We’ve read and heard some of the horror stories of what happened inside the Superdome. But that was nothing compared with what it was like for the 15,000 people in the New Orleans Convention Center. Here is some of what The New York Times has reported:
“Gunfire became so routine that large SWAT teams had to storm the place nearly every night. . . . Armed groups of 15 to 25 men terrorized the others, stealing cash and jewelry. . . . Policemen patrolling the center told him that a number of women had been dragged off by groups of men and gang-raped, and that murders were occurring.”
It got so out of control that the Police Department came close to abandoning the convention halls and evacuating police officers by helicopter, a la the fall of Saigon.
“The only way I can describe it is as a completely lawless situation,” said Capt. Winn, the head of the police SWAT team.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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50 Comments
Civilization is only a thin veneer. It was ripped away in New Orleans. God only knows what any of us would do in the same situation. When law enforcement doesn’t exist, lawlessness takes over and it becomes survival of the strongest. Unfortunately for those stranded in New Orleans, the strongest were the thugs with guns.
Whether in New Orleans or elsewhere, there are predators among us.
You mean we were witnessing the mechanism for evolution in action? I thought that maybe the whole New Orleans situation was simply an expression of God’s righteous anger at that city filled with thieves, murderers, Mardi Gras revellers, and jazz lovers. There must be something about George W. that really pisses the Lord off.
XXX,Dead on. NO showed just how short a time it takes for man to revert to pure animal.
Brian,A bit of sarcasm there? Can anyone here write something without bashing somebody? Never mind…sheesh.
JM,
You’re right..a cheap shot, but fun :-}}. It is, though, a great stain on GW. Officials treat political appointments as though they’ll have no effect on people’s lives. In fact, they do..as New Orleans so sadly proves. What has always killed me about high level appointments bot in government and in the private sector is this: the qualifications for jobs I’d like to apply for extend half the length of my arm. But once you reach CEO level it seems as though qualifications become moot: a soda pop exec. becomes CEO of a computer company… a cracker salesman head of another high tech company. Some do well, but the majority fail miserably. They’re still paid their bonuses and astronomical salaries while the common worker is required to commit hara kiri for their blunders.
Brian,Even with massive assistance, the lawlessness in the dome probably would have happened. I am sadly convinced that even if buses were made available, most people at the dome would have stayed there. I base that on what has transpired since then. A very large contingent of people refused to leave their homes after help was made available.That is something nobody had control over, Bush included. But you are correct in that unqualified people seem to be the norm in this administration (it mirrors many administrations…dems included), but that had little to do with what transpired at the dome: that was a nightmare look at our society.
We should really look at why these things happen in the first place. It seems we have a huge underclass of people in our country who will take advantage of a situation like the flood to commit antisocial acts and prey upon their fellow man. It had nothing to do with survival. Too many people in this country don’t have a conscience, why is that?
What happened in NO gave us a look at what boils just below the surface. Now, corrilate what we’ve seen in NO to what’s happening in Iraq. Remove the social fabric and destroy the control factor, and you have lawlessness and anarchy.
The human animal can be a very unplesant creature under the wrong circumstance.
This doesn’t ring true. The police couldn’t keep order. BS.
They couldn’t keep thugs with guns out of the dome? They couldn’t do a search whent they came in? They couldn’t shoot on sight anyone with an illegal gun?
Couldn’t or wouldn’t?
And btw, where the hell was the Nat’l Guard with THEIR guns? Protecting oil interests in Iraq? Making sure the milk went sour in the local grocery store just so long as looters didn’t get it?
I don’t remembet the Nat’l Guard hestitating to shoot to kill students at Kent State . . . but in NO they either weren’t there or they just didn’t do their jobs.
True, XXX, but look at all the people who DIDN’T become predatory animals given the situation.
It only takes a small percentage of the population to wreak havoc and chaos on the rest. That’s why we need government.
Let’s examine what would happen to our country if the extreme right-wing (closet libertarians) gets their wish to slash and cut government to almost nothing. They romanticize that kind of society by saying that people will have income to be free to start businesses and own more property. But they have not really thought deep enough into what type of society this kind of government organization would bring.Lawlessness will be rampant.The land owners will become “governors” and exercise total control over the lives of their tenants.There would be no government control over what they can charge or how they treat workers or tenants.The rich will have to build very tall fences around their properties and will need to have body guards for their families.The poor will stay desperately poor and the rich will rule.I know it sounds a lot like what we have now, but go to any third world country and you will see what it is really like.I am tired of hearing about how bad government is, because the converse would be 50 times worse.In our society, the people are able to show their outrage toward injustices. We are able to change things if we truly do not like what we see. We are able to educate our children.The remedy to our bungling government isn’t to throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak.We have been witness into a window of what our society will become if there is no government to maintain at least some order in natural disasters or in everyday life.
