We're more better than you. Losers.

I went through a hurricane disaster, and I cannot see pouring anymore money into New Orleans. Those victims have been given MILLIONS of dollars already and what have they done with it, tattoos, massage parlors, engagement rings. You want us taxpayers behind you, show us some progress. How come you don't hear anything about the victims from Missippi?, oh that's right they have rebuilt or are rebuilding. If LA politicians would spend half as much time seeing that it gets rebuilt as they do whining and blaming others the city would be rebuilt. They seem to forget to mention that the government CANNOT come in ANY state until help is asked for, ask your local governer and mayor for money and leave us taxpayers alone.

-- Comment to Martin Savidge's MSNBC "Daily Nightly" post
on New Orleans' plight and the nation's "Katrina fatigue"

* * *

So, what happened?

Has having, for the last generation, a federal government -- by and large dedicated to the proposition that both greed and social Darwinism are good left us a nation of self-centered, self-righteous pricks? Or is it because we're -- by and large -- a nation of self-righteous pricks that we've voted in, then embraced, governments dedicated to the proposition that both greed and social Darwinism are good?

Your classic chicken-or-egg dilemma.

Whatever the cause, whatever the reason -- whatever -- one thing became clear on Aug. 29, 2005, the Day Katrina Hit: The United States aren't. The idea of America -- such as it ever was -- is dead.

And maybe the bacteria that blossomed into America's terminal illness was present from its inception. Present in the hard-nosed Puritans who settled the Massachusetts Bay colony. Present in the Irish settlers of Jansenist stock, convinced they were wretched and God was out to get them.

Present in all the Christ-haunted refuse who washed up onto the golden shores and turned a wild continent into John Winthrop's "city upon a hill," then decided that we prospered because God loved us more. More than the papist and Roman-tainted refuse who remained in the Old World.

More than the squabbling religious and ethnic tribes on the Continent who were too backward to leave Europe behind and transmogrify into the New World Polyglot Uberman.

More than the pagan savages of the Dark Continent, and more than the wily and inscrutable ancients of the Orient.

And now God loves America more than He does New Orleans, because see how they suffer! See how they struggle! See how backward and irrational and Uberless are they!

I was sick of New Orleans when FEMA started handing out $2000 to every resident and watching them buy Plasma TV's with it. Of Course many didn't have to buy them because they just took them for free.

WHAT WE ARE is a country with an Israel-Judah divide, beset with the vestiges of Old Testament self-righteousness while daring, just daring, a most assuredly vengeful God (remember, we're Puritans and Jansenists) to whack us due to our increasingly Sodom-and-Gomorrah societal norms.

And as we pop antidepressants as we pump $3-a-gallon gas into our SUVs before picking up a fifth and a pack of Trojans on the way to our mistress' apartment -- G**dammit, forgot the g**damn porno DVD! -- we amuse ourselves by whacking on the rustics living in the Sinking Slums of New Orleans.

I am sick - of hearing how every taxpayer in America should pony up a couple grand to subsidize the rebuilding of a cesspool of a city that will just be wiped out again by the next "unlucky" hurricane. I'm happy to pay extra for getting people back on their feet in other places, and bankruptcy exists for people who didn't carry insurance and can't pay their debts in situations like these. Let's focus on what will actually help people rebuild their lives instead of flushing more money down this drain.

REALLY, it is all so very Old Testament. In this Lenten season, I keep being drawn back to the book of Job:

So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD and smote Job with severe boils from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head.

And he took a potsherd to scrape himself, as he sat among the ashes.

Then his wife said to him, "Are you still holding to your innocence? Curse God and die."

But he said to her, "Are even you going to speak as senseless women do? We accept good things from God; and should we not accept evil?" Through all this, Job said nothing sinful.

Now when three of Job's friends heard of all the misfortune that had come upon him, they set out each one from his own place: Eliphaz from Teman, Bildad from Shuh, and Zophar from Naamath. They met and journeyed together to give him sympathy and comfort.

