FAILURE OF AN IDEA...AND A PEOPLE

Now, I wouldn't vote for Pat Buchanan for dog catcher, but when he's right - he's right. The Katrina Disaster in New Orleans will forever be a symbol of the failure of the 'Great Society' and the Nanny State.

"[C]ontinued dependence" upon welfare, said FDR, "induces a spiritual disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To dole our relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit."

Government attempts to end poverty have merely institutionalized it. While government is necessary among people, government cannot change people. When government tries to provide everything for the people, it does not offer a helping hand up, but chains of hopeless dependency.

Americans were once famous for taking the initiative, for having young leaders rise up to take command in a crisis. See any of that at the Superdome? Sri Lankans and Indonesians, far poorer than we, did not behave like this in a tsunami that took 400 times as many lives as Katrina has thus far.

Watching that performance in the Crescent City, it seems clear: We are not the people our parents were. And what are all our Lords Temporal now howling for? Though government failed at every level, they want more government.

FDR was right. A "spiritual disintegration" has overtaken us. Government-as-first provider, the big idea of the Great Society, has proven to be "a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit."

Either we get off this narcotic, or it kills us.