Janabanana says:”The rich will have to build very tall fences around their properties and will need to have body guards for their families.The poor will stay desperately poor and the rich will rule.”
Wasn’t there a punk rock band that had a song/album entitled “Welcome to the New Dark Ages” – I am reminded of that scenario, if the above comes to pass.
Sigh. . .why do people always assume Libertarians are Anarchists? We (Libertarians) promote a limited roll for government, not the absence of it.
America is a great country. One of the few where it is not only possible but you are encouraged to prosper. Don’t hate those who have made it. Learn from their successful ways.
Libertarians want limited Federal government. The states rights are forever being eroded by Federal government “Mandates”. There is nothing said about limiting state police and city police from doing their job. Or making laws conducive to their particular state.Janabananaramalamadingaling, I do not, and never have, considered myself extreme right wing. Your attempting to label us that is pure hogwash. You obviously have no idea whatsoever what you are talking about. But that’s about what I expect from someone on the extreme left.After all, haven’t you labeled anyone who doesn’t agree with you homophobes, religious whackos, etc, etc.?
None of this answers my original question, why is it that man becomes a monster when all the external controls aren’t in place? I’m not sure that it was always this way in our country. It just seems to me that the population of people without a conscience or concern for their neighbors is getting bigger all the time. What ever happened to people being accountable for themselves and doing what was right just because it was the right thing to do? Our society is losing it’s values and compassion. Am I off base, or does anyone else notice this trend?
Well, Damoon, early settlers in America were so ill prepared for starting life from “scratch” even at 16th century standards, that many of them killed and ate each other.
It’s not in the eighth grade history book we all read, but it happened.
We’re not any worse than we used to be. In terms of slavery and women’s repression, we’re a lot better.
Damoon, I agree with you. There is a lot of “they should have known better” going on. This seems to be an excuse not to care about the needless suffering. Those who turn their backs on people who are dying from starvation and thirst in their own country because they feel superior are nothing more than animals themselves. Taking care of our sick, old and impoverished is the one essential behavior that separates us from the animals.
As for JM calling me an extreme liberal, I guess I would seem that way if you are coming from the extreme right. I very much consider myself a moderate. I am a very intelligent voter and just don’t take sides across the board; although most issues are very polarized right now. There are issues that I take a more conservative view of, and others are more liberal. I have the attitude of live and let live, which isn’t really liberal, it’s just being non-judgmental.
Proudman, I have looked at the Libertarian party and thought that many of their ideas are very, very good. But as a whole, I don’t think it will work. It is good to get those ideas out there and see which side picks up what. New small parties are good for America because they bring new ideas into our stagnant political system. The Conservative right wing and the Constitutionalists have picked up on the no-federal government idea and have run with it.
Damoon,Your original question would be a task for psychiatric epidemiology. I did a quick search in Google Scholar with the terms “antisocial personality disorder” and “incidence” – and though there were a number of returns, none seemed to get at your basic question.
Prevalence in public health refers to the the number/percentage of cases in a given year. Antisocial Personality Disorders prevalence is around 2.1% of the population – or 1 in every 49 people – that seemed real high to me – I was surprised by that proportion. Incidence on the other hand is the number of new cases per year. I could not find in the Google search any decent incidence studies. You might try the above search terms in the PsychInfo data base at the WSU library – the public can use this and the librarians can help you if you aren’t familiar with their set up.
Good luck.
Janabanana,I guess you don’t like being called something your not. You become fair game when you say the things you did such as, Libertarians come from the extreme right.I see you have changed your tune about us. All of a sudden we have good ideas, but as a whole, our party just won’t do. Very different from “extreme right” isn’t it? Non-judgemental? Kind of flies in the face of what you wrote earlier. There is a major difference between extreme right wing, or just plain old right wing, and LibertariansBut I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt as to your personal political beliefs.If that is indeed the case, than we are closer in politics then you imagine. But we believe in limited federal government, not no federal government (Woo-Hoo…double negative).Your statement, “live and let live” is one I have a problem with. My personal belief is live and help those that can’t whenever I can. That’s something that should have no political leanings.Unfortunalely, the morons rapeing, shooting and robbing people at the dome have no beliefs. Pundits call it the crowd mentality. I call it unforgivable and the perpetrators should be shot on sight. Mad dogs are put away, so should these animals.
Jeez, it is hard to represent your ideas and beliefs in a few short sentences without sounding completely judgmental. We all tend to generalize and it gets us in trouble.
