Lets have a big debate!

W2b and I have been living in a bit of a state of heightened emotion lately. So its not been the best time to engage us in any kind of emotive discussion.

Unfortunately a discussion group that we both belong to did exactly that today.

It started as quite a high minded piece on the culpability or otherwise of Bush and his administration in the whole Katrina situation. After the initial "no-one's to blame for a natural disaster" chit-chat came the inevitable drawing up of sides between the liberals and the conservatives.

Now I can engage in impassioned discourse without getting too emotionally battered most of the time. Often I'll revel in remaining impassive as I prick holes in the arguments put to me. But as I said, today was not the day for me to remain impassive.

I think what got me really angry were not the pro-Bush (or to be generous, anti-anti-Bush) sentiments, but the views below the surface that the argument uncovered.

It seems like there are a lot of people, irrespective of their geographic location, who have a disturbing view of the less fortunate in our respective societies. The sentiments that I found most shocking were:

• No matter how poor you are, you must be stupid if you don't get out of a potential disaster area in time.
• Most of the people who stayed did so because they wanted to - and that the information about how bad the situation was going to be was freely available.
• The people who stayed in the area where so off their heads on drugs, they wouldn't pay attention to the warnings.
• If you are poor, its your own doing - either because you're lazy or because you're stupid.
• Granted, your wealth had an influence on whether or not you'd survive. But so be it, "life's not fair".
• Why should we get emotional about what's happening there, its not going to help anyone? (personally I just found this a bit pathetic, but it certainly got w2b angry).

I find it very difficult to carry on a reasoned discussion with people who hold these kinds of views. Its easy enough to have a rational discussion, where you present evidence and argue its validity. But when you are talking to people who come from such a differing moral standpoint I really struggle. All you can hope to do is try to start them thinking and perhaps hope that one day they're in a situation where they have to rely on the charity of others and that when that happens they are treated better than they would treat others.

In related News, I hear that Bush is to launch an enquiry. That's good news. Sure to be a probing, unbiased enquiry.

Closer to home, the house is still going to hell in a hand basket. At least we have an almost complete bathroom (thankyou, thankyou, thankyou Dolphin - I can't praise their workmen enough and I want everyone to know that if you need a bathroom, they are the people to go to). That should make things a lot easier when I come to change Sid. He's getting a little itchy you see and our temporary setup here actually meant that he leaked a bit on Saturday night. Believe me, that's not a situation you want to be in when you've got minimal sanitation, its dark and you've only got lighting in one room.