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Originally Posted by marichiko
Sure, why not? Going by your philosophy, the Feds took money from my hard working folks in Colorado and gave it to people you liked, so you could have a bridge over to the ice cream shop. What common good was that?
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Ask the people who have used the bridge for free in the ensuing fifty years what good it was. Most of them were going someplace other than the ice cream shop.
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Originally Posted by marichiko
Put your money where your mouth is if you can get the ice cream cone away from your face.
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What's left of my money after the Feds get through with it *is* where my mouth is. And the ice cream was evidently eaten long before you were born. I had no say in how Federal funds were spent in 1955, but if you really want your Mom's share of the bridge repair back, send a self-addressed stamped envelope to me (address on request) and I'll send you a penny. Keep the change. Don't forget to pay inheritance tax on it; after all...it's not your money yet. But if you'll pay first-class postage X 2 to collect an imaginary <1 cent debt, you may have other financial management issues too.
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Originally Posted by marichiko
You got YOUR bridge and the hell with everyone else.
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It's not my bridge...it's everybody's bridge; "everyone else" gets to use it for free. And it wasn't built with your mom's taxes...it was only *repaired*.
The bifdge was originally constructed with private money, and operated for profit. It was then purchased by a non-profit that opposed collecting tolls (and perhps alos repairs). It was already fifty years old at the time of the repair. As I said before, today I'm not sure it made sense to have the CoE do it, but I was three years old and nobody asked me about it.
I've certainly seen a *lot* less-useful spending of Federal taxes since then.
What I find notable about the 1955 flood wasn't that the CoE repaired the bridge, but that nobody blamed Eisenhower or the Government for the flood or the resulting deaths and damage. They just
pulled together locally to help people out as best they could, and then cleaned up the mess afterward.
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Originally Posted by marichiko
Whatever the origin of that particular shot (which I just picked off google at random), it stands for the very real nightmare lived by the people of N.O.
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So I was right...it's that "higher truth" thing again, like Rathergate and "Farenheit 911". What matters isn't the provenance or context...only the propiganda value.
I don't question that there was much death and suffering
in the Gulf during and after Katrina. But somehow NO gets *much* more press from the "higher truth" crowd....it's that randomly Googled image posterchild star quality I suppose. What bugs me is the relentless attempts at political exploitation of that death and suffering...which is what that image stands for for me.