It is hard to generalize the situation that took place in NO Superdome. The gangs are some of the worst in the country down there.Society needs to take some responsibility for the forgotten ones, including gang members. To truly change our society, we need to start with our schools. There are now generations of parents that were raised badly and they are doing to same to their kids. We may have to keep kids in school longer to show them how to brush their teeth and how to budget money. They need to learn the basic skills of how to be a responsible adult that they are not currently learning from their parents. These concepts do not have anything to do with race or class. I know plenty of middle class “white” people that have done a horrible job raising their kids.My point is that everyone one of the rapists and murderers were once children. At one time they were a clean slate waiting for some positive input…and they didn’t get any. We have to quit throwing people away in our society.
janabanana,Great post. You made me rethink what I wrote. However, the rapists and murderers are not children any more. They made decisions, and they were bad decisions. Bad decisions mean bad things happen to those who choose them. That’s how it should be.If we can catch and change that behavior at an early age, maybe we can stop some of those bad decisions. That will take some serious changing on the part of parents and teachers.But the ones that are already there? They don’t deserve to be in a law-abiding society. That’s not throwing them away, that’s punishing them for making bad decisions.
I agree with you Jana B, positive change in our society must start with the kids. I’m not sure how the government can be an effective parent, though. If a child isn’t nurtured from birth, there is little the system can do to make up the deficits.Steven, I understand what antisocial personality disorder is, I just don’t understand why we see so much of it nowadays. Not everyone who’s antisocial is the sterotypical criminal, the CEOs who pillage their companies are just as antisocial as your common bank robber. There is a saying in psychiatry, “Half the antisocials are in prison and the other half are holding political office.”I just wonder what has happened in our society that has ecouraged so many people to be selfcentered and just out for themselves, without any regard as to how their behavior affects those around them.
I liked that quote Damoon! It made me laugh : )
Well, we aren’t going to solve to countries problems in this blog…so I am going to give it a rest. We are flogging a dead horse.I think my main point is that I believe that most people are good. It may not seem that way sometimes, but it is true. We just need to stop and realize it every now and then.
Damoon:I think you are right that some people with ASP can avoid the Disorder part of the label if they find the right niche’ – being a judge, military officer, etc. might work – and maybe a politician. Concerning your question, my belief is that ASP is a stable population characteristic and it may seem like there are more because there are more people (but the proportion remains the same – though surprisingly high). Also, due the media’s “if it bleeds, it leads” bias I think we are more likely to hear about ASP type activities.
Family, Twin, & adoption studies indicate that genetics likely play a role in ASPD – but so do parenting conditions like abuse and a parent being alcoholic.
Thanks for the discussion.
I have known a lot of poor people. They have one thing in common. They breed like rabbits. For the second, third, etc. generations of poor it gets worse. No morals. No fathers. No guidance. Government cannot force religion on them anymore. They cannot even force them to work.I say forget religion and morals. We have to impress upon the poor that a litter of kids will keep them poor and lack of a husband will start a new generation of the same.There is no government solution, left or right. I can tell you over and over what is the correct thing to do but sex, drink and drugs are always a great short term activity.
If you want to get a little insight into your political leanings, go to http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html. The quiz is very simple and only gives an indication. However it does allow for more than the common right or left analysis.
On my previous post the period screws up the URL.
http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html
You’re right, Joe. There is another saying and that is, “Stupid people shouldn’t breed”. Maybe one day we can find a way to put birth control in the water and then people would have to be a certain age, take 4 years of parenting classes and then pass a test before they could get the antidote and have kids. Wouldn’t the ACLU have fun with that one?!?
I have to say that I read the original blog by Phillip and thought it had to be some kind of joke.
We’ve already heard that the outlandish stories about victims eating corpses and the “horros” at the superdome were mostly made up. This sounds like more of the same.
It wouldn’t have been hard at all to do weapons searches and set up check stations at the entrances of the Convention Center to stop the “routine gunfire”. This fact alone makes me doubt the story.
Sorry, I thnk the story is just more BS.
But, with the NO police force being what it is…..
The Chicago Tribune now reports that not one murder occurred in the Superdome. So much for the stabbed children stacked in a corner.
Today the NYT reports that the reporting of violence in the Superdome & convention center has been overstated.
No kidding.
Too many media people chasing too few stories = too many lies to fit the media editors’ biases.
Steven E. says:
” Antisocial Personality Disorders prevalence is around 2.1% of the population – or 1 in every 49 people”
Damoon says:
“I just don’t understand why we see so much of it nowadays. Not everyone who’s antisocial is the sterotypical criminal, the CEOs who pillage their companies are just as antisocial as your common bank robber. There is a saying in psychiatry, ‘Half the antisocials are in prison and the other half are holding political office.’”
Then Steven E. says:
“some people with ASP can avoid the Disorder part of the label if they find the right niche – being a judge, military officer, etc. might work – and maybe a politician.”