But when, at a distance, they lifted up their eyes and did not recognize him, they began to weep aloud; they tore their cloaks and threw dust upon their heads.

Then they sat down upon the ground with him seven days and seven nights, but none of them spoke a word to him; for they saw how great was his suffering.

JOB'S WIFE THOUGHT her old man had brought all this trouble upon himself. Kind of like a few frustrated pastors in The City Care Forgot who figured the Almighty had finally gotten around to smiting Sin City.

But by Chapter 15 of Job, even the distraught and compassionate friends who came to sit with the wretched one had turned on him. Figured, according to ancient Hebrew logic and tradition, that God had to be punishing Job for something bad the ol' boy had done:

Then Eliphaz the Temanite spoke and said:

Should a wise man answer with airy opinions, or puff himself up with wind?

Should he argue in speech which does not avail, and in words which are to no profit?

You in fact do away with piety, and you lessen devotion toward God, because your wickedness instructs your mouth, and you choose to speak like the crafty.

Your own mouth condemns you, not I; you own lips refute you.

Are you indeed the first-born of mankind, or were you brought forth before the hills?

Are you privy to the counsels of God, and do you restrict wisdom to yourself?

What do you know that we do not know? What intelligence have you which we have not?

There are gray-haired old men among us more advanced in years than your father.

Are the consolations of God not enough for you, and speech that deals gently with you?

Why do your notions carry you away, and why do your eyes blink, so that you turn your anger against God and let such words escape your mouth!

What is a man that he should be blameless, one born of woman that he should be righteous?

If in his holy ones God places no confidence, and if the heavens are not clean in his sight, how much less so is the abominable, the corrupt: man, who drinks in iniquity like water!

I will show you, if you listen to me; what I have seen I will tell -- what wise men relate and have not contradicted since the days of their fathers, to whom alone the land was given, when no foreigner moved among them.

The wicked man is in torment all his days, and limited years are in store for the tyrant; the sound of terrors is in his ears; when all is prosperous, the spoiler comes upon him.

He despairs of escaping the darkness, and looks ever for the sword; a wanderer, food for the vultures, he knows that his destruction is imminent.

By day the darkness fills him with dread; distress and anguish overpower him.

Because he has stretched out his hand against God and bade defiance to the Almighty, one shall rush sternly upon him with the stout bosses of his shield, like a king prepared for the charge.

Because he has blinded himself with his crassness, padding his loins with fat, he shall dwell in ruinous cities, in houses that are deserted, That are crumbling into clay with no shadow to lengthen over the ground. He shall not be rich, and his possessions shall not endure; for vain shall be his bartering.

A flame shall wither him up in his early growth, and with the wind his blossoms shall disappear.

His stalk shall wither before its time, and his branches shall be green no more.

He shall be like a vine that sheds its grapes unripened, and like an olive tree casting off its bloom.

For the breed of the impious shall be sterile, and fire shall consume the tents of extortioners.

They conceive malice and bring forth emptiness; they give birth to failure.

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE . . . and all that rot. And we Americans think we're so modern and advanced and civilized.

Enough of New Orleans, the have elected the same incompetent politicians, they are building on the same swamp that flooded 18 mos ago. Taxpayers have seen how these poor poor people have come to our towns and have lived it up with our money. Spending money like like it was nothing. I am tired of hearing all about the people of New Orleans. We the taxpayers are very worn out hearing about it.

ENOUGH!!.

THERE WAS ONE COMMENT that struck me, though. It came from a gentleman -- I'm assuming it was a gentleman, but I could be wrong -- from Hammond, La. What "doctorj" wrote got my attention because it's precisely what I've been thinking for a long time, now.

And what I wrote near the top of this overlong post.

Reading some of these posts make me despair the future of this country.

It seems some Americans believe in their hearts that they are more "American" than others that live and pay taxes in this country. "United" States of America? I don't think so.

God help us. Not that we think we need Him to, of course.