I appreciate the point of us relying too much on the government (and agree), but I think this particular case also highlights the problem of the commons.

Pre-Katrina, increasing funding for levee work would have been seen as just more wasteful spending, don’t you think?

Yes, poor engineering, but I don’t think the COE was sitting on several hundred million, twiddling their thumbs. Moving dirt costs money and we have to pony up, else things fail – levees, bridges – more on the way, I imagine.

There’s a line, somewhere. I do not know where it is – a good friend of mine, when he hears “That government governs best…”, is reminded of ironclad principles. When I hear it, I think of Somalia.

When I was in the Navy I knew a guy — an officer, no less — who was convinced that the US government really does know where bin Laden is, because… well, because. Spy satellites, and stuff.

This nigh-religious conviction in the power of technological mastery seems more prevalent among managers & administrators & publicists — i.e., “technocrats” — than it is among actual engineers and scientists, who may have a slightly better intuition regarding the inherent limitations of technology.

It isn’t as if there weren’t all sorts of warnings from engineers and environmentalists about the unhappy consequences of suffering from the delusion that one can control nature.

There is a issue I would not be all for – that the taxpayer puts up levees or foots the bill for cleans up after floods while commercial interests make a fortune selling and developing that land. If you benefit financially from the development of land in a flood plain or under sea level – then you need to help pay for what makes that development possible. Now this statement may not be totally applicable to the poor residents of New Orleans, although I would note there were sections along the water front that were occupied by pricey homes. But all over this country states and the feds foot the bill for protecting pricey developments on waterfronts. States pay for beach front restoration so the owners of multi million dollar homes can enjoy their sun and sand. You play – you need to pay.

Furthermore, the levee failures were not characterized as a failure of government. The flooding was due to engineering failure, pure and simple.

When you step into an elevator, you trust you will get to your destination. But we cannot trust engineered structures (levees) built by your Army Corps. The reason is because of the Flood Control Act of 1928 gives our Army Corps no incentive to engineer structures properly, and metes out no consequences should its work fail.

This is important because the majority of the nation’s population lives in counties protected by levees. And the most important levees are built by your Army Corps.

Judge Duval’s ruling shows the Flood Control Act of 1928 must be repealed. It must be done before the administration receives another judgement against it.

And most importantly, it must be done before more lives are lost.

New Orleanians ALSO paid for those bad flood walls. We all did.

By your very own logic, we should be blaming You for that bad engineering and those subsequent failures right?
That is the biggest Point of this Ruling, to wit: the Corps is an Equal Opportunity Screw. They have stuck it to All Of Us, the whole nation, in New Orleans.
To say that the Citizens there are getting some sort of Hand-Out is to mistake and misrepresent the true nature of this Settlement as one of Defective Product Liability.
Don’t tell me you drive a Ford Pinto.

I have something to say about the “Blame Game” as it relates to Responsibility, Culpability and just plain old Ability –none of which seems in evidence even still at the Corps of Engineers as they prepare their Next Crime, to wit: Appeal this Settlement to the US Supreme Court. What abject Perp Cowardice!
To appeal this case to the Supreme Court is absolutely Criminal.
But that is not what worries me the most here.

Let’s call it the “Poor Meme” Game, to wit: Blame New Orleans for sticking it to the Poor American Taxpayer AGAIN –and after aaalll the billion$ we already gave’em!
Yessir’ya’betcha! Just as plain as Lipstick on a Pig, I see it already happening coast to coast in comments sections, in articles and editorials starting to come out. Oh, and in blog posts just like yours.

As if just compensation in a Defective Product Liability Case is a Government Entitlement, misguided citizens seem to see the Pay-Out as a Hand-Out –and not WHO made this Deadly Toy named MR-GO or, more importantly, How they did it.
Soooo, many Taxpayers have begun now to Harp on another supposed Hand Out for New Orleans.
But, we need to Refocus their attention back onto the Criminal Toy Makers, as over half the nation lives in counties with Corps of Engineers Toys (levees)…over half the country.
We need to focus on reforming the Corps of Engineers rather than those who suffer from their catastrophic failures.

Blame Games are why we have Courts. Entitlements are why we have Politicians. The idea that this ruling “opens up the American Taxpayer to another pay-out for New Olreans” is wrong.

Face the Facts:
If the Corps of Engineers had Not MR-GOne there then,
We The People would Not be here now.

Thank you

I think what’s frustrating for residents of NOLA is that FEMA and the federal government, when they did arrive, put into place numerous regulations and structures which tie-up reconstruction efforts inextricably with federal oversight. When the government then fails to perform, it leads to lawsuits like this which, although targeted at the Army Corps, would not exist if FEMA had delivered on promises. I am not sure that this is still the case but 2 years after Katrina the majority of reconstruction efforts were the direct work of the Archdiocesan Catholic Charities and other non-governmental organizations. There is only so much volunteers can do, and many NOLA residents and ex-residents do not have the resources to rebuild. But they want to go home and have their community, so they resort to baseless lawsuits like this.

I’m really not sure what should be done with New Orleans at this point.

As a native of New Orleans (some my family immigrated there in the 1830s and 1840s; some came during the early 18th century when the French owned Louisiana), I often wish people would take the time to understand the situation. So much of the sensationalistic media coverage did the city a disservice (although New Orleanians have not given the best image of the city to the country). Many of my family members had to leave the city after Katrina. A few have made it back. Some lost everything.

Granted, that does not mean that those in New Orleans should be able to make financial claims on the rest of the country. But, if the government screwed up, shouldn’t the government pay up?

Nobody should have any problem with a person taking up residence wherever they wish. However, when nature rebukes their shortsightedness…or carelessness…or defiance, is it a moral obligation for those not involved to continue the act of defiance? Is it moral for the local government of New Orleans to avoid this ticklish question because it does not have the political will to broach the issue?

Let’s hope the same mindset hasn’t induced Kansans to blame the Gummint for tornadoes – yet…

Forgive me for chuckling slightly at your use “abstract sentimentalism” as a pejorative. We are on FPR, after all.

As for the mistakes of Katrina happening well before the actual event, that is patently untrue, from inept Administration officials and ignored warning signs. The point of my post and, I believe, Will’s is that to take your logic — blame the victim for the sins of his great grandfathers — is to cherry-pick this particular situation for an overall ideology.

Then again, this is a relief. I don’t have to care about brain drain in those rural Kansas towns anymore; they’re just asking to get hit by tornados! Idiots.

What I do know is that even with plenty of documentation of incompetent government and the like, the city of New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast are still struggling, mightily, to get back on their feet after Katrina. Does a lawsuit like this provide the right band-aid? Probably not. But try heading down to the Ninth Ward and argue with supporters of this lawsuit that, in fact, everything was doomed in the 1700s.

As for taxpayers ultimately footing this bill, the reasoning that I’ve come up with (and I’m not certain of its standing) is that money from taxpayers is spread over a variety of domestic services we all enjoy (or, whether we enjoy it or not, at least reap the benefits of), from the EPA making sure our water is clean to the Army Corps of Engineers plugging up levees to the FDA looking out over our food. When one of these services fails one of us it fails all of us, so to speak, and so the people of New Orleans are right to seek compensation for their devastated homeland. As for the morality/philosophy/sustainability of that system, I leave that for the smarter minds of FPR to argue.

I look at my local yellow pages in the legal services section. The biggest ads are all for wrongful death/personal injury lawyers, pages and pages of them, and these ads are all some variation on the theme of it being your right to get a big payout for your suffering. We apparently resent the idea that nature imposes certain limits, the transgressing of which leads to suffering….