So far, I’m getting the heeby-jeebies from these ideas. So, I’ll ask. What is antisocial personality disorder, and is it entirely genetic?
As for the pillaging CEOs, let’s not confuse common vices (envy, lust, sloth, pride, greed, gluttony, anger) with a personality disorder. People without any personality disorder can get caught up in vices, too. Or is giving oneself over to vice a personality disorder?
I may be mixing concepts here, but wasn’t the notion — that a personality disorder can be overcome by a person “finding the right niche” — completely discredited by the failed attempts of churches (that were following the recommendations of psychologists) to “rehabilitate” pedophiles?
I’m admittedly confused.
Below is a link to a medline web page that covers the basics on Antisocial Personality Disorder.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000921.htm
I think many psychiatric disorders, especially the more disabling ones, come about from a combination of genetic and evironmental factors. Research would suggest this, at least.
Anon:On the niche’ question, the point I was trying to make was that a person’s personality, coping, and exploitation may not be so noticable in some occupations. I believe these people would have the same problems, but they escape detection because they have found a place/job, whatever, to avoid being labeled disordered. I think a good way for an ASPD to avoid detection might involve being a compliance officer in a small Kansas town. Of course I am referring to Dennis Rader – who (people believe at least) quit killing people when he took compliance officer job. One explanation by an expert on TV was that he found a socially acceptable way to express his needs for control and power. It seems possible to me. Thanks.
Steven, I totally agree. I think it is a combination of genetics and enviornmental factors, like severe abuse or attachment disorder. What I do know is no amount of therapy can make someone develop a conscience.Anon, the DSM4 gives an accurate definition of what ASPD is and how it is diagnosed. As far as I know, no one can be “cured” from ASPD and people with this disorder often seek out external controls because they have little internal control.That’s why Dennis Rader probably loved being a compliance officer and the president of his church.
Steven, Damoon, thanks for the comments.
I suppose there are degrees of ASP, so it needn’t be a bad thing that those with a lesser degree of it find jobs that help reduce the worst of their possible behaviors. But, we’ve all seen the movie stereotype of the over-zealous policeman, and video tapes of police brutality. So the idea of people with ASP in these jobs still gives me the heeby-jeebies.
I honestly can’t believe that nobody noticed something inordinately strange about Rader. He clearly was inordinately strange in court. Surely, his family, bosses, coworkers, and church members thought he was beyond strange. There must be a story there that hasn’t come out.
There isn’t any one thing you can blame the chaos in NO on except maybe the weather, but it is predictable. You put enough desperate people together, and law enforcement will break down, and that will attract the predators. In the proper circumstances, it doesn’t take many predators to wreak a lot of havok.Now, a new wave of predators are circling NO. These are identifiable by their nice suits and smiles, and the pens and briefcases they all carry, and they’re far more damaging than the kids carrying TV sets out of flooded stores.This ain’t over by a long shot!
He was strange, many people observed his pathology given the circumstance. He fit the classic profile of a psychopath and serial kiler, in that he could lead two vastly different lives and switch back and forth between them. What I don’t understand is how his wife didn’t seem to notice that there was something very wrong with him.
Damoon,They say love is blind, and maybe deaf and dumb, too. Look how many abused wives are in denial! She didn’t notice because she liked her life more than the alternatives.
I’m sure you’re right about that one, some women would rather live with a monster than be alone. How sad!
Filthy negro animals behaved like filthy negro animals! Why is anybody shocked at this? These negro animals should have been shot dead from the outset and their corpses fed to the gators!
Ian,Sit down, close your eyes and say “I am no better than anybody else on this earth.” Keep repeating it until you believe it. In your case, it may only take 15-20 years of saying it to turn you into a decent human being.
I am better than raping, looting, low iq negro animals, better by far!
I wonder when you were gonna weigh in on this, Ian.
Ya know, it must come as a big relief to Naomi Campbell, Beyonce, and Halle Berry that you have no interest in dating them because of their race.
You look down on them because of their race and they look down on you because you’re a racist loser who couldn’t make time with them if you were the last living man on earth.
But hang on to your pathetic fantasy of race superiority, dude. It seems to be all you’ve got.
Ian and Galahad make a really good team — same immaturity level, same missing brain waves, same penchant for bigotry. Can’t tell them apart. Must be the same person.
Puun-(short for Puny)
Is that all the better you can do?
That was such a LAME insult I won’t even dignify it by responding in kind.
I’m just gonna let it lie for everybody to see.
Must suck to be you, kid . . .
Ian,Sorry, but there isn’t anyone out there that you are better than!you are right at the bottom of the pile.
Some of you coconuts are just too dumb to live.
………….. QED..
I’m still waiting, Ian. How did you get so weird? Were your parents weird, too?
Oh, isn’t that precous? Puny learned a new word.