New Orleans's Finest vs. New York's

CNN reported:

Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, chief of the Pentagon's National Guard Bureau, said two-thirds of the police in New Orleans have abandoned the force amid horrific conditions.

In contrast, the New York Police Department lost 23 men on 9/11, but the survivors kept reporting for duty. Even more heroic was the New York Fire Department, which lost 343 men (three hundred and forty-three men) in the WTC, but helped get thousands of civilians out of the buildings before they collapsed.

It wasn't widely mentioned, but around 95% of the NYFD was white. NYC firemen are largely a meritocratic but hereditary caste of ethnic Catholics. The few blacks who get in can expect lots of on-the-job harassment intended to keep the NYFD that way.

Hereditary castes are supposed to justify their existence by living up to the ideals of noblesse oblige - they live better than others do because they are not afraid to die to defend the others. That bargain is seldom fulfilled in real life. Yet, the NYFD not only satisfied the demands of noblesse oblige, but vastly exceeded them.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer