobody has a gun, wouldn't a metal baseball bat suffice? I understand that guns are seen as the great equalizer, as are gnus. As Chris Rock said, "You get pecs, I got Tex." But I suppose that part of the problem is that it is much easier to make a mistake or to commit acts of violence, especially at a distance and with more efficiency, with a gun than it is with a baseball bat.
Just to repeat from "Making Light":
Looting a jewelry store has nothing to do with "survivalism", right-wing or otherwise - it's nothing but theft, and the jewelry-store owner would have every right to scatter your fucking brains all over the pavement, you leftist creep.
Really, you know, if you bastards want it you'll get exactly what you deserve. There's plenty of people who'd hand it out, too. Too bad about your kids, though.
You seriously don't make a distinction between raiding the pharmacy and shooting at helicopers?
Lucky for those leftist creeps most jewelry store owners had the means to leave the city and find some place to stay while they wait for their insurance companies to process the paperwork.
That's the problem with this country: looters get all the breaks while the good folks who know what's important - that theft should be a capital offense - have to deal with layers of big government bureaucracy just to get back on their feet.
Has the helicopter story been confirmed? When it initially came out there was also a quote from the FAA saying that pilots haven't reported being shot at.
I believe that it wasn't an isolated incident. Rather, I think that the larger issue is shooting at rescuers in general. So while the helicopter incident may be unconfirmed, I believe it is a bigger indicator of idiotic violence.
Whether or not it's been confirmed, I'm responding to Alameida saying that if it were her, she'd go ahead and take some shots at helicopters, sure. I understand that this is meant only half-seriously, but the serious part it seems to me is a contention that there aren't any meaningful moral distinctions left when people are in serious duress, that you can't ask somebody under those circumstances to maintain right-and-wrong as distinctions. If that's a serious suggestion, I really would disagree strongly. There's no doubt that morality goes through a strong phase shift in conditions of anarchy, that the goalposts shift, and what was profoundly wrong the day before catastrophe seems small potatoes after, but that's a shift, not an obliteration of moral distinctions of all kinds.
I happen to think that the actual extent and nature of the violence does matter, because it will help to know what happened in order to plan for future disasters, and hope that someone will research it and map it out, but that's a different point.
As for the hypothetical in the post, if meant seriously (which I don't think it was): I strongly disagree with shooting rescuers, shooting looters, shooting people in order to loot, and shooting people who are not threatening lives. I would not, however, be averse to shooting into the air (aiming away) in the hopes of attracting the attention of rescuers who may not otherwise know where I am (particularly if it's night, and I have no other light source). I would probably then realize that that might have been a stupid thing to do, especially if it had the effect of scaring the rescuers away.
eb,
it's really not a smart thing to do. consider this. if the helicopter can't see you, but all of the sudden starts seeing muzzle flashes (because they probably won't hear the shot), they're going to assume that they're under attack (for proof, see gulf of tonkin). in the best case they won't return to that spot until daylight; in the worst case they helicopter will return fire.
I'm not saying it's a good idea. I'm saying it could be an act of desperation, and one that is different than shooting at rescuers. Best case scenario, of course, is to find flares.
The Washington post article has been updated to point out Bush administration lies.
Nobody here is condemning the looters in the present crisis in NO.
???